A Modern Quest for Knowledge into a Past World of Literature;
or ... Why did Jane Austen write her Famous Strawberry Party Scene?
An Introduction into the Search made with Biographies
Ch1/7: A Detailed Description of how the Biographies were searched - a Look behind the Curtain
As this paper looks at how information is reached, the following is a description in details: a look behind the curtain of 'Chapter 3: What the biographies reveal.'
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If this search is to commence with the words of Austen herself, one can make a quick search in one of the many online versions of Lord Brabourne’s publication. Before summing up all references to strawberries, we must remember that a vast quantity of Austen's letters has not survived and that those missing might just be those we desire.
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In Austen’s letters references to strawberries occur in five cases; the first is in Letter 20 (2nd June 1799; p.44), where Austen is writing from Bath while visiting relatives home to Cassandra at Steventon [Ch3/41] that
‘[f]lowers are very much worn & Fruit is still more the thing.—Eliz: has a bunch of Strawberries, & I have seen Grapes, Cherries, Plumbs, & Apricots—‘[Ch3/21].
However, she is not speaking of real fruit but artificial ornaments.
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The next occurence is in Letter 53 (20st-22nd June 1808; p.136); Austen is visiting at Godmersham Park and writes to Cassandra in 3 Castle Square, Southampton [Ch3/47]: ‘I want to hear of your gathering Strawberries, we have had them three times here.’ The reason for this remark is the fact that their Southampton house had a garden which they cultivated.
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In Letter 50 (8th-9th Feb. 1807; p.124) Austen writes to Cassandra regarding their garden:
‘Our Garden is putting in order, by a Man who bears a remarkably good Character, has a very fine complexion & asks something less that the first. The Shrubs which border the gravel walk he says are only sweetbriar & roses, & the latter of an indifferent sort; —we mean to get a few of a better kind therefore, & at my own particular desire he procures us some Syringas. I could not do without a Syringa, for the sake of Cowper’s Line. —We talk also of a Laburnum.—The Border under the Terrace Wall, is clearing away to receive Currants & Gooseberry Bushes, & a spot is found very proper for Raspberries.’
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In Letter 51 she continues to write about their garden: ‘We hear that we are envied our House by many people, & that the Garden is the best in the Town.’ (20st-22nd Feb. 1807; p.128) [Ch3/47]
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In Letter 75 (6th June 1811; p.202) Austen writes from Chawton to Cassandra at Godmersham Park [Ch3/43]:
‘Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe;—had you been at home, this would have been a pleasure lost.
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Here we have proof that the garden in Chawton [Ch3/49] provided their household with strawberries, and this is supported by Letter 120 (29th Sept. 1815; p.303) where Austen is informing Anna Lefroy that her grandmother ‘will send the Strawberry roots by Sally Benham, as early next week as the weather may allow her to take them up.’
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All in all, based on Austen’s own words, she enjoyed strawberries and there were strawberries in the garden at Chawton. But this is only one source. How do we find similar biographic materials?
A recommended method is to consult the list of bibliographies at the back of one’s primary source. In Jane Austen Letters, 4th edition, there is a Principal Published Sources listing several potentially useful publications (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Overview of selection of materials from the list ‘Principal Published Sources’ in Jane Austen's Letters.
I have selected twelve of these publications in order to see if they might reveal a part of the puzzle starting with the letters of the Outlandish Cousin by Le Faye.
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Some of the letters from Austen’s first cousin on her father’s side, Eliza, Comtesse de Feuillide [Ch3/31], to another female cousin, Philadelphia Walter, have survived. I would like to find out if Eliza, who later married Austen’s favourite brother, Henry, may have been a source of inspiration to Austen. Eliza was flirtatious, full of life, had lived in France and had been at the Court of Versailles [Ch3/32]. She was everything that people in Hampshire were not. When reading Mansfield Park and looking at the character Mary Crawford, one senses Eliza's personality behind Mary.
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Eliza had had the chance of experiencing life at the Court of Versailles. We know from her letters that in May 1780 she had been ‘a few days ago at Versailles and had the honour of seeing their Majesties and all the royal family dine and sup.’[Ch3/32] [i] Perhaps she had witnessed the Royal Family eating strawberries? Were they likely to have consumed this raw fruit? Raw fruit was not always regarded as being healthy. It would be interesting to find out.
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In a mail from Oxford historian Holowaty there are several suggested books titled A History of Food xxxx, so I try to make a search in REX for “A History of Food”, and get a hit for Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's A History of Food, which can be downloaded. It is a perfect hit as Toussaint-Samat describes that Louis XIV had a kitchen garden containing strawberries. This knowledge is derived from the plan created by La Quintinie, a former lawyer and later gardener working in the king’s kitchen garden of Versailles; La Quintinie created a wonderful plan illustrating Louis XIV’s kitchen garden translated by John Evelyn in 1693: ‘The King’s Kitchen Garden at Versailles - 1. 2. 3. and 4. Gardens design’d for Strawberrys.’[ii] La Quintinie’s plan of his kitchen garden shows rectangles 1, 2, 3 and 4 reserved for strawberries of which the Sun King was very partial. La Quintinie’s use of windbreaks, frames and glasshouses made it possible to start harvesting strawberries in early spring.[iii]
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In 1709, however, Louis XIV’s doctor Fagon forbade his patient to eat strawberries for reasons not known. Toussaint-Samat writes that the monarch took no notice of Fagon’s advice for at least a year, and went on eating strawberries in wine, as strawberries and cream were for the supposedly weaker sex. Toussaint-Samat adds that Louis XIV even held a literary competition on the subject of his favourite fruit. Toussaint-Samat goes on to tell that in the time of Louis XV, who was likewise fond of strawberries, thanks to
glasshouses heated by a process invented in Germany, strawberries could now be served at the royal table all the year round.[iv]
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An additional search for "french court" AND "18th century" AND "strawberry" fruit results in Hybrid Strawberry History by Lindsay Gasik, who talks about Marie Antoinette and that the pleasures of plentiful, modern strawberries were still remarkably new, and that pastel-coloured pasties were fashioned laden with strawberry hearts, baby-pink macarons and red-jelly tarts.[v] Apparently Antoine Duchesne, a Paris gardener and botanist, presented Louis XV on July 6, 1764, with the biggest strawberries the king had ever seen. The king then authorized Duchesne to expand the strawberry collection at the Trianon, and he demanded that the new hybrid strawberries should be added to his personal kitchen gardens destining Duchesne’s experiments for the royal table.[vi] Apparently, Duchesne identified five strawberries he thought were hybrids, with the size of F. Chiloensis and a sweet, slightly acidic aroma he likened to a pineapple and named these hybrids Fragaria x Ananassa in his 1770 book of European strawberry types. Gasik suggests that the same cultivars decorated Marie Antoinette's petits vols-au-vent and coloured the whipped cream of pâte d’amandes à la coupe on her wedding night. However, in 1774 when her husband succeeded to the throne upon the death of Louis XV, Marie Antoinette hired an architect to transform the botanical gardens into an English pleasure garden. Duchesne’s strawberry plants were sent to gardens in Paris, and other plants were destroyed.[vii]
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The initial question has been answered: Yes, Eliza has probably seen and also heard of the royal fruit, and as the outlandish cousin and Austen became closer through the years, Eliza has probably described the ways of the court. It must have been obvious that a ‘regal’ type like Mr Knightley should be connected to this regal fruit. One thing is for certain: Austen was inspired by Eliza as she dedicated one of her earliest stories, Love & Friendship, ‘To Madame la Comtesse DE FEVILLIDE.’[viii]
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Next, I looked at Jane Austen: A Family record,[ix] which is basically an extended version of Life and Letters of Jane Austen[x] by Richard and Willie Austen-Leigh but edited by Le Faye. Whereas the latter is available free online, only the first twenty-nine pages of the former are free online [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805215/34178/frontmatter/9780521534178_frontmatter.pdf]. Reading the former reveals new pieces of information as we now have an actual description of there being strawberry beds in the garden at the Steventon rectory [Ch3/41][xi]:
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‘The lower bow window, looking so cheerfully into the sunny garden, up the middle grass walk bordered with strawberry beds, to the sundial, belonged to my Grand Father's study;’
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Jane Austen: A Family record also informs us that the Abbey School in Reading attended by Austen and Cassandra from the spring 1785 to the winter 1786 had ‘a “beautiful old-fashioned garden, where the children played under tall trees in hot summer evenings”, and an embankment at the bottom of the garden provided a viewpoint from which they could look down upon the romantic ruins of the rest of the Abbey.’[xii]
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I wonder if this sunny period combined with the remembrance of the ruins of the Abbey helped create the scene in Emma. But this is not the only case where happy memories may be connected not only to an abbey but also to picnic as we are informed that the Austen family enjoyed a picnic in connection with a holiday in 1807 where ‘Henry rushed down from London and organised a picnic in the romantic ruins of Netley Abbey and a drive through the New Forest to Lyndhurst and Lymington.’[xiii]
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However, Life and Letters has not been useful and besides a recommendation to read Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins, the same goes for A Family record. Perhaps I should focus on the locations more than Austen herself. Therefore I will look at Chawton Manor and Its Owners,[xiv] Jane Austen and Southampton,[xv] Chawton: Jane Austen’s Village,[xvi] Jane Austen’s Steventon,[xvii] and Godmersham Park, Kent [xviii]. The first is available online, but the rest had to be ordered via REX. Besides reporting that there was a problem with ‘Hanover’ rats in 1740 when ‘the Corn, mostly wheat, in the Barns, and Beans in the Gardens’ were eaten at Chawton, Chawton Manor contributes no further, and neither do Jane Austen and Southampton, Jane Austen’s Steventon and Godmersham Park, whereas Jane Austen’s Village has two noteworthy entries, firstly: ‘Thomas Knight's father, a Brodnax of Godmersham, had himself inherited Chawton from a cousin, Elizabeth Knight (formerly Martin).’[xix] So, in the Chawton history there is also a ‘Martin’ besides the name of 'Knight', which fits in with the second entry: ‘Chawton House is often credited with being the model for Donwell Abbey in Emma.’[xx]
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I still have four of the publications left; Pedigree of Austen (borrowed from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks) and Fanny Knight’s Diaries reveal nothing useful, but the text available free online by Constance Hill[xxi] has an interesting feature; on p.30 it repeats Anna Lefroy’s description of the rectory at Steventon mentioned previously. However, in Hill’s text the word bed is not included, and I need to find out what Anna really said.
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Hill's text; ‘The lower bow-window, which looked so cheerfully into the sunny garden and up the middle grass walk bordered with strawberries, to the sundial at the end, was that of my grandfather's study, …’
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Anna's memory according to Jane Austen: A Family record: 'The lower bow window, looking so cheerfully into the sunny garden, up the middle grass walk bordered with strawberry beds, to the sundial, belonged to my Grand Father's study;’
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The original text turns out not to be available. Le Faye writes[xxii] that by 1900 the document seems to have become untraceable. Constance Hill quoted from a copy made by Fanny Caroline as did Dr Chapman. Le Faye adds that the copy was 'Lot 268 of Sotheby's sale on 13 December 1977' as 'the property of great-great-nephews of Jane Austen', and that it is in the Pierpont Morgan Library. The original is still missing. Perhaps Hill’s version without the word ‘bed’ is unfortunately the most correct. The Hill text also offers a description by Mrs Austen of Stoneleigh Abbey’s kitchen garden which Austen must have experienced while visiting in August 1806:
Figure 2: Along the way, suggestions are added, and one is bought on the internet without being recommended.
Figure 3: The Royal Feast (Le Festin Royal), 1782 by Jean-Michel Moreau le jeune.
I do not fail to spend some part of every day in the kitchen garden, where the quantity of small fruit exceeds anything you can form an idea of. This large family, with the assistance of a great many blackbirds and thrushes, cannot prevent it from rotting on the trees. The gardens contain four acres and a half.[xxiii]
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Having finished Hill’s text, I only have A Memoir left of the original twelve publications. A Memoir is available as a Project Gutenberg eBook, but I am using a paperback version; however, it only offers a repetition of vague childhood memories of there being a garden at the Steventon rectory. It does offer two suggestions for further reading:
a) Claire Tomalin’s Jane Austen – A Life
b) Personal Aspect of Jane Austen free online by Mary A. Austen-Leigh.[xxiv]
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The best the first offers is a repetition of the possibility of Eliza having told stories about life at the French Court while being at Steventon in December 1786-February 1878,[xxv] whereas the second reveals something new; it reminds us that Edward Austen on his Grand Tour of Europe spent one year in Dresden, where he was kindly received at the Court of Saxony.[xxvi] It would be interesting to know if the court, like the Viennese, favoured strawberries; there is a distance of around 480 km between the two courts. Edward’s journals have been edited by Jon Hunter Spence in cooperation with JASA Press Australia; this has resulted in the book Jane Austen's Brother Abroad. The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen.[xxvii]
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Edward went on two tours; the first is Journey through Switzerland, August 1786, and the second is Journey through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, June-July 1790. However, this publi-cation is not available via REX; I wrote to JASA.au Friday 28th September at noon, and the next morning there was a reply from JASA.au. They had searched the journals and found an incident where Edward tells of him having picked up ice with one hand and with the other having picked strawberries [Ch3/61]. The strawberries do not appear at the Court of Saxony, which I had hoped for but in Switzerland. His experience seems to have made an impression on him, and without doubt, this was recounted to Jane Austen who in her mind might have thought of Edward as Knightley, both of them
serve on the Bench as magistrates. So, I have a connection between Edward/Knightley and strawberries. Austen was at this period twelve or thirteen years old. However, this it not the only piece of interest, as Personal Aspect contains information[xxviii] regarding patriotism and sense of duty which might become important in the chapter on Austen and War. New suggestions for reading spring partly from Tomalin’s book Jane Austen: A Life and partly from A Family Record. This method is called 'pearl growing.'
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Therefore, I looked next at the paperback Jane Austen’s Family – through five generations by Maggie Lane, the hardback A Portrait of Jane Austen by David Cecil and Jane Austen by Elizabeth Jenkins.
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Jane Austen’s Family reminds me that Eliza was present at the event of the birth of the Dauphin,[xxix] which was celebrated by illuminations, fireworks, balls and entertainment,[xxx] and A Portrait of Jane Austen has some interesting paragraphs on the view of a man’s duty in the 18th century which might be applicable in a later chapter; finally Jenkins’ online Jane Austen mentions again the strawberry beds at Steventon but without mentioning her sources and thereby cutting me off from using her words. Jenkins does give some ideas of using the image of Mr Knightley in a later chapter as the personification of the old caretaker of England and a man of duty.
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I have now completed the works suggested by Le Faye in Jane Austen’s Letters, and also the books which were recommended in the second round. I now need to look at a newly published book left by Lucy Worsley and four publications recommended by her as well as Jane Austen - In style, bought on the internet.
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Worsley states that when Austen’s characters want to talk about what really matters, they often go outdoors.[xxxi] Worsley writes that they escape the jaws of the drawing rooms that confine their lives. This is interesting; if we interpret the strawberry scene in this light, its ‘outdoor-ness’ thus signals importance. Worsley also suggests that in the works of Austen, the big upheavals of that period, such as the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, or the agricultural revolution, are played out off stage.[xxxii]
Jane Austen at Home writes that the works of Austen are permeated by the idea that house and land were not owned by a family but held on behalf of others; apparently, Austen always praised a landlord for reinvesting, working for the community and not selfishly enriching himself alone. Is this what is behind the strawberry scene? Is it an appraisal of Mr Knightley as the enricher of the community? Worsley also talks of Austen’s letters and books being called ‘doubled-voiced’, i.e. at first sight they look respectable and almost boring, but at the same time, they can be subtly subversive about rank, society and gender.[xxxiii] This again is interesting as it will be applicable when we talk of ‘war’ in a later chapter. Jane Austen at Home contains several ideas worth looking into such as the suggestion that Donwell Abbey has been left unaltered for us to reflect on the reliable, unpretentious values of its owner Mr Knightley, and the statement by Austen herself that her favourite among her own characters were Edmund Bertram and Mr Knightley; but that they were very far from being what she knew English gentlemen often were.[xxxiv] So, once again we are supported in the belief that Mr Knightley is an ideal of Englishness and not to be seen as a real person. All in all, Jane Austen at Home was worth the reading, and next I turn to the four publications recommended by Worsley: The Historical Austen by William Galperin, The Real Jane Austen by Paula Byrne, Jane Austen by Tony Tanner and The Letters of Mrs Lefroy by Helen Lefroy.
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Galperin's The Historical Austen offers several interesting aspects; Galperin suggests, for example, that the most important scene in Emma is actually the Box Hill scene as Emma’s bildung or lesson reaches its climax here.[xxxv] Galpin also suggests that Mr Knightley and Miss Bates share a romantic past,[xxxvi] and that Frank Churchill’s arranging of the ball at the Crown Inn has a French element (my interpretation) as people at the ball for one evening become equals.[xxxvii] But what is more interesting for this paper is Galperin’s theory about Mrs Elton representing certain developments in society which Emma resists. Mrs Elton personifies certain transformations in English society, such as the rise of a trade-based versus a family- or land-based social hierarchy, which Emma and Knightley find deplorable.[xxxviii] This is interesting and will be saved for a later chapter. The Real Jane Austen and The Letters of Mrs Lefroy, on the other hand, were not useful; Tanner has some interesting ideas regarding Napoleon which might become useful in a later chapter.
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The very last book read for this biographical chapter is Jane Austen – In Style in which the rectory garden at Steventon is once again described as ‘an old-fashioned garden, formally arranged with a turf walk bordered by strawberry beds, leading to the garden’s focal point: a sun dial.’[xxxix] But again there is no indication of source. I have thus completed all the reading for the chapter on biographies and proceed to the newspapers of Austen’s time to try to locate sources of inspiration.
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[i] Lane, Jane Austen’s Family, 72.
[ii] Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food, 554, 586.
[iii] Toussaint-Samat, 554, 586.
[iv] Toussaint-Samat, A History of Food, 587.
[v] Gasik, ‘Hybrid Strawberry History’.
[vi] Gasik.
[vii] Gasik.
[viii] Worsley, Jane Austen at Home, 80.
[ix] Austen-Leigh, Austen-Leigh, and Le Faye, Jane Austen.
[x] Austen-Leigh and Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen - Her Life and Letters - A Family Record.
[xi] Austen-Leigh, Austen-Leigh, and Le Faye, Jane Austen, 18.
[xii] Austen-Leigh, Austen-Leigh, and Le Faye, 47.
[xiii] Austen-Leigh, Austen-Leigh, and Le Faye, 145.
[xiv] Austen-Leigh and Knight, Chawton Manor and Its Owners; a Family History.
[xv] Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen and Southampton.
[xvi] Willoughby, Chawton.
[xvii] Le Faye and Jane Austen Society, Jane Austen’s Steventon.
[xviii] Nicolson and Jane Austen Society, Godmersham Park, Kent.
[xix] Willoughby, Chawton, 5.
[xx] Willoughby, 10.
[xxi] Hill, Hill: Jane Austen.
[xxii] Le Faye, ‘Anna Lefroy’s Original Memories of Jane Austen’, 421.
[xxiii] Hill, Hill: Jane Austen, 164.
[xxiv] Austen-Leigh, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen.
[xxv] Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life, 46.
[xxvi] Austen-Leigh, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen, 43, 44.
[xxvii] Austen, Jane Austen’s Brother Abroad. The Grand Tour Journals of Edward Austen.
[xxviii] Austen-Leigh, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen, 45, 47, 59, 88, 90, 91, 108, 109.
[xxix] Moreau le jeune, The Royal Feast (Le Festin Royal).
[xxx] Lane, Jane Austen’s Family, 75.
[xxxi] Worsley, Jane Austen at Home, 2.
[xxxii] Worsley, 17.
[xxxiii] Worsley, 129.
[xxxiv] Worsley, 355.
[xxxv] Galperin, The Historical Austen, 181.
[xxxvi] Galperin, 193–95.
[xxxvii] Galperin, 204–6.
[xxxviii] Galperin, 199.
[xxxix] Watkins, Jane Austen in Style, 56.