Syrie James - The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen

Why I feel the sudden urge to relate, in pen

At first we divided our time, as James suggested, between

I had visited many seaside towns of the southern and

Our walk had brought us down from the Cobb to

In the waning weeks of 1802, when my father was

He asked you to marry him? cried Cassandra in astonishment.

As my mother agitatedly paced the room beside us on

How very wet the weather is! said my mother as

I told Mr. Ashford that a picnic in early March

What happened? cried Maria anxiously, as I paused in my

That night, when I was certain that Cassandra was asleep,

Take care, Jane! said Cassandra the next morning.

It is cruel to leave me in such suspense, said

Mr. Ashford engaged? I cried with great emotion, when we

Dear, dear Steventon, I said, gazing out the window of

The squire assured Mr. Morton that our journey had been

Here we are! cried Mr. Morton, as we turned into

I froze in surprise, as the housekeeper and half a

Miss Austen, said Mr. Ashford, bowing, an urgency to his

This wasat lastthe conclusion of his speech? enquired Cassandra, struggling

Unlike the years at Steventon, our social life at Chawton

It was a delight to visit Henry and his wife

A surge of anger and dismay flooded through me as

There are some who might complain that August in London

On the first of October, as I sat down to

A note arrived from Mr. Ashford the next morning.

I never saw Mr. Ashford again. I never returned to

J ane Austen, who gave the world six beloved novels, was a self-avowed, addicted letter-writer; many of her letters have been preserved and provide valuable insight into the authors mind, character, and private life. Although biographers have often pondered the question as to whether or not the author kept a memoir or a journal, no sign of any such documents had ever been found. Until now.

Chawton Manor Houseone of the many homes owned by Jane Austens brother, Edward Austen Knight (who was adopted by his fathers cousins, and inherited many valuable properties)has been in the Knight family since the late sixteenth century. Jane Austen lived for many years in a cottage in the village nearby and was a frequent visitor.

A workman recently employed to repair the roof of the manor house, in an attempt to trap an errant family of mice, discovered an old seamans chest bricked up behind a wall in a far corner of the immense, rambling attic. The chest, to the befuddlement of the entire work crew, was filled with what appeared to be old manuscripts. Incongruously, at the bottom of the chest, in a tiny velvet box, lay a delicate gold-and-ruby ring.

The current owner of the residence, Chawton House Librarya charitable organization that has restored and refurbished the manor house, gardens and park to operate as a centre for the study of early English womens writingbrought in experts to appraise the ruby ring (of fine workmanship, dating from the late eighteenth century), and scholars to review the documents. Upon even cursory review, the scholars immediately sensed the enormous historical value of this discovery.

The chest, which is the type a seaman might have used to store his gear during the Napoleonic wars, may have belonged to one of Jane Austens other brothers, Frank or Charles, both of whom were in the Royal Navy. To the astonishment and exhilaration of the scholars who were first privileged to review its contents (myself included), the numerous documents stored inside appear to have been written during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and have been formally authenticated as being the work of Jane Austen herself.

Although only one of the manuscripts has as yet been fully reviewed, they appear to be none other than Jane Austens long-lost memoirs, relating stories and events that occurred either to the author herself or to her family members, friends, and acquaintances.

Desiring no remunerary compensation for their find, the Chawton House Library graciously donated the chest and all its contents to the Jane Austen Literary Foundation for authentication and preservation.

The physical aspect of the memoirs is interesting; they were composed and assembled in a similar manner to the manuscript of Jane Austens last, uncompleted work, Sanditon ; that is, they were all written on ordinary sheets of writing-paper which had been folded in half, then assembled into small booklets ranging in size from forty-eight to eighty pages, and neatly hand-stitched along the spine. They appear to have been written in a variety of formats; some are day-to-day entries, as in a diary; most are divided into chapters, resembling her novels. A few have been damaged by mould and decay, but most (thanks to the air-tight nature of the chest, and inherently dry conditions of the attic in which they were stored) have survived in a nearly pristine state.

These manuscripts are now being painstakingly preserved by a team of experts; they will each, in turn, be reviewed and edited for a modern audience. Although there are undoubtedly a great many other Jane Austen scholars equal to or more worthy of the occupation than I, the enviable task of editing these precious works has fallen to me.

The memoir you have before you, although it covers an earlier period in Jane Austens life, was apparently written sometime between 1815 and 1817, when the author began to suffer from the illness that resulted in her death. Although it seems to be the final volume of her memoirs, it was selected for publication first, partly because of the immaculate physical state of the document itself and partly because of its surprising and revealing subject matter.

Several theories have been put forward as to how the manuscripts came to be bricked up and forgotten behind an attic wall at Chawton Manor House. Many of the bricks used were fired in 1816, but the dates of the remaining bricks are more difficult to determine. It is possible that Jane Austen herself, ill and knowing that she might die, arranged for some trusted family member or hired hand (with or without her brother Edwards knowledge) to hide these documents in his attic, feeling that they were of too personal a nature to be read by others at the time but unwilling to destroy them.

It is also quite possible that the chest was placed there, years later, by Janes sister Cassandra. It is well-known that the sisters were very close, shared every thought and confidence, and exchanged frequent, lengthy letters when they were apart. Cassandra, who lived to be seventy-two, kept all the letters Jane had written her, and she may have been the keeper of Janes memoirs as well. However, a few years before Cassandra died, she admitted to her niece, Caroline Austen, that she burnt the greater part of Janes letters (thought to be many hundreds in all), and cut out or otherwise expunged parts of those remaining. This loss to history is incalculable.