The Earliest Known Accolade of Jane Austen.

 

In May 1820, only three years after Jane Austen died, an article appeared in The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register, a periodical edited by Thomas Campbell, ‎Samuel Carter Hall, and ‎Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton  ‎(author of The Last Days of Pompeii).

It was an extended appreciation and evaluation of the women writers of the time, and was entitled "On the Female Literature of the present age; No. 2. The Author of Glenarvon; the Miss Porters; Mrs. Inchbald; Madame Arblay; Miss Burney; Lady Morgan; Miss Austen; Mrs. Jackson; Miss Taylor; ..."

    The critic gives high praise to many of Jane Austen's contemporaries. When he (assuming it is one if the three editors who is writing) comes to Jane Austen, he laments her early death, and praises her in terms that may surprise modern readers.

 " ...We turn from the dazzling brilliancy of Lady Morgan's works to repose on the soft green of Miss Austen's sweet and unambitious creations. Her "Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Northanger Abbey," have a simple elegance, which is manifestly the natural and unlaboured result of a singularly harmonious mind. There is a moral tenderness pervading them all - a serious yet gentle cast of thought shed over them - which disposes to pensive musing, and tranquillizes every discordant emotion. She has, alas! been taken from the world in the very midst of her course, as she was beginning to enjoy the gratitude of those for whom she had laboured, and to feel that the mild influences of her powers were extensively diffused to purify and to soften. [New Monthly Magazine Tuesday 30 May 1820]

   If we are used to hearing Austen praised for her irony, wit, subtle sense of humour and spirited heroines, this will sound odd. The critic is contrasting her books with the far more sensational novels and sometimes high-flown verses of authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Hannah More. What he says emphasises mildness and simplicity to such an extent that one is tempted to think that either he had missed the finer points of her writing, or was being ironic. To call her novels "unlaboured" and "unambitious" could be regarded as dubious praise. Yet the mention of elegance, harmony and naturalness - all important to the aesthetic of the time - are genuine praise. The terms he chooses are all terms of approval for a woman - soft, sweet and mild. 

    There is no sign as yet that Austen would emerge as the most studied "classic" author of her time, but this is significant evidence that her books (unlike those of many other women) did gain public approbation. They were not over-bold, not (obviously) opinionated nor did they (apparently) overstep a woman's sphere.

    So she had got under the radar of the typical imperceptive critics of her own time. It would be unfair to suggest that they were any worse than the imperceptive critics of our own time, but at least Austen had escaped being lambasted and excoriated in the way the Sydney Morgan and Isabella St John were, something that would undoubtedly have been painful to her.