ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

Jane Austen's brother Edward owned the large estate of Chawton in Hampshire including this Tudor manor house which Jane called the Great House. He was fortunate enough to have been adopted by its previous owners, the Knight family. Something rather similar happens to Frank Churchill in Emma . The Knights were  distant relatives of the Austens, and had no child or heir of their own. They could have adopted any one of the Austen children, but they were only interested in a boy. It was an early lesson for Jane about how girls were less valued. When he grew up, Edward rarely lived at Chawton House as he acquired an even grander mansion, Godmersham Park in Kent, which became his by marriage.  When he was at Chawton, and his mother and sisters were installed in the cottage, they were frequently invited to visit him at the Great House. It was only a short walk from their home along a country lane and then up the drive.  Tall trees create a splendid avenue (just like the one at S...

When Elizabeth Craven travelled from London down to Southampton to visit the Isle of Wight, which she loved, she must have passed through Alton in Hampshire, and may even have driven right past the house, Chawton Cottage, where Jane Austen was living from 1809 until 1817. There was a family connection between them as Jane's sister Cassandra had been engaged to Elizabeth Craven's son's chaplain, who died tragically on a military expedition to the West Indies. And with the Austens was living Martha Lloyd, who was related to the Craven family. Her mother had been born a Craven. This red brick house on a corner in the village of Chawton was the property of Austen's wealthy brother Edward who also owned the local manor house. He provided a former bailiff's cottage on the estate for his widowed mother and two sisters, and it was here that Jane lived for the last eight years of her life, while she wrote most of her best novels. Nowadays the house is preserved as a tribute ...

Elizabeth Craven's works are a lot more numerous than usually supposed. She never made a complete list of them in her Memoirs, which is a pity. Very few are mentioned in the DNB entry under her name. This catalogue is regularly updated. Abdoul, a comedy,    printed in  Nouveau Theatre de Societe d'Anspac et de Triesdorf,  ed. Asimont, Volume 2, 1791. The Adventures and Exit of Sir Tristram Fiddle-Faddle. MS tale. c.1793. In FELS, Catholic Institute Paris. An Arcadian Pastoral .  1782. MS in Bodleian Library. Epilogue was printed in The Annual Register, or a View of the history, politicks and literature of 1782 ,  ed.Robert Dodsley, p.200. Also in The Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge , 1782 p.271. The Castle of Alstein, a Melodrama. Unpublished MS play in three Acts.   c.1793. FELS archive, Catholic Institute, Paris. Diane, or, Repentir des Voeux.    Ballet en un Acte, avex des Arri...

Elizabeth Craven's elder brother, Frederick, 5th Earl of Berkeley, was one of the most eligible men in England. Clever, cultivated and well-travelled, owner of vast estates that included Berkeley Square in London and an ancestral castle, he was often busy running the Gloucester militia, which played an essential role in the defence of the kingdom during the Napoleonic Wars. He loved to wear the scarlet coat that proclaimed him colonel of this militia, the coat he is wearing in this portrait painted of him as a young man by Pompeo Batoni. And what a handsome young man he is. The 5th Earl was also an infamous Georgian rake, one of the most  dastardly libertines who ever ensnared an innocent female . He could have added lustre to his family name, but instead he made it notorious for all the wrong reasons. The scandal lingered on long after his death and had immense repercussions.  He really deserves to be classed along with the Lovelaces, Valmonts, Squire Thornhills, Wil...

A Pleasant Pastime for A Christmas Evening, or, the Predictions of Cosmopolitus Occultarius Philanthropos Foresight,  is the title of a rare book in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris. It is a small volume bound in leather beautifully tooled with gold leaf and it is unique in the world. No other copy has survived of this book, written by Elizabeth Craven in 1795 as a Christmas gift for her favourite son, Keppel.  We could have guessed the authorship from the fact that it says it is "Dedicated, without permission, to the Hon. Richard Keppel Craven" - very typical of Elizabeth Craven's whimsical sense of humour. In case we were in any doubt, somebody, possibly Keppel himself, has inscribed on it in best copperplate script "By HSH the Margravine of Anspach". The book is a parody of the sort of superstitious, astrological fortune-telling books that were then sold widely, particularly at Christmas when people were curious to hear predicti...