Miss Benn Dines with Jane Austen

The Jane Austen House Museum, Chawton

On May 25, 1811, Miss Mary Benn dined at Chawton Cottage with Jane Austen, and -- one assumes -- her mother Mrs. Cassandra Austen and their co-resident, Martha Lloyd. 

We learn this in Jane Austen's letter of Wednesday, 29 May 1811, to her sister Cassandra who was staying at Godmersham, the Kent home of their brother Edward Austen and his children.  This letter is filled with rambling accounts of family and friends -- from seedlings to disinheritances. 

Syringa (Lilac)

Jane tells her sister that the Pinks and Sweet Williams are blooming and the Syringas coming out.  She relates family news, upcoming journeys  and that very day a second encounter with Miss Benn  over their tea table.

Miss Benn is a poor spinster who lives in reduced circumstances in Chawton; though we know little about her, she is mentioned in Jane Austen's letters more than a dozen times in the few years between the Austen's arrival in Chawton and Miss Benn's death at age 46 in early January, 1816.  Some biographers have speculated that her extreme poverty caused the Austens to invite her for meals frequently.  In her 1997 biography Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin  writes, "'Poor Miss Benn' appears very much oftener in Jane's letters than their few better-off neighbours; she was not very interesting, but then nor were they" (p.210)

In January 1813, Jane Austen reported from Chawton to her sister in Steventon that "I have got my own darling Child from London..." meaning a copy of the three-volume first edition of Pride and Prejudice, Austen's second published novel.  In the letter of Friday, 29 January 1813, Jane tells Cassandra that she had read half of the first volume to Miss Benn, who was "amused, poor soul." Miss Benn "seemed to admire Elizabeth."

In her next letter, Austen writes that her mother had read further in the novel to Miss Benn.  Austen did not care for "my Mother's too rapid way of getting on...Upon the whole however I am quite vain enough and well satisfied enough.--The work is rather too light and bright and sparkling..." -- an opinion that generations of readers would deny, finding precisely the correct light, bright and sparkling qualities in the novel.

Mary Benn was the sister of Reverend John Benn (1766-1875) who presided over the parish of Farringdon, nearby Chawton in rural Hampshire.  Mr. Benn and his wife had as dozen children, which probably meant they could not do much to help Miss Benn.

Nevertheless, Miss Benn has found her place in the eternal pantheon of Jane Austen fans.  I am sure she would be surprised even to be mentioned in the year 2012, two hundred years after that dinner in Chawton.

I was alerted to this less-than-earth-shattering meal in my weekly perusal of  A Year with Jane Austen: A Calendar for 2012, the production of JASNA-WI.  Events from Jane Austen's life and/or events in her novels fill almost every day of this wonderful calendar, accompanied by appealing color reproductions of the 1898 illustrations for editions of Austen's novels by artist C. E. Brock.

These calendars are still available -- and you have half of 2012 left to enjoy one.  Go to the JASNA-WI website  here and click on Merchandise.

A Day with JASNA-GCR

On May 5, in the Crystal Ballroom of Chicago's Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, JASNA-GCR (Jane Austen Society of North America, Greater Chicago Chapter) held its Spring Gala, Chawton Comes to Chicago, a day of excellent presentations, good food, shopping, meeting and greeting old friends and new.

Jeff Nigro, JASNA-GCR's regional coordinator, welcomed everyone and enumerated the events of the day.

Elizabeth Garvie, long a favorite of Janeites as the "real" Elizabeth Bennett for her role in the 1980 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, gave a charming performance of selections from Jane Austen's life and works, "Jane Austen Delights."

I particularly enjoyed her reading from Lesley Castle (from the Juvenilia), in which the writer of a letter pleads with her correspondent for pity over her disappointment at having prepared a wedding feast which could not now be eaten as intended because the groom had been stuck down, completely ignoring the real tragedy. She thinks only of her own wasted expense and effort -- and how they will ever consume the victuals she has prepared.  The ironic humor of the passage has never before struck me with such vivid force.

Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul as Lizzy and Darcy

Clearly the audience's favorite part of the performance was Ms. Garvie's portrayal of Emma's Miss Bates. Every nuance of the lady's overwrought arrival at the ball (Ch. 38) was perfectly articulated and left us all laughing and applauding.  We could have listened all day!  Despite the fact that Ms. Garvie has played innumerable characters by a wide variety of authors since her turn as Lizzy Bennet, we were all convinced of her special affinity for the works of Jane Austen.

Elizabeth Garvie

Author Lindsay Ashford told the story of how she moved to Chawton and became immersed in the life and times of Jane Austen.  As she learned more and more about the writer, reading in the very rooms in which Jane herself might have read, eating where she would have frequently dined, Ashford was more and more obsessed with Austen and her early death at a mere age 41.

Victoria Hinshaw and Lindsay Ashford

When she learned arsenic had been detected in an analysis of a lock of Jane's golden hair, her imagination took flight.  Could the author -- - also beloved daughter, sister and aunt -- have been murdered with arsenic?  And by whom?  Now Ashford has published The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, a novel in which this is exactly what happens.  Written from the point of view of Jane's dear friend Miss Anne Sharp, once the governess to Edward Austen's children, the novel has enjoyed considerable attention around the world.

Ashford is the partner of Steve Lawrence, CEO of the Chawton House Library.  Below they are pictured in the costume promenade at last October's Fort Worth, TX, JASNA AGM.

Following Ashford's talk, Steve Lawrence brought us up to date on activities at Chawton House Library, showing pictures of the latest projects, such as the "new" 18th C. barn discovered nearby and rebuilt on the edge of the property. 

It seems impossible that the library is already about to celebrate it's tenth anniversary.  Where have all these years gone?  On the other hand, it his hard to imagine the world in the village of Chawton, of Austen studies, or of on-line availability of many heretofore impossible-to-find novels without the library and its holdings.  For more information, here is the website.

JASNA-GCR Program Chair Elisabeth Lenckos and Steve Lawrence

The luncheon was enjoyed by all, and featured short readings from works by four members of the organization --  whose writings are "inspired" by Jane Austen.

JASNA-GCR Readers

Victoria Hinshaw read from her novel The Fontainebleau Fan; Holly Bern read from her story "People of the Book" in Wooing Mr. Wickham," a collection of prize-winning stories chosen in a Chawton House Libary contest and edited by Lindsay Ashford; Elisabeth Lenckos read from her story, "Jane Austen 1945," also a winner in the Wooing Mr. Wickham collection; and Karen Doornebos read a selection from her novel Definitely Not Mr. Darcy.  Karen's website is here.

Karen and Victoria with a Chawton House Library poster

Sandy Lerner, seated, and Diane Capitani, JASNA-GCR education outreach coordinator

Dr. Sandy Lerner, aka Ava Farmer, author of Second Impressions, related her experience fulfilling her long-held ambition of writing a sequel to her favorite novel, Pride and Prejudice.  One of her motivations for assembling the collection of books which form the nucleus of the Chawton collection today was to immerse herself in the world and sensibilities of Jane Austen's times, aimed at finishing that novel.  It was published recently, and is available everywhere.

Dr. Lerner is the founder and benefactor of the Chawton House Library; all proceeds from the sale of Second Impressions are donated to the library.  She told us of her many acquisitions of novels by early women writers whose work, while popular at the time, was never catalogued in libraries or preserved in any organized fashion.  She particularly was interested in works such as letters and diaries which might never have been published but had been saved among family papers.  Of particular note, she said, were accounts of travels in the 18th and early 19th centuries, often recorded for the enjoyment of family members.

Sandy Lerner; Marsha Huff, past president of JASNA; Elizabeth Garvie

Gail Murphy, Laura Whitlock, Debra Miller and William Phillips enjoy the program.

Tempting our pocketbooks were lovely items from Vintage Pine (http://www.vintagepine.com/), Figaro Interiors, and Jane Austen Books (http://www.janeaustenbooks.net/).

The lively and active JASNA-GCR group has recently updated its website, here.  Please visit soon.