Romance Novel Archives - Jane Austen Quickstep Travel Guide

Aunt Philadelphia, or Phila to her friends

8 March 2025

Catharine had the misfortune, as many heroines have had before her, of losing her parents when she was very young.
Jane Austen – Catharine, or The Bower (From Juvenilia)

Philadelphia Austen Hancock, born 15 May 1730, died 26 February 1792

Rowan and Rowan. Philadelphia Hancock Portrait Mounted on a Ring (John Smart, circa 1741 -1811)

Jane rather admired her Aunt Philadelphia, the elder sister to her father Revd George Austen. She died when Jane was 16 years old, and there must have been many discussions about her life and travels that fascinated a young Jane. It is thought that she wrote her aunt Phila into her Juvenilia, and you can see the beauty of the Austen family in this portrait painted onto a ring.

At a youthful 22 years old, Phila set out for Calcutta, India, to find a husband of her own. Her siblings were early orphans, and with no dowry to speak of nor family connections, she knew she had to marry well to secure her future.

On that long crossing, she made friends with Margaret Maskelyne who was also seeking a husband. They agreed that the East India Company was the place to find single men, and a few months after her arrival on 22 February 1753, Phila married a surgeon Tysoe Saul Hancock.

A miniature portrait of Hancock by John Smart, likely in 1768 (Public Domain)

Margaret met and married his colleague Robert Clive, who eventually became the Commander in Chief of British India. The two couples later befriended another East India couple, Warren and Marian Hastings, and for a short time all three couples shared a home together.

Phila and Tysoe remained childless for nine years until December 1761, when her daughter Eliza was born. It was therefore speculated that Hastings and not Hancock was the father of her only child. To add to the rumours, Hastings gave Eliza, known as his godchild, a huge fortune of ten thousand pounds to secure her future and ensure that Phila would also live comfortably the rest of their lives.

To England

In 1765, the Hancocks returned to England aboard HMS Medway, accompanied by their Indian servants. They arrived in London in the summer of 1765. Struggling financially, Hancock returned to India where he hoped to increase his fortune for his family. He would never return, and died in Calcutta on 5 November 1775 at the age of 51.

Tysoe-Saul-Hancock-his-wife-Philadelphia-their-daughter-Elizabeth-and-their-Indian-maid-Clarinda — Tysoe Saul Hancock with his wife Philadelphia, their daughter Eliza and their Indian maid Clarinda.Circa 1763–5 by Joshua Reynolds

To Europe

Philadelphia was worried about her future after her husband’s death, as their income would now be restricted and not enough to live in the city of London. With the intention of finding a finishing school for Eliza, they left for Europe in 1777.

Mother and daughter first visited Germany, Belgium and then France, where they settled in Paris. Often attending royal events that included the French Queen, Marie Antoinette, they moved in wealthy circles. It was then in 1781 that Eliza met and married Jean Capot, Comte de Feuillide, who became a French count.

It was on a visit to England that Phila became a grandmother when Eliza gave birth prematurely to a son at Calais on 25 June 1786. The new baby boy was given five impressive names, Hastings-François-Louis-Henri-Eugène.

They returned to France who was at war with England, and decided it was no longer safe to stay. The family returned to England in 1789, around the same time that the French Revolution broke out.

It was also during this time that the first signs of breast cancer appeared. Eliza wrote to her cousin Phylly about her mother’s illness in June 1791,

Dear Cousin, … I wished to have it in my power to inform You of some change for the better; My Dear Mother’s general health continues, Thank God, pretty good and her Breast I trust is in a more promising state than when You quitted Town.

By October Phila’s condition was much worse, and she consulted a surgeon who told her there was no hope. She wrote out her will, and was under his care when she died on 26 February 1792, with her daughter and son-in-law by her side.

She is buried in the churchyard of St John-at-Hampstea in London, where her gravestone reads,

In memory of Philadelphia Wife of Tysoe Saul Hancock whose moral excellence united the practice of every Christian virtue she bore with pious resignation the severest trials of a tedious and painful malady and expired on the 26th day of February 1792 aged 61.

Jane Austen’s Family: Nephew Edward’s Funny Poem

19 December 2024

The Memoir of my Aunt, Jane Austen, has been received with more favour than I had ventured to expect.
James Edward Austen-Leigh in the Preface to Memoir of Jane Austen

James Edward Austen, the son of Jane’s eldest brother James, was Jane’s fondest nephew. When he was 11 years old, he discovered from his school friends at Winchester College that his aunt was the author of two novels he had enjoyed. He was so delighted with the news that he penned a poem and sent it to her.

To Miss J. Austen

No words can express, my dear Aunt, my surprise
Or make you conceive how I opened my eyes,
Like a pig Butcher Pile has just struck with his knife,
When I heard for the very first time in my life
That I had the honour to have a relation
Whose works were dispersed throughout the whole of the nation.

I assure you, however, I’m terribly glad;
Oh dear! just to think (and the thought drives me mad)
That you made the Middletons, Dashwoods, and all,
And that you (not young Ferrars) found out that a ball
May be given in cottages never so small.
And though Mr. Collins, so grateful for all,
Will Lady de Bourgh his dear Patroness call,
‘Tis to your ingenuity he really owed
His living, his wife, and his humble abode.

It was Edward to whom Jane wrote letters to in the last months of her life, comforting him, and reassuring him that she would be well.

James Edward Austen young man — James Edward Austen Leigh as a young man (Jane Austen’s fondest nephew and son of her eldest brother James) (Public Domain)

After her death, it was Edward that wrote A Memoir of Jane Austen that contained pieces of stories, poems and letters she wrote. It received mixed reviews from the family and the public, however, as Jane’s popularity has grown, so has the popularity of her Memoirs.

A Memoir Of Jane Austen By James Edward Austen Leigh first produced in 1870 (Public Domain)

QUICK LINKS:

Read more about Edward and his Memoirs at the Jane Austen House Museum

You can read A Memoir of Jane Austen for free on any device through Project Gutenberg

For the Love of Mr Darcy

2 November 2024

My real purpose was to see you, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me.
Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

This is one of the most famous lines side by Mr Darcy in Jane Austen’s most successful novel Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen had a clever way of writing her characters as she demonstrates with Mr Darcy. As a reader, you share Elizabeth’s initial sentiment that he is pompous and unkind, and in total contrast to his friend Charles Bingley. By the end of the novel, you agree with Elizabeth that he is actually compassionate and generous as he helps her sister Lidia avoid a scandal with Wickham.

Jane does give us hints along the way to her own measure of the man. ‘Mr Darcy they had only seen in church‘ demonstrates how religious Mr Darcy is ( a tick in Jane’s box), and if he was at church on this day, he would have been there twice as it was Good Friday.

Jane’s Mr Darcy is very rich

Mr Darcy’s fortune was around £10,000 a year, which makes him a modern day multi-millionaire and then some. No wonder Mrs Bennet cries with joy, ‘I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year and very likely more! ’Tis as good as a Lord!’

To reaffirm this wealth and superiority, Jane cleverly chose the name ‘Fitzwilliam Darcy’ for her hero. Readers would have been familiar with the wealthy Fitzwilliam family whose property was twice the size of Buckingham Palace. They would have also known the ’Darcy’ name in the form of ‘D’Arcy’ meaning ‘of Arcy’ in French.

It was brought over by the Normans when William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066. This lineage was very wealthy and had what we would term old money.

Jane Austen’s Own Mr Darcy

People like to think that Jane based Mr Darcy on Tom Lefroy, a man she met at her friends house one Christmas. She fell in love, although her status and lack of fortune meant it would never be a match, and he was sent away to continue his studies, marrying a short time later he moved back to Ireland.

First Impressions

Fourteen years later in 1811, Jane began revising First Impressions which was finally published as Pride and Prejudice on 28 January 1813. Jane wrote of her excitement in a letter to Cassandra, ‘my own darling Child has arrived from London.’ Miss Benn lived a few cottages away in Chawton village, and as she was so poor, the Austen ladies often invited her to tea. They read the novel aloud and Miss Benn never knew that Jane was the author.

The novel sold so well a second edition was printed in the Autumn of the same year, and a third in 1817. The reading public adored Elizabeth Bennet and it was a huge success.

Jane was a great believer in love and marriage, even though she never married herself. To her niece Fanny she wrote, “To you I shall say, as I have often said before, do not be in a hurry, the right man will come at last.”

A modern Mr Darcy

Mr Darcy at Hyde Park in the Serpentine Gallery

Jane spent a lot of time walking in Hyde Park and along the banks of the Serpentine in London when visiting her brother Henry, which is where a 12-foot Mr Darcy was placed.

It was to celebrate the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice featuring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, in the most popular version of Jane’s novel. Written by Andrew Davies (of recent Sanditon fame) it sold 100,000 video box sets whilst on air, and 10 million people watched the final episode. People are amazed to discover that the lake scene where Darcy takes a dip before striding away in his clinging wet shirt and bumping into his future bride is not in the book.

The filming took six months, and Colin fell in love with his co-star Elizabeth, played by Jennifer Ehle.

The fibre glass statue has been moved to Lyme Park in Cheshire where most of the TV series was filmed.

Delicious Mr Darcy

To celebrate 25 years of the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice, a 6ft cake was unveiled to the public at National Trust property Lyme Park in Cheshire, of Colin Firth fame. Michelle Wibowo, worked on the creation of Darcy’s cake counterpart; a process which took over 200 hours.

Nobody was keen on eating him, and he had to laid down and packaged into small, bite-sized pieces!

The other Mr Darcy

In the film edition of Pride and Prejudice, the role of Mr Darcy was played by Matthew Macfayden. He played alongside Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, and the film has been a great success. To celebrate, a bust of Matthew as Mr Darcy is presented in the hallway of Chatsworth House, often used as a film location and some say as inspiration for Pemberley.

A Real Looker

So what did Mr Darcy look like? A special FBI profiler created an image of Mr Darcy from descriptions and research. He produced this image, which some say makes Mr Darcy look too old, however, his hair is probably powdered as was the fashion in the regency period.

What does your Mr Darcy look like?

Visiting brother Edward at Godmersham Park

25 September 2023

Alone in the library, Mistress of all I survey… five Tables, Eight and twenty Chairs & two fires all to myself.
Jane Austen Letter dated September 25, 1813

Jane often visited her brother Edward at Godmersham Park and came here on six occasions we know about between 1798 and 1813. Godmersham Park is situated eight miles southwest of Canterbury in Kent, and is in the valley of the River Stour.

The estate was pictured on the new British ten pound banknote in 2017.

*Godmersham Park Painting also used on the Jane Austen £10 Bank Note © Public Domain*

Built in 1732 on the site of an earlier Elizabethan building, Godmersham Park was part of the Knight family estate. Jane’s brother Edward was adopted by the son of Thomas Knight, a distant cousin of Mr Austen. Edward loved the countryside, and enjoyed horse riding and hunting with the boys in the surrounding villages.

Instead of going to University like his brothers, Edward trained to manage the Knight family estates in Kent and Hampshire which he eventually inherited. Elizabeth Bridges was a local beauty, and after Edward returned from a Grand Tour of Europe, they married. Their first home was at Rowling House before moving to Godmersham when Edward inherited following Thomas Knight’s death in 1794.

Jane was 23 years old when she first visited Godmersham, and was in the company of her parents and sister Cassandra. This was just weeks after her brother took possession of the estate and they stayed for two months, from late August to late October 1798.

Jane often wrote in the library, and it is thought that after one of her visits to Godmersham she wrote the first draft of First Impressions, later titled Pride and Prejudice.

Following Jane’s surviving letters, we can read that Jane’s next visit was from September to October in 1803, and then again in 1805. This was for three months after Mr Austen died, from mid-June to mid-September.

In 1808 she went alone for three weeks, from mid-June to early July, and it was in the following months that Cassandra would visit to help Elizabeth with the children. It was during this visit that their sister-in-law Elizabeth died on 10 October 1808, age 35. The family was devastated, and Cassandra would spend months at Kent taking care of her nieces and nephews.

Jane’s next visit was in 1809 for six weeks, from mid-May until the end of June. It was said that Godmersham was inspiration for Mansfield Park, and moving in wealthy circles gave Jane ideas for the characters in her novels. Her final stay was from September to November 1813. During this visit she wrote to Cassandra that “we live in the Library except at Meals & have a fire every Even^g.”

Edward died peacefully at his Godmersham home on 19 November 1852 age 85, and is laid to rest beside his wife in St Lawrence The Martyr Church within the Godmersham estate.

His children erected a monument inside the church, that reads:

In the family vault beneath are deposited the remains of Edward Knight of Godmersham Park in this Parish. Mr. Knight whose paternal name was Austen succeeded by will in 1794 to the estates of his cousin Thomas Knight esq. and on the death of his widow in 1812, assumed the name and arms of Knight.
In this same vault is buried ELIZABETH his wife, third daughter of Sir Brook Bridges of Goodnestone Park. They had issue eleven children of whom the nine surviving have caused this monument to be erected to the memory of their beloved parents.

Visit Godmersham Park Today

Godmersham Park was sold to the Sunley family in 1983, and they lease it to the Association of British Dispensing Opticians.

You can visit the beautiful house and gardens during the annual National Garden Open Days and when set tours or events are held at the Godmersham Park Heritage Museum.

The Love of Jane Austen’s Life: Tom Lefroy

5 January 2023

Born in Limerick, Ireland, on 8 January 1776 (one year after Jane) and died on 4 May 1869, age 93.

At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.
Jane Austen letter to Cassandra Austen, January 1796

Thomas Lefroy has long been thought of as the real life inspiration for Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice which Jane first drafted in her late teens. Jane tells Cassandra about her flirtation with Tom in a letter to her sister Cassandra written over two days in January 1796.

After graduating from Dublin’s Trinity College in 1795, Tom moved to London to study law at Lincoln’s Inn. It was during this time that he visited his Uncle and Aunt for several weeks in December of that same year. It was during this stay that Jane and Tom met at a dance hosted by Jane’s friend Anne Lefroy. They were both 20 years old and got along well, spending time together dancing at balls that season.

Jane initially writes in the letter to Cassandra, ‘I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I do not care sixpence.’

Thomas Lefroy Portrait from Author’s Photograph

Cassandra was away visiting their brother Edward at Kent, and you can feel Jane’s happiness at falling in love with Tom, and then her disappointment when it is over. It is thought that Jane’s lack of wealth played a part, as Tom had no fortune at that time as he was also the son of a clergyman.

Jane started writing First Impressions in October 1796 a year later, and finished it around August of the following year. It would later become Jane’s most popular and well loved novel, Pride and Prejudice.

In the first place I hope you will live twenty-three years longer. Mr. Tom Lefroy’s birthday was yesterday, so that you are very near of an age.

You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago…

We had a visit yesterday morning from Mr. Benjamin Portal, whose eyes are as handsome as ever. Everybody is extremely anxious for your return, but as you cannot come home by the Ashe ball, I am glad that I have not fed them with false hopes. James danced with Alithea, and cut up the turkey last night with great perseverance. You say nothing of the silk stockings; I flatter myself, therefore, that Charles has not purchased any, as I cannot very well afford to pay for them; all my money is spent in buying white gloves and pink persian. I wish Charles had been at Manydown, because he would have given you some description of my friend, and I think you must be impatient to hear something about him…

After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.

Jane follows her first letter filled with news of Tom with another a week later that talks of her fling being over.

Friday. — At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea. Wm. Chute called here yesterday. I wonder what he means by being so civil. There is a report that Tom is going to be married to a Lichfield lass. John Lyford and his sister bring Edward home today, dine with us, and we shall all go together to Ashe. I understand that we are to draw for partners. I shall be extremely impatient to hear from you again, that I may know how Eliza is, and when you are to return.

Tom married Mary Paul in 1799 who was the sister of a college friend and wealthy in her own right. The couple moved to Dublin and had eight children.

Tom became a successful lawyer, eventually becoming the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, the most senior judge in the Court of Queen’s Bench. He held this position until he was 90 years old, when by one account, he was still reading his newspaper without spectacles.

A year after Tom’s death in 1869, one of his nephews wrote in a letter, ‘My late venerable uncle… said in so many words that he was in love with [Jane], although he qualified his confession by saying it was a boyish love.’

Exhibition: Jane Austen in Love

The letter that Jane wrote to Cassandra about her flirtation with Tom is on display at the Jane Austen House Museum as part of an exhibition called Jane Austen in Love.

Alongside Jane’s letter is a striking portrait of Tom as Jane would have known him. You can gaze at a handsome young man with deep eyes that hold your gaze intently.

See Jane Austen in Love at Jane Austen House Museum until March 2023.

Travel

If you are planning a trip to Dublin, Ireland, you can visit Tom Lefroy’s family vault at Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium.

Godmersham Park Library

14 September 2022

I am now alone in the Library, Mistress of all I survey.
Jane Austen Letter, 23-24 September 1813, Godmersham Park, Kent

There are several books found in the Chawton House Library that came from the Godmersham Park library, so there is a good chance that Jane read some of them during her long stays at her brother’s estate.

One book that we know Jane read is Self Control by the Scottish novelist Mary Bruton published in 1811, as she wrote of it in a letter.

I am looking over Self Control again, & my opinion is confirmed of its’ being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it.

Mary Brunton, from the second edition of *Emmeline* (1820).

Mary’s story is one Jane could have written about. She was 20 years old when she fell in love with the Reverend Alexander Brunton, tutor to her younger brothers. The family did not approve of the match, so Mary and Alexander eloped by boat to the mainland where they married. The couple later moved to Edinburgh when Alexander became minister at the New Greyfriars Kirk, and later at the Tron Kirk.

The copy that Jane read was in the Godmersham Park library at the time. Jane spent much time in the library writing and reading and commented on its size to Cassandra.

I am all alone. Edward is gone into his Woods. -At this present time I have five Tables, Eight & twenty Chairs & two fires all to myself.
Jane Austen Letter, 3 November 1813, Godmersham Park, Kent

Combining the Godmersham and Chawton Library

After the death of Edward Austen Knight in 1852 and before the eventual sale of Godmersham Park in 1874, Edward Knight junior moved the books to the library at his Hampshire estate, Chawton House, where they were combined with the books in his own collection.

After Edward junior’s son Montagu George Knight inherited Chawton House in 1879, he had hand-made shelf tickets attached to the books, indicating their positions on the library shelves. In 1900, he also began affixing his bookplates, of which he had three, to many of the volumes, thus helping us to identify them today.

After the death of Montagu George Knight in 1914, the library was gradually dispersed by succeeding generations.

Many of the books listed in the 1818 catalogue are missing in a new catalogue compiled in 1908. Some fifty items were dispersed at a Sotheby’s auction of 9 July 1935, and further volumes were sold piecemeal in the latter part of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, well over a third of the works listed in the catalogue, about five hundred titles in all, are extant in the present-day Knight Collection, on loan to Chawton House Library from their owner Richard Knight, the great-great-great-grandson of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight.

The Digital Collection

The Library of Godmersham Park, the estate of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight, has combined with Chawton House Library and has been digitally recorded.

You can explore the shelves to see the books as Jane would have seen them, and read the works she would have handled – to skim or peruse, to discuss or borrow – on her visits to her brother Edward and his eleven children.

You can find the entire Godermsham and Chawton House Library books on the Reading with Jane website.