This blog explores social attitudes in Jane Austen's time, discusses her novels, reviews forgotten 18th century novels, and throws  some occasional shade  at the modern academy. ​The introductory post is here.  My "six simple questions for academics" post is here. Spoilers abound in my discussion of these forgotten novels, and I discuss 18th-century attitudes which I do not necessarily endorse. CMP#226   My article about one of Austen's youthful satires now online     I've been juggling a few different topics here at Clutching My Pearls -- my investigation into who wrote the Regency novel The Woman of Colour, sorting out the tangled attribution chains of Mrs. E.G. Bayfield and Mrs. E.M. Foster, and recovering the tragic life of Eliza Kirkham Mathews . These three women are forgotten novelists of Jane Austen's era, but perhaps I should also write about Jane Austen now and then as well! After all this is a big anniversary year for her, the 250th anniversary of her birth. There are books and celebrations and articles and lectures galore. 
    Oh, and--lookee here! One article is by me! My short article, "An inspiration for Austen’s juvenile story Frederic and Elfrida" has been published by the venerable journal Notes & Queries. It's available online but only for those with a subscription or university access.
   Frederic and Elfrida is a short juvenile piece of Jane Austen's and thought to be one her earliest, composed when she was only eleven or twelve years old. It begins with a satiric poke at the delicate reticence of the sentimental hero and heroine: THE Uncle of Elfrida was the Father of Frederic; in other words, they were first cousins by the Father's side. Being both born in one day & both brought up at one school, it was not wonderfull that they should look on each other with something more than bare politeness. They loved with mutual sincerity, but were both determined not to transgress the rules of Propriety by owning their attachment, either to the object beloved, or to any one else.              My article suggests that the novel Elfrida, or Parental Ambition (1786), which I reviewed here, supplied the names and some of the plot points for Austen's juvenilia, and that we can reasonably assume that young Austen read Elfrida. I picture her reading, or listening to the book as it was read aloud in the family circle, and sharing a laugh with her family members over some of its sentimental excesses. 
​     I suppose you'd have to be a real Janeite to find this discovery at all interesting! But I am convinced that there are lots of discoveries waiting to be made in the texts of the forgotten novels of the long 18th century. Discoveries about Austen, about women writers, about how English society viewed itself, and about the development of the novel.
    Speaking of discoveries, I had already submitted my article when I came across an article by my dissertation supervisor, Professor Jennie Batchelor, sharing the discovery that forgotten novelist Phebe Gibbes was the author of Elfrida. Luckily, I was able to add a footnote to my article.
    More discoveries to share in the future! Frederic and Elfrida has been published with a scholarly forward by Juvenilia Press. It is also available in various anthologies of Austen's juvenilia.