Jane Austen – Books That Killed Their Authors

Sometimes it’s not the writing that kills the author. It’s the rewriting. Starting an entirely new work, like writing a novel, can be even more stressful.

During the final months of her life, Jane Austen did both, rewriting the ending of the novel that became “Persuasion” and starting the work that would later be named “Sanditon.”

Jane Austen was not a well woman at the start of 1816.

Ignoring the symptoms of a mysterious debilitating ailment, Austen pushed forward despite her illness, rewriting the final two chapters of “The Elliots,” a work which would become “Persuasion.” She finished the chapters on 6 August 1816 almost exactly a year after beginning work on 8 August 1815. “Persuasion,” the last of her completed books, would be published posthumously in 1817 along with another novel, “Northanger Abbey.”

If there is any one factor characterized Austen’s life it was financial insecurity. During Austen’s time being financially insecure – lacking an inheritance – was a very bad situation for an unmarried middle class or upper class English woman.

Although Jane Austen’s family was considered gentry, they possessed neither land nor money. Her Oxford-educated father, George Austen (1731–1805), was an Anglican rector in Steventon and Deane. Rev. Austen was descended from an old and wealthy family of wool merchants. But as each generation of eldest sons received inheritances, George Austen’s branch of the family was impoverished.

Jane Austen, her sister Cassandra and their mother, also named Cassandra, were certainly under financial stress in 1816. Her brother Henry Austen’s bank failed in March 1816 and he was left in debt. The bank failure affected the finances of her other brothers Edward, James, and Frank. The brothers could no longer support their mother and sisters financially.

It’s likely that money pressures, as much as artistic inspiration and Austen’s considerable drive, compelled her to keep working and not seek medical attention. Cost of medical treatment was also likely a factor. In 1817, medical treatment shared one trait with today’s medical treatments: it was expensive.

Austen’s last decline may have been triggered when she and her family were effectively cut out of her uncle James Leigh Perrot’s will following his death in March 1817. Austen was counting on getting at least some money from her uncle’s will. Perrot did will a sum of £1,000 for Jane and her siblings, but they would only receive the money upon the death of his wife.

The uncle Perrot left everything to his wife and she lived another decade.

If Austen were living today the onset of her illness might be considered stress-induced.

“I am ashamed to say that the shock of my Uncle’s Will brought on a relapse … but a weak Body must excuse weak Nerves,” Austen wrote.

There’s nothing like the stress of writing and worrying about getting your next book published to put a big cherry on top of a three-scoop stress sundae.

Although her health had been failing for about a year, Austen began work on a new novel, “The Bothers,” in January 1817. During February and March, she was sick and “kept a good deal in her own room.” Despite being ill, “when equal to anything she could always find pleasure in composition,” her sister wrote. Austen managed to complete 12 chapters and some notes on the novel. She worked on the novel for the last time on 18 March 1817.

When it was finally published in 1925 “The Brothers” was re-titled “Sanditon.”

Although she was no longer writing the novel in her final days, Austen was still writing letters and even poetry. She wrote of herself that she was turning “every wrong colour” and living “chiefly on the sofa”. She had been lacking energy and had difficulty walking as her affliction progressed. By mid-April she was bedridden.

In May, her sister Cassandra and brother Henry took her to the city of Winchester for treatment, renting rooms near the hospital. By this time, she was in constant pain.

The mysterious ailment would claim her life at 4 AM on 18 July 1817, her sister Cassandra by her side. She was 41.

The exact nature of Austen’s illness is unknown. Many Austen scholars look to English physician, surgeon, author, historian and poet Sir Vincent Zachary Cope’s 1964 retrospective diagnosis.

Cope determined Austen’s cause of death was Addison’s disease, a rare long-term disorder of the adrenal glands. Symptoms of Addison’s disease emerge slowly and include abdominal pain and gastrointestinal abnormalities, weakness, weight loss, and darkening of the skin. The disease can be triggered by stress, especially from injury, surgery, or infection.

However, Austen’s cause of death has also been described as resulting from Hodgkin lymphoma. Hodgkin lymphoma is a type cancer originating from a specific type of white blood cell called lymphocytes.

Both diseases have similar symptoms. Both are often fatal, even with modern medicine.

Either of these conditions would have essentially been untreatable with the medical technology available in the early 19^th century. The two suspect diseases were not even identified until the mid-1800s.

It has also been suggested that Austen was poisoned with arsenic based on a 21^st century test of a strand from a lock of hair cut from her head at death by Jane’s sister. The test showed she had elevated levels of arsenic in her system, but whether it was a sufficient concentration to kill her or cause some of the other health issues she had – such as poor eyesight – remains inconclusive. Arsenic was commonly used in medicines and cosmetics in the early 19^th century.

Austen reaped little reward or recognition from a writing career that created some of the most iconic novels in the English language.

At the time, being a professional writer was not seen as a proper occupation for women. Her novels were anonymous, written “By a Lady.” She received no name recognition for her work during her lifetime.

Austen’s work has spawned an entire universe of academic research, including research into her health and her income from writing.

Retired English tax court judge and independent researcher John Avery Jones estimates Austen’s total income from writing at around £631 before tax (while income tax was collected in England), or £575 after tax, which would be equivalent to just more than £56,358 at today’s valuations. This would be equivalent to about $72,163US at today, according to Jones’ 2019 post on the Bank of England’s Bank Underground blog. https://bankunderground.co.uk/2019/08/02/jane-austens-income-insights-from-the-bank-of-england-archives/

Today, Jane Austen is a bankable Hollywood brand. Her stories have been portrayed in numerous times in films and television shows. Her books have been in print continuously since 1833. She has legions of fans, young and old, male and female and everywhere in between. Academic careers have been built on studying every aspect of her life and work.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls072020680/

Jane Austen’s fame began to spread almost from the moment she was buried beneath north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral. The epitaph on her marble memorial stone, composed by her brother James, praises Austen’s personal qualities. It mentions the “extraordinary endowments of her mind,” but not her achievements as a writer.

Yet, her post mortem fame grew even though her books were out of print in 1820s.

The first piece of fiction using Jane Austen as a character – what might now be called real person fan fiction – was published in 1823 as a letter to the editor in The Lady’s Magazine.

Visitors began turning up at Winchester Cathedral inquiring about the location of her grave.

“Was there anything particular about that lady; so many people want to know where she is buried?” an attendant at Winchester Cathedral asked a few decades after her death.

In 1832, publisher Richard Bentley purchased the copyrights to all of Jane Austen’s novels. He published five illustrated volumes as part of his Standard Novels series. Bentley released the first collected edition of her works in October 1833. Her books have been in print ever since.

“I’ll triumph in shewing (sic) you my powers / When once we are buried you think we are dead / But behold me Immortal,” Austen wrote in a satiric poem dictated to her sister on 15 July 1817, three days before she died.

Immortal indeed. The line could have been Austen predicting the future success of her cherished works and her posthumous international fame.

Books That Killed Their Authors is part of an intermittent series about writers who died before they completed or published their final book.

Charles Dickens – Books That Killed Their Authors #3

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https://theicarian.substack.com/p/charles-dickens-books-that-killed

John Kennedy Toole – Books That Killed Their Authors #2

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Karl Marx – Books That killed Their Authors #1

Killer Books: Das Kapital Volumes II and III

https://theicarian.substack.com/p/books-that-killed-their-authors-1

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