Jane Austen: The OG Yearnalist

Ainslie Harvey (0:00)

Guys, I cannot tell you how revolutionary Pride and Prejudice was for the time, okay? Because what seems like a simple will they, won't they, enemies-ish to lovers romance, is actually one of the best looks at Georgian slash Regency women, class, love, social structure and most importantly guys, money, which somehow still to this day, has a large stigma attached to it when discussed by women. But here is Jane Austen.

Hi guys and welcome back to Hot History, your corner of the internet where we cover all the things in the history that you probably should know but don't.

I'm Ainslie Harvey, your Hot Historian here today, guys, ready to chat about arguably one of the most important figures in my literary life, like as a reader, as a writer, you know, even really as a historian, how I kind of approach the stories that I tell you guys. Okay, she is the goat of literature, the woman who invented yearning, who masterminded the tropes we see on screen and read on page. The one and only Miss Jane Austen.

I have really been like constantly bringing this up to the top of my list or something to talk about. I've just been waiting for the right time. If you guys are OG Hot History listeners, you will remember we actually relaunched the podcast this year with a deep dive on the Brontes. And ever since I have wanted to cover Jane. And given that one of her classics, Sense and Sensibility, is hitting cinemas in Australia in two weeks, I thought what better way to prepare and kind of get into the Austen spirit than to learn about the goat herself. So let's get started by rewinding it all the way back to the small Hampshire village of Steventon in England on December 16th, 1775, where the winter chill, Christmas spirit and pains of labor are very much upon us. For young Cassandra Austen is in labor at home with no doctor and only her sister-in-law to help deliver a baby girl who arrived safely and was given the name of Jane.

Cassandra doted on the little girl, breastfeeding her herself for six months, after which Jane was sent to live in a nearby village with one of the family's farming neighbors, which, like, sounds fucking wild to us. Okay, imagine sending your six month old baby to go and live in another village with another family. But it was the belief of Cassandra and lots of other parents at the time that sending your children off at a certain age was kind of good for their development. A process which was colloquially called baby farms, which were essentially kind of these established safe places where you could send infants to be kind of like nursed and boarded and taught basic things.

It's just really kind of fucked up. It's basically like puppy preschool for kids, which in this case was more kind of akin to boarding school for babies. A concept which I'm sure as you can imagine, went out of fashion pretty quickly once it became clear that many of the infants were being mistreated or neglected. In Jane's case though, she certainly wasn't out of sight, nor was she out of mind. As Jane's nephew wrote in her biography, she was quote, visited daily by one or both of her parents before returning at about two or three, by which time she was toilet trained and speaking simple sentences. So from the get-go guys here, looking at these like early couple of years of Jane's life, like literally since six months old, she's learning, okay? She's forced into new environments and constantly seeing new people, which gave her this indelible sense of curiosity for both, like new experiences and also knowledge generally, with both Cassandra and George Austen, her dad, encouraging her and her siblings to learn.

In fact, writer Deborah Yaff says that by the standards of the time, the Austens had a pretty idyllic childhood with a couple giving birth to eight children who all lived on the small family farm for large stretches of time, which supplied them with a fair living. And while absolutely by no means rich guys, they never experienced true economic hardship, having several maids and servants to help with housework. So in many ways, guys, her childhood and the kind of family status is something you can imagine. One of her own heroines sharing. Also particularly fantastical guys was the plethora of young men who came through the Austen household under the patronage of Jane's father, who was the local rector and somewhat of a tutor, hosting young male students for a bit of extra cash. Again, something I can like absolutely see happening in a Jane Austen novel, like her father's bringing in all these smart, beautiful, gorgeous men, one of them's evil, one of them's divine, the daughter falls in love, like it rides itself. In the early forming years of her life, Jane we see is comfortable, but she still sees hard work. She's also encouraged to learn, but also to share and I think rather seemingly guys is privy to a smorgasbord of different young men, of various backgrounds, temperaments, talents and looks. Something which few young women in her position would ever have experienced, and something that would be defining in her later life. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's stay here in the Austen household for now, and get a bit of an understanding of the family dynamics. Because with seven siblings, six of whom were boys? Like I can't even imagine. Now as we already briefly mentioned, George Austen was the local rector, but he didn't always have such a high position within society. Born in 1731, George became an orphan, relying on the patronage of his wealthy uncle to study at St. John's College, Oxford, where through his hard work and kind of like genuine talents, became socially elevated enough to marry Cassandra Lee, whose family wasn't necessarily like aristocratic by any definitions of the word, but had deep ties with the upper echelon, enjoying a relatively well connected and socially prominent life.