John Sutherland has a bit of snarky fun in the Guardian today, tittering as he points out some slightly salacious passages in Jane Austen’s novels, you know, if you sort of tilt the book a bit while you’re reading it.

The Guardian, last Thursday, called P&P “Jane Austen’s salty-tongued commentary on the plight of women in the 19th century”. Is it? [No. The novel is, by reference to militia postings, identifiably set in the mid-1790s. It's 18th century. Back to the text, you hacks.]

Well, yes, but most of us knew that.

There are two instances of paedophile abuse of children in P&P. Who are the victims and who the perv? [Wickham seduces Georgiana Darcy at Ramsgate when she is 14. He seduces Lydia Bennet, aged 15, in Brighton - then, as now, the philanderer's favourite resort. Given the later onset of menstruation at that time, Wickham qualifies as English fiction's first Humbert Humbert.]

Actually, Georgiana was 15 at the time of her Ramsgate adventure (”She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse”), and Lydia was 16 (”She will be married at sixteen!”) when she eloped. Back to the text, you hack!

Vegas comes to Longbourn. Who plays blackjack in the novel? [It's the card game that Jane and Bingley "prefer". They call it pontoon, the patriotic renaming of the French "vingt-et-un". There is a war going on, for God's sake.]

No, they called it vingt-un (”Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce”).

Which of the five Bennet girls may have TB? [Almost the only thing we know about Kitty Bennet is that she "coughs". This was a death sentence in 1795.]

Huh?

When, as Elizabeth tells Jane, did she first begin to love Darcy? ["I believe it must date from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." Gold-digging minx.]

Oooh, them’s fightin’ words! Everyone knows Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s tongue was set firmly in cheek when she said that to her sister.

“It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.”

Another intreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment.”

And a last note:

John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye’s So You Think You Know Jane Austen? will be published by OUP next March.

Hmm. The Editrix’s textual knowledge was a trifle humbled during the games at the Jane Austen Birthday Party that she attended yesterday, but really, they have to do better than the above.