Dorothy, start passing out the sporks. We’re probably going to need them.

Becoming Jane focuses on a “life-changing romance during one summer in the life of the young Jane Austen”.

Austen was 20 years old when she met the brilliant and roguish, Tom Lefroy, who she found instantly attractive.

Her romantic adventures with the dashing Mr Lefroy, at a turning point in her literary career, is said to have inspired her to write novels and helped create her male romantic heroes such as Mr Darcy.

Sadly, no!

The “romance” with Tom Lefroy actually took place in December 1795 through January 1796. Not summer. Not even close.

After the recent Hollywood success of Pride and Prejudice, starring Kiera Knightley, as well as past successes of works such as Emma in 1996, which starred Gwyneth Paltrow, film producers found there was a great “untold story” in Austen’s own life.

Read: “…film producers found there was a metric arseload of money to be made by plastering any old thing with the Jane Austen™ brand name.”

Not that we’re cynical or anything.

The film, which will star Anne Hathaway, who featured in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, as well as James McAvoy, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters, is based on the book, Becoming Jane Austen, written by Jon Spence, who is a historical consultant on the set of the film.

Well, that’s interesting. Didn’t Anne Hathaway say that it was based on Claire Tomalin’s biography?

Austen’s love affair with the then-penniless Irish barrister was doomed because he was not financially solvent and her family would not have consented to the union.

Doesn’t matter what her family thought. His family expected him to do better than a country parson’s daughter with no fortune.

Douglas Rae, who co-produced the film, which is due to start shooting in Ireland and Hampshire in March, said the love affair between the writer and barrister was as passionate as any scenario from her works of romantic fiction.

[. . .]

“He was the big love of her life, her first and her only love.

Sadly, no! Let us not forget the Mysterious Suitor-by-the-Sea. From Jane Austen, A Family Record by William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, revised and enlarged by Deirdre LeFaye, page 250:

The first mention of Jane’s seaside romance also occurred in this letter to James-Edward (Austen Leigh, from his sister Caroline; they were the children of Jane Austen’s eldest brother James): ‘During the few years my Grandfather lived at Bath, he went in the summer with his wife and daughters to some sea-side. They were in Devonshire, & in Wales — & in Devonshire an acquaintance was made with some very charming man - I never heard Aunt Cass. speak of anyone else with such admiration - she had no doubt that a mutual attachment was in progress between him and her sister. They parted - but he made it plain that he should seek them out again - & shortly afterwards he died! - My Aunt told me this in the late years of her own life - “

More from the article:

He was unlike Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, he was not repressed or aristocratic. He was energetic and romantic

So Tom Lefroy inspired Darcy, though he was nothing at all like him. That makes PERFECT sense.

Rae added that it was Tom Lefroy who inspired her to become a professional writer.

“He told her she had a talent. I think he gave her the courage to follow her mind and heart into writing. Although she did not find herself in a marriage with him, it was the love affair that can be credited with inspiring her to become a writer,” he said.

Sadly, no!

From the same source quoted above, page 63:

According to Jane’s own memories, 1787 was the year in which she started to devote her spare time to writing…

Ibid., page 83:

…it may have inspired her during 1795 to embark upon her first full-length project - Elinor and Marianne, the prototype Sense and Sensibility.

Also, according to notes left by Cassandra Austen, Jane began composing P&P in October 1796–after she wrote the juvenilia, after she wrote Lady Susan, after she wrote Elinor and Marianne, and nearly ten months after Tom Lefroy departed Hampshire.

On 15 January 1796, when she was 20, Austen wrote a letter to her sister, Cassandra, which described her feelings for the doomed love affair with Mr Lefroy. It read: “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 at the melancholy idea.”

Psst. She was joking. Kidding. Joke. Don’t take it seriously. Humorously ironical. Not serious.

We don’t wish to be a party pooper about BECOMING JANE. We really have no problem if they want to film a romantic fantasy about Jane Austen. It could be something truly sweet and charming that we all will enjoy immensely.

But let the word ring out from this time and place: it is a made up story.

It is made up.

They made it up.

IT IS A MADE UP STORY. IT IS NOT TRUE.

No matter what anyone involved with this film says, it is made up. Remember that when you read anything in the press about it. It is made up. It is made up. Spread the meme. Write about it on your own blogs (we know there are many blogs writing about Jane who link to AustenBlog–and thank you). Let the world know that this is a made up story, and that Jane Austen fans know it.

We feel it cannot be said often enough: it is made up!

ETA: Stuff we thought of later.