Justice for Lady Hamilton!
(We use that title just to rile Friend of AustenBlog Kathleen, who will no doubt comment with much spluttering.)
A new biography of Emma Hamilton, Lord Nelson’s mistress and mother of his only child, Horatia, suggests that Jane Austen made allusions to Emma in her novels.
There’s also a section on the 19th-century view of Hamilton, including what might be allusions in Jane Austen’s novels (Jane’s brother Frank was one of Nelson’s captains).
That’s it. Guess we’ll have to read the book to find out exactly what allusions they might be, eh? How diabolical.
P.S. We were highly amused by a B&B that we saw in Portsmouth last year called “The Lady Hamilton Bed and Breakfast.” Because, you know, Lady Hamilton…BED…and BREAKFAST. Nobody else gets it, though.
October 17th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Comes in spluttering. In my defense, I have less of a problem with Emma Hamilton (so tubby that the sailors used to complain about whinching her aboard ship. Yes, you’ve been duped by only seeing those Romney portraits of her at 19!) than with Horatio Nelson himself (main beefs are treatment of Fanny Nelson and the Neapolitan campaign, interferring viciously without orders in another country…you can still see in the Maritime Museum in Greenwich the death lists of members of the Naples intellegensia drawn up by him and Emma). May the pigeons in Trafalgar Square continue to do their duty on his statue
I am intrigued by this thesis that Jane would have made allusions to Emma in the novels. They couldn’t have been very positive ones, as the the 19th-century white-wash of ‘heroic Nelson and beloved Emma’ wasn’t in force by the time, as far as I am aware. Oh, and there is a book on Fanny Nelson. It’s called ‘An Admirable Wife’ by Sheila Hardy.
JUSTICE FOR LADY NELSON
(The poor Editrix had to watch me scribble this on postcards and leave them at Nelson exhibitions around the UK last year…)
October 18th, 2006 at 1:18 am
I still say you should have been a trifle more respectful so close to the bicentennial! It’s kind of sad that the Yank had to tell that to the Brits!
But now, defend Lady N. all you like.
I do think that Emma and Horry were very much in love, and the whole story was kind of tragic; and agree that he didn’t really handle it as a true hero should have, and was weak when it came to Emma and let her lead him around by the short hairs.
I’m re-reading MP and think there might be some parallels–FANNY Price? And Mary Crawford was not especially moral and led Edmund the Wanker into temptation. If you squint and sort of tilt your head you might see it.
And there’s the portrait of heroic young William Price, everything that is right about the R.N. And she mentions Canopus, which was Frank Austen’s ship when he just missed Trafalgar. Not that I want to set off the conspiracy theorists or anything… 