The Rich List and Jane Austen
Alert Janeite Maria L. sent us a column from Carla Carlisle musing on the juxtaposition of the publication of Sunday Times’ “Rich List” and the broadcast of Miss Austen Regrets.
In fact, it was fitting that the Rich List and Miss Austen Regrets appeared on the same day. Jane Austen would have been fascinated by such a list. The opening paragraphs of all her novels begin with money, including Emma, the novel she’s writing as the BBC drama begins—’Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich’ —with Mr Knightley especially desirable because his great wealth isn’t encumbered, not dependent on the death of a parent or distant cousin. He has no unmarried sisters to support, no complications of title, just a small problem of cashflow, a common predicament of the conscientious working farmer. Marriage to Emma will soften his bank manager’s heart.
My ability to size up fortunes may not be as precise as Miss Austen’s, but I think that Mr Darcy, with his vast estate and his income of £10,000 a year, would have made the Rich List of his day. In 2008, it takes £80 million to be on the Rich List Top 1,000.
She goes on to compare No. 144 and Friend of Jane, J.K. Rowling, to Jane Austen.
In many ways, J. K. Rowling is the Jane Austen of our day. A born writer whose need for money pushed her on. If only our beloved Jane had had the good luck to find a publisher like Bloomsbury, she would have known the delirium and freedom of self-made security.
If she had lived a little longer, we think she would have had all the success she could have wanted (and all the fame she didn’t).
May 12th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Well, if Mr Darcy would have made the rich listwe are compelled to say that Mr Rushworth would too.