Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters

Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters is a short satirical work by Jane Austen, probably written in May 1816.[1] It was published in complete form for the first time by R. W. Chapman in 1926, extracts having appeared in 1871.[2] It has been said that "in the Plan and the correspondence from which it arose, we have the most important account of what Jane Austen understood to be her aims and capacities as a novelist".[3]

Background

In 1815 Austen met the Rev. James Stanier Clarke in London. He had ideas for her fiction, including a novel to be based on a clergyman with a foothold in urban life, as well as the provincial rural settings she had used so far for clerics in her novels.[4] At the time (October 1815) she was staying with her brother in London negotiating the publication of Emma, which was then dedicated to the Prince Regent through the good offices of Clarke, who was the Prince's librarian.[1] Among Clarke's suggestions was a historical novel on the House of Coburg: Austen side-stepped with a disclaimer about her talents.[5] Clarke recommended that Austen should dedicate Emma to the Prince Regent.[6] She did this, although she disapproved of his attitude towards his wife.[7]

Content and humour of the Plan

The intention of the work was to set down the essential parts of the "ideal novel". Austen was following, and guying, the recommendations of Clarke.[1] The work was also influenced by some of Austen's personal circle with views on the novel of courtship, and names are recorded in the margins of the manuscript;[8] they included William Gifford, her publisher, and her niece Fanny Knight.[9]

The Plan became a sort of family joke among the Austens. Some of its aspects parody contemporary works by authors such as Sophie Cottin, Fanny Burney, Anna Maria Porter, and Mary Brunton.[9] The satire of the Plan was analysed by Austen's nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, in his biography A Memoir of Jane Austen (1869, expanded edition 1871).

References
  • Irene Collins (2002). Jane Austen and the Clergy. Hambledon Press. ISBN 1-85285-114-7.

Notes
  1. Paul Poplawski (1 January 1998). A Jane Austen Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 238–9. ISBN 978-0-313-30017-2. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  2. William Baker (1 January 2008). Critical Companion to Jane Austen: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work. Infobase Publishing. p. 361. ISBN 978-1-4381-0849-0. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  3. B. C. Southam (15 April 2006). Jane Austen's Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist's Development Through the Surviving Papers. Continuum. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-8264-2592-8. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  4. Collins, p. 1.
  5. Claire Lamont, Jane Austen and the Old, The Review of English Studies New Series, Vol. 54, No. 217 (Nov., 2003), pp. 661-674, at p. 663. Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3661480
  6. Myer, Valerie Grosvenor (1997). Jane Austen : obstinate heart : a biography (1. North American ed.). New York: Arcade Publ. p. 215. ISBN 9781559703871.
  7. Austen wrote in a letter to Martha Lloyd on 16 February 1813 of the Prince's infidelities and his wife: "I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first."
  8. Deborah Kaplan (1994). Jane Austen Among Women. JHU Press. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-8018-4970-1. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
  9. Thomas Keymer; Jon Mee (17 June 2004). The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1740-1830. Cambridge University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-521-00757-3. Retrieved 4 September 2013.
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