Edward Austen Knight's Godmersham Library and Jane Austen's Emma

Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal, Annual, 2007 by Alice Marie Villasenor

Cronin, Richard, and Dorothy McMillan, eds. Emma. Cambridge: CUP, 2005.

Godmersham Park Library Catalogue (1818-c. 1840). 2 vols. Bound ms. Chawton House Library, Chawton, UK.

--. ts. Chawton House Library, Chawton, UK.

Knight Collection Contents. ts. Chawton House Library, Chawton, UK.

The Ladies Library. 6th ed. Vol. 2. London, 1751.

Nicolson, Nigel. Godmersham Park Kent: Before, During and After Jane Austen's Time. 1996. Alton: JAS, 2003.

Scott, Helen. E-mail to the author. 9 Aug. 2007.

NOTES

(1.) When the Godmersham books were brought to Chawton is not known, but Chawton House librarian Helen Scott suggests it transpired between 1852 and 1874. Edward Austen Knight (who was living at Godmersham) died in 1852; the Godmersham estate was sold in 1874. The two libraries were probably collapsed into one collection at Chawton House during this transition. Scott adds that the shelves in the downstairs reading room at Chawton House "date from the late nineteenth century"--another piece of evidence suggesting that the collections from both estates were combined at Chawton around that time.

(2.) While conducting my research, I worked from the manuscript volume arranged by shelf location. l also relied heavily on typescripts, compiled by the CHL stafff, of the manuscript volume and of the contents of the current Knight Collection.

(3.) This rough estimate is based on a project I worked on during the 2006 JASNA International Visitor Program. In cases where one or more volumes are missing from a multivolume set, I count the title as being represented.

(4.) In her notes on this letter, Le Faye concurs with Nicolson's surmise that the mention of the "two fires" betrays the fact that Jane Austen was sitting in the library, the only room in the house with two fireplaces (Letters 426, Nicolson 22).

(5.) The title of the entry simply reads "Roderick 2 vols."

(6.) The entry in the catalogue reads "Russels" rather than "Russell's," likely a spelling mistake by the catalogue's author.

(7.) Mr. Knightley is correct in predicting that Emma's relationship with Harriet will fail to conjure any regular reading habits: Emma's "views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrrow" (69).

(8.) The entry title reads "Fullers," but this is likely another mistake: it probably refers to Francis Fuller's Medicina Gymnastica: or, a treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal econonomy, etc.

Alice Marie Villasenor is finishing a dissertation, "Women Readers and the Victorian Jane Austen," at the University of Southern California. She is Co-Vice President of the JASNA Southwest region and was the 2006 JASNA International Visitor.