Making Austen mad: Benjamin Crosby and the non-publication of Susan

Review of English Studies

Volumn 57, Issue 231, 2006, Pages 507-525

  Mandal, A A ^a  

^a CARDIFF UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 62949223040     PISSN: 00346551     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/res/hgl070     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Cassandra's dates are recorded in a 'Memorandum' written retrospectively, and reproduced in Jane Austen, Minor Works, ed. R. W. Chapman, revised edn. (London, 1954), plate facing p. 242.
2. Jane Austen's Letters, ed. D. Le Faye (Oxford, 1995), 174.
3. For instance, in a letter of 3 November 1815 to her last publisher John Murray, she signed herself 'Your Ob. Hum: Servt,: Letters, 295.
4. The original letter is preserved in the British Library, Add. MSS 41,253.B, fol. 13. Richard Crosby's signoff 'For [B] Crosby & Co' has been understandably misread as 'For R Crosby & Co' because of the rushed nature of the letter and the fact that the whole phrase is not separated. However, the initial is indeterminate and could just as easily be read 'B' as 'R', considering the firm was 'Benjamin Crosby & Co.' It seems strange in any ease that Richard Crosby would sign effectively twice on behalf of himself, especially as he was not the senior partner. See also Letterse, 175.
5. For a 1794 dating, see C. S. Emden, 'The Composition of Northanger Abbey', Review of English Studies, 19/75 (August 1968), 279-87.
6. D. Le Faye, Jane Austen: A Family Record (1989, 2nd edn, Cambridge, 2004), pp. xxii-xxiii.
7. See B. C. Southam, Jane Austens Literary Manuscripts: A Study of the Novelist's Development through the Surviving Papers (1964, revised edn., London and New York, 2001), 61.
8. Northanger Abbey, ed. M. Butler (Harmondsworth, 1995), 34.
9. Le Faye, Family Record, p. xxiv.
10. The Austens' choice of Cadell and Davies - then among the most eminent of the London book-trade - was both cannily astute and perhaps too ambitious for a first-time writer. This perhaps explains the firm's rejection of First Impressions, combined with the fact that Cadell and Davies were lessening their commitment to the publication of fiction around this time, owing to the anti-Jacobin hysteria of the late 1790s. For fuller commentary on the rejection of Austen's first novel, see J. E. Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen, ed. K. Sutherland (Oxford, 2002), 105-6;
11. D. Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen (1982, rptd. Winchester, Hants and New Castle, Del., 1997), 24;
12. Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 105-6.
13. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, ed. R. W. Chapman, 3rd edn. (London, 1969), p. xii.
14. Gilson, Bibliography, 83.
15. See also R. W. Chapman, Jane Austen; Facts and Problems (Oxford, 1948), 74 n. 2.
16. See D. Le Faye, 'Jane Austen's Laggard Suitor', Notes and Queries, n.s. 47.3 (September 2000), 301-4.
17. J. A. Hodge, The Double Life of Jane Austen (London, 1972), 84. Hodge's 'Cox' seems to me a misreading or misprinting of the abbreviated 'Co.'
18. British Library, Add. MSS 41,253.B, fol. 12.
19. Two key publisher listings which mark out clearly the disposal of partners are I. Maxted, The London Book Trade, 1775-1800: A Preliminary Checklist (London, 1977)
20. and P. A. H. Brown, London Publishers and Printers, c. 1800-1870 (London, 1982).
21. Details of Crosby's release from apprenticeship are recorded in The Biography Database, 1680-1830 [on CD-ROM], Disc 1 (Newcastle, 1996).
22. This information has been gathered from A Biographical Database of Members of the London Book Trade, 1701-1800 at the Bodleian Library.
23. J. Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life (Basingstoke and London, 1991), 112.
24. See P. D. Garside, J. Raven and R. Schöwerling (edd.), The English Novel, 1770-1829: A Bibliographical Survey of Prose Fiction Published in the British Isles, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000), ii, 84: Table 7.2.
25. See, e.g. P. Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life (1987, rptd. London, 1997), 384;
26. Hodge, Double Life, 85.
27. See Garside et al., The English Novel, ii, 89: Figure 3.
28. A fuller account of Hughes's role in the early 19th-century fiction market can be found in P. D. Garside's 'J. F. Hughes and the Publication of Popular Fiction, 1803-1810', The Library, 9.3 (September 1987), 240-58.
29. Sophia Woodfall, Frederick Montravers; or, the Adopted Son. A Novel, 2 vols. (London, 1803), i, 2 pp. unn. in a copy held at the Schloss Corvey Library Germany. See Figure 1.
30. See R. A. Peddie and Q.Waddington (edd.), The English Catalogue of Books 1801-1836 (1914, rptd. NY, 1963);
31. W. Bent, The Modern Catalogue of Books... since the Year 1792 (London, 1803).
32. Edward and Anna; or, a Picture of Human Life, 2 vols. (London, 1806), ii, 2 unnumbered pages at the end of the volume. The listing is bound in a copy held in the Corvey Library.
33. Honan, Jane Austen: Her Life, 384, is reading Crosby's various advertisements of 'Just Published by Crosby','Most Approved Modern Novels', etc. as actual evidence that Crosby had a financial stake in works such as Udolpho. As established earlier, however, this most likely indicates that he purchased remaindered stock or a portion of new editions, and the word 'publisher' functions synonymously with 'bookseller', Udolpho had been published solely by Robinsons well into a 5th edn. (1803), before republication by Longmans in the late 1800s, and as vols. 45-7 of Rivingtons' 50-vol. 'British Novelists' series (1810), edited by Anna Letitia Barbauld.
34. Novels of Jane Austen, v, xi n. 3.
35. For a follow up to this, see A. M. Axelrad, 'Jane Austen's Susan Restored' Persuasions, 15 (1993), 44-5.
36. Dorchester and Sherborne Journal, 26 August 1803.
37. Fergus, Literary Life, 112.
38. See Garside et al., English Novel, i, 56: Table 3.
39. Mary Goldsmith, Casualties. A Novel, 2 vols. (London, 1804). The novel's title page signalled 'No Subterranean Caverns - Haunted Castles - Enchanted Forests - Fearful Visions - Mysterious Voices - Supernatural Agents - Bloody Daggers - Dead Men's Skulls - Mangled Bodies - Nor Marvellous Lights, from any Part of the present Work; but will be found, on Perusal, to arise out of Natural Incidents'.
40. The items appear in a list of 25 'Most Approved Modern Novels', in Mrs Norris's Second Love;
41. or, the Way to Be Happy, 2 vols. (London, 1805), i, 2 pp. unn. at end of vol., in a copy held in the Corvcy Library This list also contains an entry for 'Hyderabad', mentioned earlier.
42. See Archives of the House of Longman, 73 reels (Cambridge and Teanick, NJ, 1978), Impression Book no. 2, fol. 72 and Divide Ledger ID, fol. 150, respectively.
43. A Winter in Bath, 4 vols. ('Second Edition' London, [1807]), i, title verso.
44. For instance, the fair copy of Emma was in the hands of John Murray September/ October 1815, and published by him in mid-December of that year; Frances Burney d'Arblay's The Wanderer - despite the eagerness of Longmans, its publisher, to secure speedy publication - took longer: the fair copy was submitted to Longmans late in October 1813 and, following revision of proofs by Burney, appeared towards the end of March 1814. For further details, consult P. D. Garside, J. E. Belanger and S. A. Ragaz, British Fiction, 1800-1829: A Database of Production, Circulation & Reception, designer A. A. Mandal [accessed 15 June 2005].
45. See Morning Chronicle, 20 February 1809, which lists the novel as 'shortly will be published'.
46. Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 106.
47. Letter to Fanny Knight, 13 March 1817: Letters, 333.