Extract

MY conjecture in these pages that it was William Russell's much reissued History of Modern Europe that Jane Austen had in mind when she reported from Godmersham in September 1813 that she and her niece Fanny Knight were ‘to go on with “Modern Europe” ’ has received support from an unexpected source.1 Among the books recently lent by Richard Knight to Chawton House is a catalogue of the Knights' library at the Park, dated 1818, that carries the entry, ‘Russels (sic) Modern Europe 6 vols. London 1810’.2 Though John Bigland's Modern History and the Political Aspect of Europe is also listed in the catalogue (as ‘Letters on Modern History, London 1806’) there can be little doubt, in view of James Austen's high praise of Russell (‘the author of one of the best histories which this age has produced’),3 and Jane's own evident use of Modern Europe for her ‘History of England’ while in her teens, that it was Russell's work that she intended for the daily ‘reading hour’ with her niece. It seems probable, moreover, from a letter written almost three months before her long stay at Godmersham that Jane Austen had been revisiting Russell's text earlier that year.

You do not currently have access to this article.