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  • Jane Austen's "The History of England" & Cassandra's Portraits
  • Jocelyn Harris (bio)
Annette Upfal and Christine Alexander, eds. Jane Austen's "The History of England" & Cassandra's Portraits. Sydney: Juvenilia Press, 2009. lv+73 pp. AUS$15. ISBN 978-0-7334-2780-0.

This full-colour version of Jane Austen's History of England for Juvenilia Press replaces the one edited by Jan Fergus in 1995 for the same publisher. Where Fergus suggested that a few of Cassandra's portraits of historical figures could represent people whom she and Jane knew (iv), Annette Upfal and Christine Alexander believe that all of them might do so. Even when Cassandra copied other artists, it is said that she modified features to match the sitter. Drawing on the forensic expertise of Pamela Craig and Clifford Ogleby, who superimposed Cassandra's images onto portraits of family members, friends, and sometimes siblings, the editors deduce that her sketches, together with Jane's texts, reveal the sisters' actual opinions about their subjects.

In the most intriguing result, Craig considers that "the portrait of 'Mary Queen of Scots' is that of Jane Austen." In her opinion, the face shape and the nose provide the most striking similarities—Fergus perceived a likeness to Mary Tudor (iv). Craig also thinks it is "possible" that "Elizabeth i" represents Mrs Austen, and suggests of the attribution of "Henry vi" with Tom Fowle that "the similarities are such that it could be his brother if the two resembled each other." Cassandra's "James i," she writes, "may represent" James Austen, while portraits of Edward Austen and "Edward vi" are "probably of the same person." Although [End Page 451] "several similarities" may be seen between the Tudor Queen Mary and Martha Lloyd's sister Mary, she draws no conclusions (66-68). Upfal points out, however, that these last similarities include scars and signs of the dental disease that Mary Lloyd is known to have suffered (62-63). In short, Craig argues that some of Cassandra's illustrations could represent people known to herself and Jane.

To my eye, the features in Cassandra's three-quarter sketch of Jane Austen in later life fit remarkably well over those in her three-quarter miniature of Mary, Queen of Scots. Upfal's supporting evidence includes Jane's passionate and life-long defence of Mary, the costume identified as dating from late 1792 or early 1793 when Jane was about seventeen, the curly hair and full cheeks known to be characteristic of her, and the head-band she was known to have worn on special occasions (56-58). This attribution therefore seems highly likely.

Mrs Austen's profile corresponds nearly as well to Cassandra's Elizabeth i, but here the trouble starts, for Upfal goes on to argue that the relationship between the Austen sisters and their mother was as toxic as that between Scottish Mary and English Elizabeth. "The hostile image of her mother," she writes, reflects "a brutal element in Cassandra's wit that is also a feature of Jane Austen's text." Together they make up "a secret and sometimes traumatic history of family life at Steventon Rectory" that explains the savagery of the Juvenilia (xxxix, xliii). Upfal then declares herself: "the real nature of this work [is] autobiography. Austen makes this clear when she reveals, 'my principal reason for undertaking the History of England being to prove the innocence of the Queen of Scotland, [myself] ... and to abuse Elizabeth [my mother]'" (xlii, Upfal's insertions).

The case is tantalizing indeed, but in her commentary, notes, and appendices, Upfal too often over-states like this, arguing for instance from the fact that the manuscript remained "buried" for some time that "the youthful Jane and Cassandra had detested their mother when they were young was a scandalous piece of family history that needed to be hidden from the next generation" (53). Alexander writes more tentatively that "Cassandra's illustrations can also be seen as constructing a sophisticated double vision that draws on covert family prejudice and relationships," and again, the History "perhaps also betrays a rivalry much closer to home for the Austen family, between the sisters and their domineering mother" (xiii...

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