Jane Austen's Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen by Sheila Johnson Kindred (review)

At the "New Directions in Austen Studies" conference held in 2009 at Chawton House Library, the distinguished scholar and editor Deirdre Le Faye called on researchers to return to the archives, where, she declared, much about the Austen family remains to be discovered. Sheila Johnson Kindred's illuminating new book makes exactly the kind of contribution that Le Faye envisioned. Kindred, who has previously published on Austen's naval brothers, restores to view one of the lesser-known members of the Austen family: a naval sister(-in-law) whose brief life encompassed extensive travel, as well as wifehood and motherhood.

Fanny Palmer Austen (1789–1814), born and raised in Bermuda, married Austen's brother Charles in 1807 and accompanied him on his postings in both North America and England. In addition to building a comprehensive, nuanced portrait of Fanny and placing her life in historical context, Kindred makes a careful, compelling case for how Fanny's varied experiences furnished Austen with insight into the lives of naval women, crucial material for Persuasion (1817) in particular.

Jane Austen's Transatlantic Sister is the fruit of years of dedicated investigation in libraries and archives, enriched by the author's personal travels to and knowledge of relevant locations. As a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Kindred is well positioned to evoke Fanny's difficult summer in that city in 1810. Kindred draws on an impressive range of under-recognized material, from the twelve extant letters written by Fanny (housed at the Morgan Library and Museum) to Charles's diaries and logbooks (held by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), and more. Committed to presenting Fanny as much as possible in her own voice, and as the "narrator" (6) of her own story, Kindred includes the full text of Fanny's surviving letters—never previously published—adding unobtrusive glosses and comments. Furthermore, in the mode of feminist historians such as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Kindred evokes, from Fanny's personal correspondence, a multidimensional woman.

Kindred has uncovered rich and wide-ranging visual material too: contemporary images of people, places, and ships that vividly enhance her account. The most stunning illustration is certainly the oil portrait of Fanny, now in private hands, that graces the dust jacket. McGill/ Queen's University Press is to be commended for funding the reproduction of the majority of the illustrations in full colour, a rarity in academic books at this affordable price point.

Kindred's impressive achievement is to integrate all of these sources into a well-crafted narrative that is fully accessible to not only Austen scholars but also anyone with an interest in this time period, in the British navy, or in the lives of historical women. To a degree that is unfortunately rare in monographs, Kindred has deeply considered her audience's likely prior knowledge, which she meets through clear explanations in the main text, in extensive end-notes, and in very useful appendices that track the provenance and contents of letters by and about Fanny, plus her family genealogy. Kindred's lively handling of naval facts and details is especially welcome.

Worthy of commendation is Kindred's delicate handling of the necessary speculation involved in any project of this nature. In the hands of a less conscientious author, the unavoidable "woulds," "coulds," and "surelys" can begin to grate. Not so here. (A minor exception is Kindred's evocation of Charles's death, long after that of his beloved Fanny, which edges into the fanciful.) As well, Kindred takes great care to delineate Fanny's influence on Austen's subject matter in terms of possibility, not certainty. Those readers who like their academic arguments forthright and strong may judge Kindred to be insufficiently assertive. To my eye, however, Kindred strikes a fine balance between under- and over-stating her case. In the absence of sources to explicitly prove...