Here I discuss my up and coming ideas, research projects and post my essays and talks. My most recent isWould Jane Austen have made a good detective? Let's take a look at the definition of detective . Jane would have known the verb to detect which was in common use in the English language from 1447, but she may not have been aware of the noun – detective, at least in its written and published form. From the same source which I used to date the recorded use of ‘to detect,’ the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles Vol 1 p532, the first reference to the word detective is in 1843, when it was used as an adjective e.g. the detective police and meant, “One whose occupation it is to discover matters artfully concealed; particularly (and short for detective policeman or the like) a member of the police force employed to investigate specific cases. Firstly, Jane could not have been a member of a police force because the first modern police force in England was the Metropolitan Police set up in 1829 after Jane's death. And, women were not recruited. Secondly, she would have understood the word sleuth meaning the track or trail of a person, but to call a person a sleuth meaning an investigator we must look to the USA where the word was first referenced in written form in 1856. So what did people do inJane’s day when a crime had been committed? There were several options: -investigate matters themselves -use others to do the job. This options included servants, the local constable, (or thieftaker, a dubious sort of investigator often with strong gangland connections and usually in London). Before the modern police force was established, the Home Office sent London magistrates or their servants (the runners) to investigate provincial crimes, hence the Bow Street runners are a good example, but what of rural Hampshire where Jane lived her early and later life? Use the Parish Constable and bring the offender or offenders before the local magistrate, who was usually a local squire/landowner of the lower gentry. So perhaps there was an opportunity in Jane's day for a woman of acute observational skills and excellent judgment of character, who happens to be an obsessive notetaker, but more importantly a superb plotter? In 1998 P D James gave a talk to the Jane Austen Society’s Annual General Meeting at Chawton entitled “Emma Considered as a Detective Story”. In the talk she explains why,Emma, a book without a murder, or indeed any crime at all except for the robbing of Mrs. Weston’s poultry house, can be considered a detective story. James explains, “The detective story does not require murder. (Dorothy Sayer’s “Gaudy Night” is an example). A detective story requires is a mystery, facts hidden from the reader but which he or she should be able to discover by logical deduction from clues inserted in the novel with deceptive cunning but essential fairness.” So, weare looking fordeceptive cunning but essential fairness, remind you of anyone? And which of the Austen novel’sprovides the finest example? Emma This was clearly examined and explained by David H Bell in an article published by Jane Austen Society of North America in their online Persuasions publication Vol 28 No 1 Winter 2007. Well worth finding and reading. But Bell goes back further and cites Aristotle as Sayers did in 1935 when she gave a talk in Oxford titled, “Aristotle on Detective Fiction”. The essence of that talk was as Aristotle had said, “Any fool can tell a lie and any fool can believe it; but the right method is to tell the truth in such a way that the intelligent reader is seduced into telling the lie for himself.That the writer himself should tell a lie is contrary to all the canons of detective art.” Sayers called this “the great modern theory of fair play to the reader”. According to Bell, Aristotle's “Poetics” is concerned primarily with the principles of plot construction, and Austen’s Emma is arguably literature’s most perfectly constructed plot. Emma is a detective novel, in particular Austen’s genius for planting clues with “deceptive cunning but essential fairness” so that to use Aristotle’s words, “events come about as a surprise,” but “at the same time they follow as cause and effect.” P D James’s talk is included as an appendix to her autobiographical fragment Time to Be in Earnest New York: Knopf, 2000 which is available as an Amazonebook and audible, also second-hand copies are on sale. So, what pointers do we have toindicateEmma is indeed a detective novel? 1The setting is self-contained – often used to great effect in the crime genre when people are forced into, somewhat unwillingly, close proximity. Highbury is thus, only Frank Churchill comes in and Mrs. Elton when she marries the vicar. The scene is set, we know the locations – the Crown Inn, Mrs. Ford’s shop, the lane to the vicarage, the Bates’ small rooms, Mrs. Goddard’s school, Hartfield and the strawberry beds at Donwell Abbey. 2Heroine Emma – handsome, clever and rich who occupies her time in disastrous interference in the lives of others. Emma misinterprets facts, emotions, situations, relationships but we, as readers, are seduced by Austen’s cleverness to share Emma’s misconceptions and misunderstandings until eventually, she recognises the truth, repents, and marries the one man who has loved her from childhood. 3Mysteries – all centre on human relationships – Frank's secret engagement to Jane Fairfax, Mr. Knightley’s love for Emma, Emma’s misjudgment of Mr. Elton’s matrimonial intentions, Emma’s attempts to find Harriet a husband and its consequences and so on, but it is the secret engagement of Frank and Jane that is at the heart of the novel. When Mr. Weston brings Frank to Hartfield, they stay but ten minutes and Frank makes an excuse that he has to pay a curtesy call on the Bates’ (of course, he means Jane Fairfax) and then next day has the audacity to tell Emma. “Ten minutes would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper, and I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him – but there was no getting away, no pause, and to my utter astonishment found that I had been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour.” Emma asks how Miss Fairfax was looking, Mischievous and cunning Frank replies, “Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill-health – A most deplorable want of complexion.” What! That’s a great line from a guy who is supposed to be in love with Jane, but that’s Austen fooling Emma and us. Then Emma asks, “Did you see her often at Weymouth?” Now she is putting Frank on the spot, he must think quickly, he has only seen Jane with the Bates', so there has been no chance to collaborate on their stories. He’s got to be careful, they must appear as though they are singing from the same hymn sheet, so he throws the curved ball as a divert as they approach Ford’s. “Ha! This must be the very shop that everybody attends every day of their lives...” and he urges Emma to go inside with him: “to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford’s.” He’s got time to think and he cleverly suggests to Emma, “it is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account. I shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow.” Very neat, almost perfect. Then we have the hair-cut excuse. Does he really need a hair-cut? Did he arrive at his father’s house with a straggly mane? No, he’s off to London to purchase/rent a pianoforte for Jane, to be delivered anonymously and, of course, suitable for their small room, which he has already seen, hence a box piano arrives. Later at the Cole’s dinner party we hear a line from Frank about the piano, “I can see it in no other light than as an offering of love.” (When in doubt always make a true statement, then it cannot be refuted afterwards, but the implication is clear.) And what about the inordinate amount of time Frank spends at the Bates’? We should notice that clue, shouldn’t we? And so, the book progresses. I do not intend to take up any more time with further examples, but I would suggest reading P D James’ talk, if you have the opportunity. There is one clue I missed until I read P D James’ talk, that is when Frank Churchill arrives fifteen minutes after Jane Fairfax has left the Donwell Abbey strawberry-picking event. He is in a bad temper. Why? He blames the heat but has he met Jane on the road? And has she broken off the engagement? Austen doesn’t tell us this at the time but does give us a clue in Frank’s dialogue: “You will all be going soon, I suppose, the whole party breaking up. I met one as I came – Madness in such weather! Absolute madness!” What? The strawberry picking or Jane’s possible rejection of him? No names are given and it does not occur to Emma. However, Jane falls ill and delays leaving. Next, Mrs. Churchill conveniently dies and leaves her estates to Frank, now isn’t that a good motive for a murder? Watch out Jane when you are married to him, in case he tires of you. Frank returns to claim his bride and the neighbourhooddeclares surprise, except Mr. Knightley. Like all detective stories the final chapter or chapters have the clues explained, misunderstandings resolved, errors corrected and the truth at last revealed. Austen does this is three ways: Firstly, Mrs. Weston visits her daughter-in-law to be, then calls at Hartfield to explain to Emma the full story of Jane Fairfax’s ill-begun, but now prosperous love for Frank Churchill from Jane’s point of view. Secondly, Emma’s musings as she recalls with remorse her humiliating error of understanding and offences against good taste. Finally, Frank’s long explanatory, self-justifying letter to his step-mother, which Mrs. Weston, of course, shares with Emma and us. This device, explaining the mystery in epistolary form is not uncommon in detective fiction. It is there for us, the reader’s benefit. Camilleri does it several times in his Montalbano series, usually as a confessional. Fellow Austen lovers, don’t you ever wonder what novels there might have been if Janehad not died so young? I would not describe her as the Queen of the detective novel, far from it, but I would call her one of the greatest plotters in English literature. And therefore, she would have made a remarkable detective.
I hope you have enjoyed my article, if you are interested in any of my historical fiction books take a look at my companion site www.lyndadunwell.com Works cited above in Would Jane Austen have made a good detective?
Shorter Oxford English Dictionaryon historical principles Vol 1 & 2 1983 Bell, David H. Fun with Frank and Jane: Austen on Detective Fiction JASNA Persuasions online Volume 28 No 1 Winter 2007 Aristotle On the Art of Poetry Translated S H Butcher, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1948 James, P. D. Time to Be Earnest New York: Knopf, 2000 Sayers, Dorothy, Aristotle on Detective Fiction 1935 Unpopular Opinions London: Gollancz 1946 Austen, Jane, Emma (Whatever edition you have) The Frank Churchill letter to Mrs. Weston is in Chapter 50