Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion opens with a description of the heroine’s father, Sir Walter, reading and annotating his favourite book, the Baronetage. The vain but financially troubled Sir Walter finds solace in the book and his handwritten additions, which represent his social importance. For his unmarried daughter Elizabeth however, Sir Walter’s annotations are a record of her exclusion from lines of inheritance. As an unmarried daughter, Elizabeth finds no space for herself in the Baronetage.
Hear Francesca Kavanagh explore the inscriptions and annotations made by unmarried women of the Austen-Knight Family in surviving books from their family library, now on loan to Chawton House, Hampshire. The books and inscriptions of Jane Austen’s niece Marianne Knight (1801–96) demonstrate the way in which unmarried daughters, aunts, and sisters carved out an ongoing space for themselves.
Francesca is a lecturer in English at La Trobe University.