If a Person Bought a Dress for a Shilling Back in the Day, How Much Were They Paying

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Persuasions #12, 1990                                                                                                                                            Pages 38-49

How Wealthy is Mr. Darcy – Really?

Pounds and Dollars in the World of

Pride and Prejudice

JAMES HELDMAN

Department of English, Western Kentucky University,

Bowling Green, KY

This paper was originally presented at the 1989 AGM in Santa Fe and is printed here with only minor modification.� Pound-dollar equivalents and consumer prices change slightly every year, but normally only slightly.� There may be some disagreement about how pound-dollar equivalents should be calculated, but I am advised that the method employed here should be considered conservative.

Money matters to everyone � to avid readers of Jane Austen as well as to normal people.� It certainly mattered to Jane Austen herself.� Her novels and her letters are liberally peppered with references to money.� Characters are defined by their incomes and fortunes as much as they are by their appearances and their manners.� Suitors are eligible or not in part because of their incomes.� Jane Austen was not so cynical as to believe that money could ensure happiness, but she was enough of a realist to understand that a sufficient income was vital to any marriage and that a good or even ideal marriage would be enhanced immeasurably by a substantial fortune.� Though she attempted, unsuccessfully, to remain anonymous as a novelist, she was very attentive to the reception of her works, and she kept a precise account of her income from her writing.

The problem is what these frequent references to nineteenth-century British currency in Jane Austen�s novels and letters mean in terms of U.S. dollars today.� What is their tangible, meaningful value for American readers in the latter half of the twentieth century?� It is a question that I have been curious about for some time and one that I believe I have found a reasonably satisfactory answer to.� I have consulted with an authority, a colleague in the Department of Economics at my university, and in the best tradition of collegiality, he has provided me with a table with which to convert British currency for every decade since 1800 to current (1988) U.S. dollars (Table 1).� The process of conversion, which I am assured is a sound and generally accepted one among economists, begins with the exchange rate for each decade.� When the exchange rate is adjusted for inflation by using the U.S. Consumer Price Index with 1988 as 100, it is then possible to calculate the 1988 U.S. dollar equivalent for the British pound sterling in each decade.� In addition, by using a variety of historical statistics, it is possible to determine the per capita income in U.S. dollars for each decade and to convert that also into 1988 U.S. dollars.� Admittedly, though I am assured the figures are solid, they do not and cannot take entirely into account some variables � in particular, the gradual shift from a largely rural, non-currency-based economy at the beginning of the nineteenth century to an increasingly urban, currency-based economy as we move through the nineteenth century and through most of the twentieth.� Nevertheless, these figures can, I believe, give us a much clearer, though still approximate, sense of what money then means as money now.� The year I will focus on is, of course, 1810, and the 1988 U.S. dollar equivalent for that year is $33.13.� Another important detail to keep in mind is that the U.S. per capita income in 1810 was $821 in 1988 U.S. dollars.� However, since the per capita income in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century was about 20% higher than in the U.S., we can estimate it roughly at $1,000.� Those two details � the 1988 U.S. dollar equivalent for the British per capita income in 1810 � can, I believe, give us a somewhat clearer sense of what money means in the world of Pride and Prejudice.

Mr. Darcy is not the wealthiest of Jane Austen�s characters.� That honor belongs, as far as we can determine, to Mr. Rushworth in Mansfield Park; and it may belong to Sir Thomas Bertram, though we are never told what his income is.� Nevertheless, Mr. Darcy is very wealthy.� He has an income of �10,000 a year; if we multiply that by $33.13, then we see that Mr. Darcy has an income of well over $300,000 a year.� On the face of it, that hardly makes him Lee Iacocca.� But Mr. Darcy�s income is at least 300 times the per capita income in his day.� Moreover, Mr. Darcy belongs to a very select group.� G.E. Mingay, an economic historian, estimates that in 1790, about twenty years before the time of Pride and Prejudice, there were only 400 families among the landed gentry in England whose incomes fell within that range, a range from �5,000 to �50,000 a year, with the average being �10,000 a year.� Mr. Darcy is thus the average among what Mingay describes as the �Great Landlords� (26).� The magnitude of his income may also be further understood when seen in relation to other incomes of the day.� In 1795, the income of a �leading merchant or banker� was only �2,000 a year (McGrandle 73).� Thus it is easy to understand why Mrs. Bennet is flustered when she learns of her daughter�s coming marriage.� Elizabeth will no doubt be comfortable.� Mr. Bingley has inherited �100,000 � something over $3,000,000 � from his father, and his income is half Mr. Darcy�s � �5,000 or about $165,000 a year.� Mr. Bennet, however, is not so wealthy, with an income of only �2,000 or a little over $65,000 a year; and though he owns his estate, at least for his lifetime, and no doubt gets most of the family food from his own farms, he must satisfy the needs of five daughters and a silly wife.� One measure of the cost of those needs is Mr. Bennet�s response to the requirement that he settle �100 a year on Lydia as part of the arrangements for her marriage to Wickham.� We are told:

He would scarcely be ten pounds a-year the loser, by the hundred that was to be paid to them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money, which passed to her, through her mother�s hands, Lydia�s expences had been very little within that sum.� (P&P, 309)

So for Mr. Bennet the cost of maintaining one teen-age daughter is roughly $3,300 a year.� If we assume that the requirements of his other daughters are approximately the same � and they may not all be as expensive as Lydia � then his daughters cost him �500 or $16,500 a year, and he still has �1500 or almost $49,700 to devote to his wife, his library, and the other accoutrements of modestly gracious living.

The future prospects for Mrs. Bennet and the girls, in the event of Mr. Bennet�s death, are, as Mrs. Bennet fully understands early in the novel, rather bleak by comparison.� Mrs. Bennet has inherited �4,000 from her father, an attorney in Meryton, and �5,000 has been settled on her and her children by marriage articles, to be divided among her and the children as the parents wish.� Assuming that Mrs. Bennet has not spent any of her inheritance � perhaps a questionable assumption � and assuming that Mrs. Bennet�s worst fears are realized and none of her daughters marry, the six of them would have a modest fortune of �9,000.� Invested in five per cent government bonds, this would bring them an income of �450 a year � almost $15,000 � less than one-fourth of what they had been accustomed to at Longbourn.� Of course, things don�t turn out that way.� Mr. Bennet is required to settle on Lydia her portion � the portion unspecified � of that �5,000 at the time of her marriage to Wickham.� Both Jane and Elizabeth marry extremely well and have no need of their shares.� In view of the financial circumstances of two of her daughters, I think we may assume that Mrs. Bennet would be well taken care of in any eventuality � and even that she might continue to slip Lydia a few pounds from time to time.

Wickham is also an interesting case for financial examination.� He had been left �1,000 � slightly over $33,000 � by Mr. Darcy�s father.� Subsequently, he received an additional �3,000 � almost $100,000 � from Mr. Darcy in return for his giving up any further claim to the Darcy church living, and thus Mr. Darcy felt himself absolved of any further obligation to him.� But as we learn, Wickham is a spendthrift, a ne�er-do-well, a welcher, and a gamester � Mr. Darcy must settle more than �1,000 of Wickham�s debts � over $33,000 � before he will agree to marry Lydia.� Though we can hardly approve, we can at least understand how someone with his spending habits would be tempted to plot an elopement with Georgiana Darcy, whose fortune of �30,000 � almost $1,000,000 � is equal to that of Emma Woodhouse.� Georgiana is, as Alistair Duckworth has observed of Emma, �a bona fide heiress in Jane Austen�s financial scale� (148).� No one else would be well served by Wickham�s marriage to Georgiana, but Wickham, with his tastes and habits, certainly would be.

Money in Pride and Prejudice is primarily a measure of relative wealth and security.� But in Sense and Sensibility, the most financially complex of Jane Austen�s novels, money seems to function in other ways as well.� Attitudes toward money in Sense and Sensibility serve at least two additional purposes.� They give us insights into the values and tastes of some of the characters, and they help us to understand something of what an adequate income would be in Jane Austen�s time.� Alistair Duckworth estimates that John Dashwood�s income is �5,000 to �6,000 a year (86) � $165,000 to $198,000 � and thus he is even wealthier than Mr. Bingley.� Nevertheless, he decides not to allow his mother and her daughters either �100 or �50 a year, even though their combined income is only �500 a year.� Obviously, John Dashwood is an avaricious tightwad, selfish, self-indulgent, and ungenerous in the highest degree.� Willoughby�s estate at Combe Magna, according to Sir John Middleton, brings him about �600 a year � almost $20,000 � but because of his debts and the uncertainty of his inheritance from Mrs. Smith, he chooses to become engaged to Miss Grey, who has a fortune of �50,000, and, incidentally, is the wealthiest of Jane Austen�s heiresses whose fortunes are specifically identified.� Her fortune, invested in the five per cents, would bring her �2,500 a year which, coupled with Willoughby�s �600, gives them a total income of �3,100 � almost $103,000.� It would seem that even Willoughby�s most expensive tastes could well be satisfied by that amount and that his motives are entirely mercenary.� He might even be seen as an early study for Wickham, at least in that regard.� On the other hand, Edward Ferrars has the opportunity to become reasonably wealthy as well.� Were he to comply with his mother�s wishes and become engaged to Miss Morton and her �30,000, he would receive �1,000 a year from his mother, �1500 a year from Miss Morton�s fortune invested in the five per cents, and the �100 that his own �2,000 would yield, bringing his income to �2,600 a year � about $86,000.� As a man of honor, he declines the opportunity at first in order to remain true to his earlier and impulsive secret engagement to Lucy Steele.� But once he is released from that engagement by Lucy�s unexpected marriage to his brother Robert, instead of following through with Miss Morton, as his mother wishes, he comes to Barton Cottage to propose to Elinor, even though he realizes there is little hope of their being able to marry immediately.� Unlike Willoughby, Edward chooses love instead of money, even though his choice seems to mean a relatively small income.� The two Dashwood sisters have radically different conceptions of what constitutes a �competence,�� For the extravagant and romantic Marianne a competence is � �eighteen hundred or two thousand a-year; not more than that� � (S&S 91) � over $65,000.� But for the more modest Elinor, �1,000 is � �my wealth� � (S&S 91).� The contrast between �competence� and �wealth� is a revealing measure of the two sisters� senses of proportion.� Yet Marianne sees her expectations as very moderate: � �A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller.� I am sure I am not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less� � (S&S 91).� As things turn out, of course, Marianne achieves precisely what she hopes for in her marriage to Colonel Brandon, and Elinor is quite content with slightly less than her �wealth� in her marriage to Edward.

 

* Estimates

(1)� Official exchange rates.

(2)� Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates (adjusted).

(3)� Pound Sterling (Col. 1) adjusted by C.P.I. (Col. 2).� In 1800 one British Pound was worth $4.44 (U.S.).� In 1988 terms, after adjusting for inflation, the 1800 Pound would be worth $30.62 (U.S.).

(4)� Current dollar estimates 1800-1860 from a number of sources, 1860-1988 from Historical Statistics and Economic Report of the President.� In 1800 per capita incomes in Great Britain were about 20% higher than in the U.S.� This difference narrowed over time and by 1900, per capita incomes were about the same for both countries.� Today U.S. per capita incomes are at least 20% above British per capita incomes.

Prepared by Professor Charles Roberts, Department of Economics, Western Kentucky University, November, 1988.

Some of the financial details in Sense and Sensibility can also help us to understand more clearly what would constitute an adequate income, or a �competence,� in Jane Austen�s day.� Each of the Dashwood daughters has inherited �1,000 from their great uncle.� Mrs. Dashwood has received �7,000 as her late husband�s only bequest to her.� Thus Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters have a combined wealth of �10,000 which will earn them �500 a year � $16,565.� On that income they are not only able to take care of their needs in housing, food, and clothing, but they are also in a position to afford to have three servants � two maids and a man � on their staff at Barton Cottage.� They are not wealthy, but they would appear to be at least comfortable financially.� Indeed, we are told that Mrs. Dashwood �was persuaded that a much smaller provision than 7000 l. would support her in affluence� (S&S 14).� This amount would earn her �350 a year � about $11,600.� And she believes she can save enough from �500 a year to make alterations in Barton Cottage, though she has never saved anything before in her life.� Colonel Brandon offers Edward the living at Delaford at �200 a year.� With the income from his own �2,000, Edward would have an income of �300 a year � almost $10,000.� Colonel Brandon thinks this would be enough for Edward to live on as a bachelor but not enough for him to marry.� But Mrs. Jennings � something of a romantic who can afford to be � believes �300 quite enough for a young couple to live on.

When Elinor and Edward become engaged, Edward�s �2,000 and Elinor�s �1,000 will earn them �150 from the five per cents.� This amount added to the Delaford living will give them �350 a year � about $ 11,600.� We are told that �they were neither of them quite enough in love to think that three hundred and fifty pounds a-year would supply them with the comforts of life� (S&S 369).� However, when Mrs. Ferrars relents and gives Edward �10,000 as she had done for Fanny, they have a total of �13,000 to invest in the five per cents and earn �650 a year in addition to the �200 from the Delaford living.� At �850 a year � a little more than $28,000 � Elinor has nearly achieved her �wealth.�

Money, at least as I have been discussing it, is not as much a central concern in Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Emma as it is in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.� Catherine Morland will have �3,000 � over $99,000 � and perhaps even the Fullerton estate, but this matters very little to anyone except General Tilney, since Henry Tilney is secure of �a very considerable fortune� (NA 249) from marriage settlements and has an income �of independence and comfort� (NA 250).� Emma is the heiress to �30,000 � almost $1,000,000 and three times the fortune of Mrs. Elton.� Mr. Rushworth, with an income from Sotherton of �12,000 a year � over $397,000 � is the wealthiest of Jane Austen�s characters whose incomes we know but is otherwise virtually forgettable.� Edmund Bertram�s income from the Mansfield living, once he succeeds to it, is �700 a year � a little over $23,000 � somewhat less than the income of Edward and Elinor Ferrars.� But Edmund is, after all, the younger son of Sir Thomas Bertram, and there seems little question that both Sir Thomas and eventually Tom, when he inherits the baronetcy, will see that Edmund and Fanny are more than amply provided for.� In all of these novels, the central characters are generally already financially comfortable, and what references to money these novels do contain seem to be there only to establish that fact in order that Jane Austen can then move on to other matters.

Such is not the case, however, in Persuasion.� In fact. Sir Walter Elliot and his family would appear to be in rather desperate straits.� To be sure, he is the owner of the Kellynch estate, but because of his extravagance and debts he can no longer afford to live there and must lease Kellynch to Admiral Croft.� Presumably, the income from his rents and other farm income (if there is any) and the lease allow him to live in opulence and ostentation in the finest house in Camden Place in Bath.� But Kellynch will pass to Mr. William Walter Elliot on Sir Walter�s death.� The reality of Sir Walter�s circumstances is suggested in the passage describing the financial arrangements for Anne�s marriage to Captain Wentworth.� Sir Walter, we are told, �could give his daughter at present but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter� (P 248).� The passage is perhaps somewhat enigmatic, but it would appear that Sir Walter�s only fortune which will be available for inheritance by his daughters is �10,000 � a little over $330,000 � the same amount as the combined resources of Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters.� Assuming that this amount will be divided equally among his daughters on Sir Walter�s death, each daughter would inherit about �3,300 � a little over $109,000.� Mary has married well, but what is to become of Elizabeth?� She may, of course, also marry well � eventually � but given the nature of her personality and the minimal size of her apparent inheritance, her future would appear to be at least questionable and perhaps even extremely bleak.� Anne�s circumstances, of course, are quite a bit better.� At the time of her marriage, Wentworth has a fortune of �25,000 � �828,250.� Invested in the five per cents, that amount alone would bring them an income of �1250 a year � over $41,000.� But assuming that Anne will inherit an equal share of her father�s �10,000, she would eventually be able to add another �3,300 to their resources, which would give them a fortune of �28,300 � almost $938,000 � or in round figures almost $1,000,000.� In other words, the potential wealth available to Anne and Wentworth is almost equal to that of Emma Woodhouse.� At the time of their marriage, Anne is aware of �the disproportion in their fortune� (P 251), but that means nothing to her.� The only thing that disturbs her is �the consciousness of having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value� (P 251).

Financial matters in Jane Austen�s life have both their darker and their brighter side.� We know from her carefully kept records that Jane Austen earned a total of �684 13s. from the four of her novels that were published in her lifetime (Honan 393) � something over $22,500 � a fact that must give her readers today the shudders.� But the plight of Mrs. Austen and her daughters when they moved to the cottage in Chawton was not so bleak as it may appear.� Mrs. Austen was then receiving �210 a year from various sources, and this was supplemented by annual gifts from her sons James, Henry, Edward, and Frank which totalled �250.� Thus the annual income of the three Chawton ladies was �460 (Halperin 145) � slightly over $15,000 � fifteen times the per capita income � and the house was provided for them by Edward.� When Martha Lloyd joined them, she added her small income to their resources.� They were not wealthy by any means, but they were apparently comfortably middle-class � perhaps even upper middle-class.� They could even afford to keep at least one servant (Halperin 145) and could afford to buy a piano for the younger sister Jane for no more than thirty guineas (Letters 243).� Henry, with his usual optimism, wrote to Frank: �I really think that my Mother & sisters will be to the full as rich as ever.� They will not only suffer no personal deprivation, but will be able to pay occasional visits of health and pleasure to their friends� (quoted in Honan 214).� Eventually, Jane Austen also invested �600 of the income from her writing in the navy five per cents which brought her personally an additional �30 a year � almost $1,000.� She was able to travel from time to time, to visit Henry in London, to attend the theatre fairly often, to shop for herself and her relatives � though always with a keen eye for prices.� Indeed, Mrs. Austen and her daughters seem to have been reasonably comfortable.� They could not be extravagant, and no doubt they could not do everything that they might wish to do, but there is nothing in the extant letters to suggest that they were in any way seriously impoverished or wanting.� To be sure, they were dependent on the brothers for more than half of their regular income, and would have preferred that income were larger, but there is no indication that they considered themselves in severe financial straits, even when circumstances made it necessary for Henry and Frank to discontinue their payments of �50 apiece to Mrs. Austen in 1816 (Austen-Leigh 222).� The Austen brothers did fairly well also.� Edward inherited Godmersham and Chawton.� Henry had his problems as a banker but eventually settled down to a comfortable life as a clergyman.� Both Frank and Charles were naval officers, and both eventually rose to the rank of admiral.� In 1807, Frank limited himself to a budget of �400 a year (Letters 174) but could still afford to make his annual �50 contribution to the support of his mother and sisters.� Charles, since he was younger and a more junior officer than Frank, did not make any regular contribution to their income so far as we know.� In 1808 James�s income from the Steventon living was �1100, curate paid � about $36,000 � and he could afford to keep three horses (Letters 241)

Helpful as the equivalencies I have been using are, they do not necessarily tell us as much as we might wish to know about the actual cost of consumer goods in Jane Austen�s day and how far money went.� What did people in the early nineteenth century pay for things they purchased?� And how do those prices compare with what we might pay for similar or comparable items today?� Information on this subject is extremely difficult to come by, particularly in the resources I have had available to me.� And so I have resorted to what is at least as reliable as any other primary material for this kind of information � the letters of Jane Austen herself.� This is, after all, the very kind of material � letters, journals, diaries, ledgers, and the like � which historians use as a major source of their information, and her letters do tell us what she actually spent for consumer items.

It would be a tidy and a handy breakthrough if one could justifiably conclude that the 1988 U.S. dollar equivalent for the 1810 British pound could actually purchase two or even three times as much as an equivalent amount of money today.� We could then multiply $33.13 by two or three and have a clear sense of 1810 purchasing power in current U.S. dollars.� Indeed, that is what I had hoped to be able to do.� But the evidence simply doesn�t lend itself to such a clear pattern.� And there are problems with the evidence we do have.

In the first place, many of the references to money in Jane Austen�s letters are simply unclear, and thus it is impossible to determine what she means by them.� For example, she reports that she paid a half-guinea for four pair of worsted stockings, a shift, and a shawl, but there is no way to determine how much she paid for each.� In addition, it is difficult to know exactly what she means by some articles that she does give a price for.� She reports that she paid four shillings a yard for �gauzes,� but what are gauzes, and what are they used for?� We know that she bought �dimity,� apparently for Fanny who is referred to earlier in the letter, but there is no indication of what it is to be used for.� Other items she refers to simply don�t exist today.� I have looked in vain for a �pelisse,� and though I know roughly what it is, I can find no equivalent on a rack.� Jane Austen apparently had a special fondness for silk stockings, and she reports twice that she paid twelve shillings a pair for them; at $19.80 a pair they were very expensive in her day, but they are virtually non-existent, today.  

 

For those consumer items for which we do have a similar or comparable product available today, the pattern remains elusive even if we nudge the problem with some inferential guesses.� Some things are more expensive today, some things are less expensive, and some things are remarkably close to being the same (Table 3).� With some exceptions, fabric and clothing seems to have been more expensive in Jane Austen�s day than today.� While she paid 2s. 3d. � $3.72 � a yard for flannel, our cost today is more than double that amount.� Cotton fabric in her day apparently varied in price with the quality of the cloth and the print, but today printed cotton fabric is very inexpensive, by comparison, at only $3.69 a yard, though very fine printed cotton fabric (from Liberty�s of London) is much more expensive than anything she reports buying.� She records paying four shillings for a pair of gloves, which I assume are cloth because of the price � $6.60.� Though cloth gloves are virtually unavailable today, a pair of white nylon gloves sells for only $7.00.� In Emma Frank Churchill buys a pair of gloves, presumably leather, for a half-guinea or $17.39.� Today a pair of men�s leather gloves sells for a minimum of about $30.� She reports the cost of having a wool cloak made by an Alton seamstress as ten shillings or $16.50.� Today a seamstress would charge about $25 for the same job; the cost is higher, but not that much higher.� She paid 4s. 3d. a pair for cotton stockings � $7.02.� Today cotton stockings are rather rare, but Sears does sell them for $3.60 a pair.� If we assume that Jane Austen used cotton stockings for everyday wear, then we might compare her cost for cotton stockings with the average price of a pair of pantihose today, which I am told is about $4.50.� However, though some items of clothing are more expensive today than in Jane Austen�s time, fabric costs were generally higher then, and in addition, a woman of her day would also have to pay for the making of clothing by a seamstress.

Food, again with some exceptions, seems to have been less expensive in the early nineteenth century than it is today.� Meat, butter, and cheese were substantially cheaper, but for some reason fish was slightly more expensive.� And the price of bread then was almost the same as it is now.

Some of the miscellaneous prices Jane Austen mentions in her letters are interesting for a variety of reasons.� She reports in 1801 that Mr. Austen sold three cows from the farm at Steventon for 61 � guineas � $2,138.97 or $712.99 each.� Today a mature, milk-producing cow sells for about $700.� If we assume that the gold locket she bought for Cassandra was really gold and not simply gold-colored � and since it was for Cassandra, I assume that it was real gold � then (at 18s) she got a bargain by today�s standards, since a 14-karat gold locket sells today for $200 to $300.� If we assume that she did pay thirty guineas for a piano for Chawton � and we know that she did have a piano there � then she paid the equivalent of $1,043.34 for it.� Today a new Wurlitzer spinet sells for about $1600, but as recently as ten years ago a new spinet sold for about $1,000.� She paid six shillings � $9.90 � for a book of piano exercises for a beginner; today a similar book sells for about $6.00.� The retail price for the first edition of Pride and Prejudice was eighteen shillings � $29.70; today the typical price for a new hardback novel is about $20.� Edward paid sixty guineas for a pair of coach horses � $2,086.80; today a pair of horses suited for the same purpose would sell for $1,200 to $1,500.

There doesn�t seem to be a clear pattern in the evidence.� But fragmentary though it is, what the evidence does not suggest is that life was necessarily significantly less expensive in Jane Austen�s day than in our own.� People then no doubt had less money, and it probably went farther, not because things necessarily cost less but because they probably spent it on less and they spent it less frequently than we do today.� They were almost certainly not the intensive consumers that our society virtually forces us to be today.� Beyond that very general conclusion, for the moment we can only study the evidence and wonder.

Nobody wants to read Jane Austen with a calculator constantly at hand � least of all me.� But there are times when one can be useful.� Approximate though the current U.S. dollar equivalents for early nineteenth-century British currency may be, they do provide us with a sharper sense of a significant dimension of the reality which Jane Austen was responding to, the context in which that response arose, the reality which her works reflect, and the relationship of all of these to our own time.

WORKS CITED

Austen-Leigh, William, and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh.� Jane Austen: A Family Record.� Rev. and enl. by Deirdre Le Faye (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989).

Duckworth, Alistair M.� The Improvement of the Estate: A Study of Jane Austen�s Novels (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971).

Halperin, John.� The Life of Jane Austen (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984).

Honan, Park.� Jane Austen: Her Life (New York: St. Martin�s, 1987).

Jane Austen�s Letters to Her Sister Cassandra and Others , ed. R.W. Chapman, 2nd ed.� (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952).

McGrandle, Leith.� The Cost of Living in Britain (London: Wayland, 1973).

Mingay, G.E.� English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge, 1963).

The Novels of Jane Austen , ed. R.W. Chapman.� 3rd ed. 5 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933).

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