Catharine and Other Writings

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Introduction © Margaret Anne Doody 1993

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This edition first published as a World’s Classics paperback 1993
Reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1998

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data.

Austen, Jane, 1775–1817.
Catharine and other writings/Jane Austen: edited by Margaret
Anne Doody and Douglas Murray: with an introduction by Margaret
Anne Doody
p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
I. Doody, Margaret Anne. II. Murray, Douglas, 1951–
III. Title. IV. Series.
PR4932.D66 1993 823’.7—dc20 92–12787

ISBN–13: 978–0–19–283521–5

11

Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.

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Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes.

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

JANE AUSTEN

Catharine and Other Writings

Edited by

MARGARET ANNE DOODY

and

DOUGLAS MURRAY

With an Introduction by

MARGARET ANNE DOODY

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

CATHARINE
AND OTHER WRITINGS

JANE AUSTEN was born at Steventon, Hampshire, in 1775, the daughter of a clergyman. At the age of nine she was sent to school at Reading with her elder sister Cassandra, who was her lifelong friend and confidante, but she was largely taught by her father. She began to write for recreation while still in her teens. In 1801 the family moved to Bath, the scene of so many episodes in her books and, after the death of her father in 1805, to Southampton and then to the village of Chawton, near Alton in Hampshire. Here she lived uneventfully until May 1817, when the family moved to Winchester seeking skilled medical attention for her ill-health, but she died two months later. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Her best-known novels are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1816), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818.

MARGARET ANNE DOODY is the John and Barbara Glynn Family Professor of Literature at the University of Notre Dame. She has introduced Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and co-edited Frances Burney’s Cecilia for Oxford World’s Classics, and is the author of The True Story of the Novel (1996) and novels including Mysteries of Eleusis (2005).

DOUGLAS MURRAY, Associate Professor of English at Belmont University, is the author of essays on Dryden, Richardson, Pope, and other authors of the eighteenth century as well as on English vocal music.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Note on the Text

Select Bibliography

A Chronology of Jane Austen

VOLUME THE FIRST

Frederic and Elfrida

Jack and Alice

Edgar and Emma

Henry and Eliza

The adventures of Mr Harley

Sir William Mountague

Memoirs of Mr Clifford

The Beautifull Cassandra

Amelia Webster

The Visit

The Mystery

The Three Sisters

A beautiful description

The generous Curate

Ode to Pity

VOLUME THE SECOND

Love and Friendship

Lesley Castle

The History of England

A Collection of Letters

The female philosopher

The first Act of a Comedy

A Letter from a Young Lady

A Tour through Wales

A Tale

VOLUME THE THIRD

Evelyn

Catharine, or the Bower

Plan of a Novel

List of Verses

Verses

Prayers

Textual Notes

Explanatory Notes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to express our gratitude to the British Library for allowing us to inspect and transcribe the material in Volume the Second and Volume the Third, and to the Bodleian Library for allowing us access to the material in Volume the First. For other manuscript material we are indebted to the Pierpont Morgan Library, and to the Jane Austen Memorial Trust. We must thank the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations for allowing us to transcribe their copy of the verses ‘When Winchester races’. We have good reason to be grateful to the librarians of these institutions, and to the Special Collections Librarian of Mills College. We wish to express particular thanks to Jean Bowden, Curator of the Jane Austen Memorial Trust at Chawton, and to Sally Brown, Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts at the British Library.

It seems fitting to express here our gratitude to the libraries at our own universities: the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University, and the Williams Library at Belmont University, both of Nashville. We are grateful to the librarians at those institutions, especially Jane Thomas at Belmont.

Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen’s latest biographer, has put herself out to give us assistance and advice, and we want to thank her here. We should like to give personal thanks to the following individuals for their interest in and help with the project: Paula Backscheider, Marilyn Butler, David Gilson, Jocelyn Harris, Richard Harrison, Robert Mack, Peter Sabor, and Florian Stuber.

INTRODUCTION

EXCEPT for ‘Plan of a Novel’ and the Prayers, the prose works included in this collection were written by Jane Austen during her adolescence.