Fall 2024 JASNA Southwest Regional Meeting,

September 7, 2024

California State University Dominguez Hills

Half Day Event

On September 7, 2024, 60 Southwest members braved a heatwave to attend our half-day event at the Loker Student Union at Cal State Dominguez Hills on the theme “Golden Threads: Richardson, Bage, Austen and Bronte”. All of our tables were enhanced by the fall-themed centerpieces created by the North Orange County Reading Group. We had two lovely opportunity baskets created by Carolyn Howard and Lynda Hall as well as a white elephant sales table.

Catherine Hayes, a lifelong Austen enthusiast and amateur scholar of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction and drama, presented her talk “Bookending the Bennets: Common Themes in Pamela, Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre”.The novel Pamela, published in 1740 by Samuel Richardson, and the novel Jane Eyre, published in 1847 by Charlotte Brontë, “bookend” Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813 by Jane Austen. Catherine explained how Richardson’s novel would have influenced a young Austen and how Brontë would have been influenced by Austen. We explored this through the following themes: marriages false and true, the clergy: aid or hindrance, a life of service, the picture of perfection. Each novel shows the life of a strong heroine. Pamela has a variety of evils inflicted upon her, yet she remains strong and virtuous. Elizabeth Bennet is an intelligent young lady with a witty demeanor but not much of a dowry to tempt a wealthy suitor. Jane Eyre is a sorrowful creature with many ills laid upon her, yet she remains true to herself. Are any of these young women truly the “picture of perfection” that critics claim them to be? Pamela is found wanting in the veracity of her story. (Where did she get that paper and ink to write those letters?) Jane Eyre is overwrought with emotions and makes rash decisions. Elizabeth Bennet, believing herself to be able to verify one’s true colors, finds herself to be both proud and prejudiced toward others. Each reader must come to their own conclusion of which heroine is most enjoyable to know.

Nancy Gallagher, a longtime Southwest member who has served two stints as Regional Coordinator and as AGM coordinator for two conferences, and is a semi-retired English and reading teacher, presented her talk “First and Lasting Impressions: Robert Bage and the Young Jane Austen”.  Nancy introduced us to Robert Bage, author of Hermsprong, a novel unfamiliar to most of us but very popular in its day. We know that Jane Austen owned a three-volume set of Hermsprong, which now resides in the archives of the Huntington Library. Each volume is inscribed with her signature. Published in 1796, it invites us to speculate on its effect on the then 21-year-old Austen, who was at that time just beginning First Impressions. For Hermsprong is a novel of radical political ideas which is yet, as one editor calls it, “delightful, ironic and whimsical,” and another “one of the liveliest and most entertaining political novels in English.”

Nancy pointed out that Robert Bage was an unlikely author, who published his first novel (of six) at the age of 54. A Midlands paper manufacturer, he was part of the circle of entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, and philosophers who formed the Derby Philosophical Society and nearby Birmingham Lunar Society. Dubbed (rather unfairly) a Jacobin, Bage was sympathetic to the early ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, and was especially interested in the equality of women and men. His spunky female characters, whom scholar J.M.S. Tompkins calls “militant Clarissas,” seem to anticipate the self-assurance of Emma Woodhouse, the audacity of Mary Crawford, the moral strength of Fanny Price, and the wit of Elizabeth Bennet.

 Actors Kathy Pearson and Kelly Franett helped illustrate passages that resonate with Austen readers: the skewering of haughty, pompous figures of rank and title; similarities of the Summelin family and the Bennets, including Hermspong’s rescue of one daughter from an unfortunate elopement; the frequent reiteration of the phrase “pride and prejudice”; and the bungling proposal of Sir Philip Chestrum, so like John Thorpe’s equally insensitive and obtuse overtures to Catherine Morland.

 Nancy closed by inviting us to read Hermsprong as a window on the “war of ideas” that characterized the late 18th century, to puzzle out the pieces of plot, characterization, and ideals that may have inspired Jane Austen, or simply to enjoy what editor Vaughn Wilkins called the “whimsicality…outspoken honesty, ironical philosophy” and humanity of an amiable raconteur.