Letter # 12, Post #9

Monday 3 September 2012
To Cassandra, from Steventon, "We have got Boswell's 'Tour to the Hebrides', and are to have his 'Life of Johnson'; and, as some money will yet remain in Burdon's hands, it is to be laid out in the purchase of Cowper's works. This would please Mr. Clarke, could he know it." - Jane Austen, Sunday 25 November 1798

You can read Boswell's 'Tour to the Hebrides' on-line or download it here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=1461743
And, this book has it's own Wiki page. I still find it amazing that things people did back in the seventeen hundreds still effect us today. It is really a small world when you think about how we, each of us, make a mark on each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Journal_of_a_Tour_to_the_Hebrides

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' can be read here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1564
And the Wiki page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Samuel_Johnson

The notes in the back of Jane Austen's Letters by Deirdre Le Faye say Burdon's hands could be either "John Burdon, bookseller, College Street, or Thomas B., bookseller and wine-merchant, Kingsgate Street, both of Winchester." It sounds a bit like Reverend Austen may have been doing some bartering doesn't it? or maybe, he sold some books back, kind of like a seventeen hundreds version of Amazon.com ;) Anyway, it seems like a good way to update your library.

Again from the notes, "William Cowper (1731-1800)-either the 6th edn. of his poems 1797, or the new edn. 1798."

The Wiki page on The Task by William Cowper is interesting. It is a poem in six books. Its six books are called The Sofa, The Timepiece, The Garden, The Winter Evening, The Winter Morning Walk and The Winter Walk at Noon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Task_(poem)

Cowper is said to have greatly influenced Jane Austen. She quoted him in Sense and Sensibility, The Sofa in Mansfield Park, The Winter Evening in Emma, and Tirocinium (another poem by Cowper) in Mansfield Park. In fact, her brother, Henry Austen, wrote in the preface to Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, “Her reading was very extensive in history and belles lettres; and her memory extremely tenacious. Her favourite moral writers were Johnson in prose, and Cowper in verse.”

Mr. Clarke was John Clarke (1752-1842) of Worting, Hants. His wife, Mrs. Clarke, was Anne Mildmay, the second daughter of Carew Mildmay. Worting is near Basingstoke and Deane, so they were neighbors. Mr. Clarke must have been a great reader also.

So, it would seem the purchases Reverend Austen made in this venture proved to be very important to Jane Austen. You just never know what a day will bring!
\
And, I hope you have enjoyed your day today!!
Terrie