Miss Jane Austen... In Real Life

This is a house near St. Andrew's in Sherborne St. John. I would not say for sure that it is the house James and his family lived in, but it is pretty.


James was vicar in Sherborne St. John and this is St. Andrew's church in Sherborne St. John, so I imagine this would have been his church in 1796.

Tuesday 2 February 2010
Letter #2, To Cassandra, from Steventon, “Anna is now here; She came up in her chaise to spend the day with her young Cousins; but she does not much take to them or anything about them, except Caroline’s Spinning-wheel.”

Anna; Her full name was Jane-Anna-Elizabeth Austen, but she was known as Anna, (15 April 1793 to 1 September 1872). Her father was James Austen, Jane Austen’s oldest brother. She would have been 5 years old, and an only child at this time. Her mother, Anne Mathew Austen, had died on 3 May 1795, so I am sure her life had changed considerably. This letter being written 14 January 1796, her mother had only been gone 8 months.

Her father was vicar at Sherborne St. John, Hants., in the district of Basingstoke and Deane. The distance between Steventon and Sherborne St. John is about 6.8 miles or 11.0 kilometers; so about, I am estimating, not quite an hour away, maybe a half hour on a good day?

Caroline was Edward Cooper’s wife.

The Cooper’s children, just then, would have been Edward-Philip (27 October 1794 – 29November 1864)) and Isabella-Mary (29 November 1795 – 31 January 1859). So, Edward-Philip would have been twenty-seven months old and Isabella-Mary fourteen months old. They probably did not do too much to interest five year old Anna.