As historical consultant on the film Becoming Jane, I had one startling
surprise. The movie focuses on Jane Austen’s romance with a young Irishman,
Tom Lefroy, and the scriptwriters give him, in later life, a daughter called
Jane. I thought it was my job to point out such errors of “fact”, but I
didn’t bother to check this one. It seemed so obvious that the writers had
taken a bit of poetic licence.
After all, Becoming Jane is not a biopic but a work of imagination inspired by
fact. Fact in such a film sometimes has to give way to imagination,
sometimes to the simple requirements of story-telling or, in the instance of
the name of Lefroy’s daughter, to make a point succinctly. Eventually,
someone asked if Lefroy really did have a daughter called Jane. The
scriptwriters didn’t know — they had made it up. I didn’t know. It was
tempting to reply “Of course not”, but I knew where to look for the answer.
To my amazement, I found that Lefroy’s first daughter was called Jane. Moral
of the story: just because something is made up doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Whatever has been invented and whatever deviations there are from the “facts”,
the film is, I believe, true to the spirit of Jane Austen — her life and her
work. Nevertheless, human nature being what it is, we still want to know the
facts. Maybe we have a primitive fear of having the wool pulled over our
eyes. Here, then, are what I take to be the salient facts that inspired the
film.
Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy met at a ball in Hampshire during the Christmas
season of 1795, when Tom was visiting his Aunt and Uncle Lefroy, the
Austens’ neighbours. He had recently left Trinity College, Dublin, and was
on his way to London to study law. Austen had just finished writing Elinor
and Marianne, the first version of Sense and Sensibility. They were both
just 20. Their attraction was immediate.
This was rather out of character for Austen. One of her brothers, remembering
what she had been like, said that she was “rather reserved to strangers so
as to have been by some accused of haughtiness”. She was anything but
reserved with Lefroy. He struck a chord. Even at that first ball, they
behaved like lovers. After they had been at three balls together, she
admitted — boasted — that she and Lefroy had given more reticent couples
three successive lessons in “how to be particular”.
No sentimental swooning with love for Austen. When her sister, Cassandra,
scolded her about her behaviour with the young Irishman, Jane playfully
replied: “Imagine to yourself every thing most profligate and shocking in
the way of dancing and sitting down together.” Austen was full of energy and
irrepressible excitement; she and Lefroy made no secret of their attraction
to each other. His relations laughed at him so much about her, he was
ashamed to go and see her at home, and when she called on his aunt, he ran
away.
Lefroy seems to have shared something of Austen’s own odd blend of shyness and
boldness. He was serious, intelligent, hard-working and ambitious. But a
portrait of him done at about this time gives no hint of a stuffy, scholarly
drudge. He had another side to his character, indicated by his declaration
that Tom Jones was his favourite novel. It was a few decades later that the
Victorians deemed that a “lady” could not read Fielding’s novel until she
was married, but Tom Jones was always considered racy. Austen had read it
and remembered it so vividly, she was able to make the joke (more than once)
that Lefroy affected a white morning coat because “his hero”, Tom Jones,
wears one.
Lefroy’s tutor at Trinity had written to his father that “however seducing its
idleness and its evils” might be, London and its temptations would be
withstood by Tom. Perhaps, but as a charming and passionate young man, he
was certainly alive and responsive to Tom Jones’s amorous adventures. The
day after the third ball, Lefroy finally overcame his shyness and called on
Austen. His time in Hampshire was drawing to a close, and they met only once
more before he left for London — his uncle and aunt were having a dance at
home, a farewell to him. No account of the ball has survived, and he left
for London a day or two later.
Lefroy was free to flirt with a pretty girl at a few balls, but he was well
aware that he could not pursue a serious courtship without the approval of
his great-uncle, Benjamin Langlois, with whom he was to be living in London.
Tom’s father, Anthony Lefroy, had no money, and Tom, the eldest son, had 10
brothers and sisters. The family was dependent on their father’s rich
bachelor uncle, who had strong opinions about the kind of girl his nephews
should marry — someone with money and family influence. To displease him
would have catastrophic consequences.
As a first tentative step, perhaps, towards getting the old man’s approval, it
was arranged for him to meet Austen and two of her brothers when they passed
through London on their way to Kent in August 1796. The young Austens were
invited to stay overnight as the guests of Uncle Benjamin and Lefroy in Cork
Street. That her brothers were with Austen was all to the good. Uncle
Benjamin would be impressed by the rich Edward, heir to the estates and
fortune of his cousins, the Knights, and by Frank, a clever and ambitious
young man who was already making a name for himself as an officer in the
navy. The brothers might make up for, or at least divert attention from,
Austen having no money of her own.
If her spirits after the visit are any indication, she thought the meeting a
success. Her letters from Kent are easy and flowing, energetic and amusing,
with not a hint that anything had gone wrong in London. Her sister
complained that Austen’s first letter after London was too concise, and Jane
assured her: “I must make amends when we meet, by some elaborate details,
which I shall shortly begin composing.” What did she mean? Composing
suggests writing, not face-to-face communication. We are poised to hear
elaborate details, if not about London, at least about how the romance
progresses after the momentous meeting with Uncle Benjamin. But no letter
survives for the next two years.
What we do know is that when Austen returned to Hampshire in October 1796, she
was creatively on fire. She began writing the first version of Pride and
Prejudice immediately, and completed it in less than a year. She rewrote
Elinor and Marianne as Sense and Sensibility, and moved on to the first
version of Northanger Abbey — all in little more than two years.
The film suggests that Mr Darcy was based on Lefroy. I am inclined to think,
though, that it is Eliza-beth Bennet, described by Austen as “as delightful
a creature as ever appeared in print”, whom Lefroy inspired. And that Austen
gave something of her own character, the person some strangers “accused of
haughtiness”, to Darcy.
When her surviving letters resume, we find that Lefroy came back to Hampshire
in autumn 1798, but did not go to see Austen. She gives a hint of her
feelings about the cut, saying that when she next saw his aunt after his
visit, she was “too proud to ask” about him. She never mentions him again in
her letters.
Why Lefroy decided not to marry Austen remains a mystery, but only a few
months before he died, aged 93, a nephew asked him if he had been in love
with her. He replied that he had been, but it had been “a boyish
love”. Austen remembered and felt the influence of her feelings for Lefroy
for the rest of her life. She had learnt with him what it was to be
passionately in love, and she knew she could never marry without that
intensity of mutual attraction, and so she never did.
Thanks to the imaginative intuition of the film writers, we now know that
Lefroy named his first daughter Jane, but Austen never called a hero Tom —
the name is conspicuous by its absence. When Pride and Prejudice was finally
published, though, Austen did refer to it as “my own darling child”.
Jon Spence is a historian and the author of Becoming Jane Austen
(Continuum £8.95);Becoming Jane opens on March 9
As historical consultant on the film Becoming Jane, I had one startling
surprise. The movie focuses on Jane Austen’s romance with a young Irishman,
Tom Lefroy, and the scriptwriters give him, in later life, a daughter called
Jane. I thought it was my job to point out such errors of “fact”, but I
didn’t bother to check this one. It seemed so obvious that the writers had
taken a bit of poetic licence.
After all, Becoming Jane is not a biopic but a work of imagination inspired by
fact. Fact in such a film sometimes has to give way to imagination,
sometimes to the simple requirements of story-telling or, in the instance of
the name of Lefroy’s daughter, to make a point succinctly. Eventually,
someone asked if Lefroy really did have a daughter called Jane. The
scriptwriters didn’t know — they had made it up. I didn’t know. It was
tempting to reply “Of course not”, but I knew where to look for the answer.
To my amazement, I found that Lefroy’s first daughter was called Jane. Moral
of the story: just because something is made up doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Whatever has been invented and whatever deviations there are from the “facts”,
the film is, I believe, true to the spirit of Jane Austen — her life and her
work. Nevertheless, human nature being what it is, we still want to know the
facts. Maybe we have a primitive fear of having the wool pulled over our
eyes. Here, then, are what I take to be the salient facts that inspired the
film.
Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy met at a ball in Hampshire during the Christmas
season of 1795, when Tom was visiting his Aunt and Uncle Lefroy, the
Austens’ neighbours. He had recently left Trinity College, Dublin, and was
on his way to London to study law. Austen had just finished writing Elinor
and Marianne, the first version of Sense and Sensibility. They were both
just 20. Their attraction was immediate.
This was rather out of character for Austen. One of her brothers, remembering
what she had been like, said that she was “rather reserved to strangers so
as to have been by some accused of haughtiness”. She was anything but
reserved with Lefroy. He struck a chord. Even at that first ball, they
behaved like lovers. After they had been at three balls together, she
admitted — boasted — that she and Lefroy had given more reticent couples
three successive lessons in “how to be particular”.
No sentimental swooning with love for Austen. When her sister, Cassandra,
scolded her about her behaviour with the young Irishman, Jane playfully
replied: “Imagine to yourself every thing most profligate and shocking in
the way of dancing and sitting down together.” Austen was full of energy and
irrepressible excitement; she and Lefroy made no secret of their attraction
to each other. His relations laughed at him so much about her, he was
ashamed to go and see her at home, and when she called on his aunt, he ran
away.
Lefroy seems to have shared something of Austen’s own odd blend of shyness and
boldness. He was serious, intelligent, hard-working and ambitious. But a
portrait of him done at about this time gives no hint of a stuffy, scholarly
drudge. He had another side to his character, indicated by his declaration
that Tom Jones was his favourite novel. It was a few decades later that the
Victorians deemed that a “lady” could not read Fielding’s novel until she
was married, but Tom Jones was always considered racy. Austen had read it
and remembered it so vividly, she was able to make the joke (more than once)
that Lefroy affected a white morning coat because “his hero”, Tom Jones,
wears one.
Lefroy’s tutor at Trinity had written to his father that “however seducing its
idleness and its evils” might be, London and its temptations would be
withstood by Tom. Perhaps, but as a charming and passionate young man, he
was certainly alive and responsive to Tom Jones’s amorous adventures. The
day after the third ball, Lefroy finally overcame his shyness and called on
Austen. His time in Hampshire was drawing to a close, and they met only once
more before he left for London — his uncle and aunt were having a dance at
home, a farewell to him. No account of the ball has survived, and he left
for London a day or two later.
Lefroy was free to flirt with a pretty girl at a few balls, but he was well
aware that he could not pursue a serious courtship without the approval of
his great-uncle, Benjamin Langlois, with whom he was to be living in London.
Tom’s father, Anthony Lefroy, had no money, and Tom, the eldest son, had 10
brothers and sisters. The family was dependent on their father’s rich
bachelor uncle, who had strong opinions about the kind of girl his nephews
should marry — someone with money and family influence. To displease him
would have catastrophic consequences.
As a first tentative step, perhaps, towards getting the old man’s approval, it
was arranged for him to meet Austen and two of her brothers when they passed
through London on their way to Kent in August 1796. The young Austens were
invited to stay overnight as the guests of Uncle Benjamin and Lefroy in Cork
Street. That her brothers were with Austen was all to the good. Uncle
Benjamin would be impressed by the rich Edward, heir to the estates and
fortune of his cousins, the Knights, and by Frank, a clever and ambitious
young man who was already making a name for himself as an officer in the
navy. The brothers might make up for, or at least divert attention from,
Austen having no money of her own.
If her spirits after the visit are any indication, she thought the meeting a
success. Her letters from Kent are easy and flowing, energetic and amusing,
with not a hint that anything had gone wrong in London. Her sister
complained that Austen’s first letter after London was too concise, and Jane
assured her: “I must make amends when we meet, by some elaborate details,
which I shall shortly begin composing.” What did she mean? Composing
suggests writing, not face-to-face communication. We are poised to hear
elaborate details, if not about London, at least about how the romance
progresses after the momentous meeting with Uncle Benjamin. But no letter
survives for the next two years.
What we do know is that when Austen returned to Hampshire in October 1796, she
was creatively on fire. She began writing the first version of Pride and
Prejudice immediately, and completed it in less than a year. She rewrote
Elinor and Marianne as Sense and Sensibility, and moved on to the first
version of Northanger Abbey — all in little more than two years.
The film suggests that Mr Darcy was based on Lefroy. I am inclined to think,
though, that it is Eliza-beth Bennet, described by Austen as “as delightful
a creature as ever appeared in print”, whom Lefroy inspired. And that Austen
gave something of her own character, the person some strangers “accused of
haughtiness”, to Darcy.
When her surviving letters resume, we find that Lefroy came back to Hampshire
in autumn 1798, but did not go to see Austen. She gives a hint of her
feelings about the cut, saying that when she next saw his aunt after his
visit, she was “too proud to ask” about him. She never mentions him again in
her letters.
Why Lefroy decided not to marry Austen remains a mystery, but only a few
months before he died, aged 93, a nephew asked him if he had been in love
with her. He replied that he had been, but it had been “a boyish love”.
Austen remembered and felt the influence of her feelings for Lefroy for the
rest of her life. She had learnt with him what it was to be passionately in
love, and she knew she could never marry without that intensity of mutual
attraction, and so she never did.
Thanks to the imaginative intuition of the film writers, we now know that
Lefroy named his first daughter Jane, but Austen never called a hero Tom —
the name is conspicuous by its absence. When Pride and Prejudice was finally
published, though, Austen did refer to it as “my own darling child”.
Jon Spence is a historian and the author of Becoming Jane Austen
(Continuum £8.95);Becoming Jane opens on March 9
