The life, work and legacy of one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Jane Austen (1775‱817), will be the focus of a new exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum from November 6 through March 14. Offering a closeup portrait of the iconic British author, the show provides tangible intimacy with Austen through the presentation of more than 100 works, including her manuscripts, personal letters and related materials, many of which the Morgan has not exhibited in more than a quarter century.
“A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy” also includes first and early illustrated editions of Austen’s novels, as well as drawings and prints depicting people, places and events of biographical significance. A highlight of the exhibition is a specially commissioned film by the noted Italian director Francesco Carrozzini, featuring interviews with artists and scholars such as Harriet Walter, Siri Hustvedt, Fran Lebowitz, Sandy Lerner, Colm Tóibín and Cornel West.
Jane Austen was born in 1775 into a rural middle-class family. Her father, George, was the rector at Steventon, a small village in the southern English county of Hampshire. Her mother, Cassandra, was a member of a prominent family. Austen’s immediate family included six brothers and one sister, also named Cassandra, who remained Jane’s closest friend and confidante throughout her life.
It was in this environment, encouraged by her family †all enthusiastic readers themselves †that she began to write poems, stories and plays for her family’s as well as her own amusement.
The exhibition is organized into three sections: Austen’s life and personal letters, her works and her legacy; it concludes with the documentary-style film. Only a relatively small number of Austen’s personal letters have survived, and the Morgan is a major repository of her correspondence, with one third of all surviving letters.
These materials †from correspondence to her beloved sister Cassandra to a letter to her niece in which all the words are spelled backwards to “crossed letters” (in which Austen, to save paper and reduce postal charges, wrote across the horizontal lines of text at right angles) †offer a remarkable glimpse into Austen’s everyday life and relationships, as told in her characteristically witty and confident voice.
Drawings and prints of people, places and events of importance in Austen’s life and times provide visual context for the letters. The section on Austen’s works includes the autograph manuscript of Lady Susan (rewritten around 1805), the only surviving complete manuscript of any of her novels; an unfinished autograph manuscript of The Watsons , which remained unfinished and is the only surviving manuscript of Austen’s novels showing her work in progress and under revision; an autograph note by Austen, listing the date of composition of her novels Mansfield Park, Persuasion and Emma . Another note lists the profits of her novels.
The legacy of Jane Austen is examined through later writers’ responses to her work. Beginning with a diary entry by her contemporary Sir Walter Scott, the exhibition also features comments by Twentieth Century writers, including Vladimir Nabokov, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling.
The Morgan Library & Museum is at 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street. For information, 212-685-0008 or www.themorgan.org .
