Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

William Shakespeare and Jane Austen: Biographical Challenges

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Jane Austen and William Shakespeare

  • 357 Accesses

Abstract

William Shakespeare and Jane Austen have attracted the attention of numerous biographers despite the difficulties raised by the nature of the surviving evidence. In Shakespeare’s case, none of his letters survive, nor any contemporary personal account by a third person of his character or beliefs. With Jane Austen, there is more to guide the biographer, not least a revealing collection of her letters. Yet, the presentation of this evidence has been profoundly influenced by later generations of Austen’s family, who strove to promote an idealized image of the author. As a result, with Austen, as with Shakespeare, biographers have tended to treat her work as if it were to some extent biographical. This chapter begins by highlighting these biographical issues, and then proposes that it is the very uncertainties arising from this lack of data that explains the imaginative approaches to Shakespeare’s and Austen’s lives and works, and their present iconic status.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Deirdre le Faye, in her examination and analysis of most of the available data, distilled in Jane Austen: A Family Record, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), and her Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), has led the way in evaluating the reliability of the evidence on which Austen’s biographers largely depend.

  2. 2.

    I am excluding here contemporary tributes to him as a leading poet and playwright which tell us nothing about his day-to-day life or personality. Ben Jonson’s oft-quoted appraisal of Shakespeare’s abilities, written some years after Shakespeare’s death, was not published until 1641: E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930), ii, 210.

  3. 3.

    Shakespeare’s early biographers are entertainingly discussed in S. Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991 edn). For more recent biographers, see Arthur Maltby, Shakespeare as a Challenge for Literary Biography: A History of Biographies of Shakespeare since 1898 (Lampeter: Lampeter University Press, 2009).

  4. 4.

    Chambers, William Shakespeare, ii, 257.

  5. 5.

    First championed by E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare; the Lost Years (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985).

  6. 6.

    Amongst others, Carol Curt Enos, Shakespeare and the Catholic Religion (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2000) and Richard Wilson, Secret Shakespeare (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).

  7. 7.

    For the latest blow to the Shakeshafte story, summarizing earlier criticisms, see Michael Winstanley, ‘Shakespeare, Catholicism, and Lancashire’, Shakespeare Quarterly, 68 (2), (Summer 2017): 172–91.

  8. 8.

    For a fuller account, see Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 68–72.

  9. 9.

    Schoenbaum devotes twelve pages to the story, even though it is clear he does not believe it: S. Schoenbaum, William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, revised edn 1987), 97–109. For a reluctance to dismiss the story, see René Weis, Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography (London: John Murray, 2007), 70–80.

  10. 10.

    For claims by Edmond Malone in 1790, William Rushton in 1858 and John Campbell in 1859 that Shakespeare may have been a lawyer’s clerk, see Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 332–3. For the origin of the story that he might have travelled to Italy, first suggested by Charles Armitage Brown in 1838, see ibid., 186–7; for William J. Thoms’s proposal, in 1859, that Shakespeare served in the army, ibid., 331.

  11. 11.

    David Ellis, The Truth about William Shakespeare: Fact, Fiction and Modern Biographies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), esp. chapter 2.

  12. 12.

    Simon A. Stirling, Who Killed Shakespeare? The Murderer, the Motive, the Means (Stroud: History Press, 2013).

  13. 13.

    John E. Walsh, Dagger of the Mind: Solving the Mystery of Shakespeare’s Death (Tempe, Arizona ACMRS Publication, 2013).

  14. 14.

    Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman, The Shakespeare Conspiracy (London: Arrow, 1995).

  15. 15.

    Deirdre le Faye, ‘Letters’ in Jane Austen in Context, ed. Janet Todd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 33.

  16. 16.

    James Edward Austen-Leigh, A Memoir of Jane Austen, ed. Kathryn Sutherland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 10.

  17. 17.

    Caroline Austen, ‘My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir’, ed. Kathryn Sutherland (with Austen-Leigh’s Memoir as in n. 16), 174.

  18. 18.

    Eventually published by her son Edward Knatchbull, Lord Brabourne, as Letters of Jane Austen, 2 vols (London, 1884).

  19. 19.

    Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 9.

  20. 20.

    Anna Lefroy, ‘My recollections of Aunt Jane’. Edited by Kathryn Sutherland (with Austen-Leigh’s Memoir as in n. 16), 157.

  21. 21.

    Caroline Austen, ‘A Letter from Caroline Austen to JEAL’, 1 April 1869 (?). Edited by Kathryn Sutherland (with Austen-Leigh’s Memoir as in n. 16), 185–6.

  22. 22.

    Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 92.

  23. 23.

    Deirdre le Faye, Jane Austen’s Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 297, dated 23 November 1815.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., 300, dated 26 November 1815.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 208.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 174–5.

  27. 27.

    Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 105–6.

  28. 28.

    Chris Viveash, ‘Jane Austen’s early adventures in publishing’, Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society (Chawton: Jane Austen Society, 2005), 78–9.

  29. 29.

    Caroline Austen, ‘A Letter from Caroline Austen to JEAL’, 1 April 1869 (?).

  30. 30.

    Joan Austen-Leigh, ‘New Light Thrown on JA’s Refusal of Harris Bigg-Wither’. Persuasions 8 (1986): 34–6.

  31. 31.

    Austen, ‘A Letter from Caroline Austen to JEAL’, 1 April 1869 (?), 188; Austen-Leigh, Memoir, 29.

  32. 32.

    Jane Austen’s Letters, 121.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., 33.

  34. 34.

    For the most recent account of Henry Austen’s bankruptcy, see E. J. Clery, Jane Austen the Banker’s Sister (London, 2017), esp. 267–9, 284–8, 315–8.

  35. 35.

    Included in vol. 1 of Rowe’s Works of Shakespeare, 1709.

  36. 36.

    For example, Michael Dobson, The Making of the National Poet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

  37. 37.

    Amongst several books on the Jubilee, see Christian Deelman, The Great Shakespeare Jubilee (London: Michael Joseph, 1964); Johanne Stochholm, Garrick’s Folly: The Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 (London: Methuen, 1964).

  38. 38.

    For Malone and Wheler, see Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 169–78, 189–92; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), xxxvi, 352–7; lviii, 454. For Saunders, Robert Bearman, Captain James Saunders of Stratford-upon-Avon: A Local Antiquary. Dugdale Society, Occasional Paper, 33 (1990).

  39. 39.

    For Ireland, see Patricia Pierce, The Great Shakespeare Fraud (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2004). For both, see Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 135–67, 245–66; ODNB, xii, 650–4; xxix, 342–3.

  40. 40.

    For Jordan, see Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 131–3; ODNB, xxx, 701–2. For Washington Irving’s accounts of his visits to Stratford, see Stratford-upon-Avon: From ‘The Sketch Book’ of Washington Irving, eds. R. Savage and W. S. Brassington (Stratford-upon-Avon, 1900).

  41. 41.

    First claimed in an anonymous pamphlet of 1879, How Shakespeare’s Skull was Stolen, recounting events said to have taken place in 1794. The accepted view that this pamphlet was a clever hoax (Schoenbaum, Shakespeare’s Lives, 339–40) was largely disregarded in a recent Channel 4 ‘documentary’ (Secret History: Shakespeare’s Tomb, 2016) which attracted international press coverage.

  42. 42.

    The literature on this is vast, but see James Shapiro, Contested Will (London: Faber & Faber, 2010).

Bibliography

  • Anon. How Shakespeare’s Skull was Stolen, 1879.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen-Leigh, J. E. A Memoir of Jane Austen, and Other Family Recollections. Edited by Kathryn Sutherland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen-Leigh, R. Austen Papers. London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne, 1929.

    Google Scholar 

  • Austen-Leigh, Joan. ‘New Light Thrown on JA’s Refusal of Harris Bigg-Wither’. Persuasions 8 (1986): 34–6. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Bearman, Robert. Captain James Saunders of Stratford-upon-Avon: A Local Antiquary. Dugdale Society, Occasional Paper, 33, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chambers, E. K. William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clery, E. J. Jane Austen the Banker’s Sister. London: Biteback Publishing, 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deelman, Christian. The Great Shakespeare Jubilee. London: Michael Joseph, 1964.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobson, Michael. The Making of the National Poet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, David. The Truth about William Shakespeare: Fact, Fiction and Modern Biographies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enos, Carol Curt. Shakespeare and the Catholic Religion. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  • Honigmann, E. A. J. Shakespeare: The Lost Years. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  • [Irving, Washington]. Stratford-upon-Avon: From ‘The Sketch Book’ of Washington Irving. Edited by R. Savage and W.S. Brasssington. Stratford-upon-Avon, 1900.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jarrold, Julian, dir. Becoming Jane. BBC Films, 2007. DVD. 

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen’s Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Jane Austen: a Family Record, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maltby, Arthur. Shakespeare as a Challenge for Literary Biography: A History of Biographies of Shakespeare since 1898. Lampeter: Lampeter University Press, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Graham, and Martin Keatman. The Shakespeare Conspiracy. London: Arrow, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pierce, Patricia. The Great Shakespeare Fraud. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schoenbaum, S. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, revised edn 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. Shakespeare’s Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, James. Contested Will. London: Faber & Faber, 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stirling, Simon A. Who Killed Shakespeare? The Murderer, the Motive, the Means. Stroud: History Press, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stochholm, Johanne. Garrick’s Folly: The Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769. London: Methuen, 1964.

    Google Scholar 

  • Todd, Janet, ed. Jane Austen in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viveash, Chris. ‘Jane Austen’s early adventures in publishing’. In Collected Reports of the Jane Austen Society. Chawton: Jane Austen Society, 2005, 78–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weis, René. Shakespeare Revealed: A Biography. London: John Murray, 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walsh, John E. Dagger of the Mind: Solving the Mystery of Shakespeare’s Death. Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS Publications, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Richard. Secret Shakespeare. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winstanley, Michael. ‘Shakespeare, Catholicism, and Lancashire’. Shakespeare Quarterly 68 (2) (Summer 2017): 172–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Honorary Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Robert Bearman

Authors
  1. Robert Bearman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    Marina Cano

  2. University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Rosa García-Periago

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Bearman, R. (2019). William Shakespeare and Jane Austen: Biographical Challenges. In: Cano, M., García-Periago, R. (eds) Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25689-0_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation