Lot 32•
[AUSTEN (JANE, OF KIPPINGTON)] GENLIS (C.S.F.) Théâtre à l'usage des jeunes, 1781, AUSTEN'S COUSIN'S COPY
11 March 2020, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge£800 - £1,200
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[AUSTEN (JANE, OF KIPPINGTON)]
GENLIS (CAROLINE STEPHANIE FELICITE, Madame de) Théâtre à l'usage des jeunes personnes, vol. 4 only, inscribed "Jane Austen 1788" on title-page and with her book label as Jane Campion, engraved frontispiece to each of the 5 plays, contemporary calf, spine defective, upper cover near detached, 12mo, Paris, chez les Libraires Associés, 1781
Footnotes
"JANE AUSTEN 1788": A BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE AUTHOR'S COUSIN AND NAMESAKE. Jane Austen of Kippington, Kent (1776-1857) was the eldest daughter of Francis Motley Austen, and was an almost exact contemporary of her second cousin, the future novelist. In the summer of 1788, the year of the inscription, Cassandra Austen came with her 12 year-old sister Jane to stay with their great uncle Francis Austen II in Sevenoaks, and so the two cousins would almost certainly have been spent time together.
The present volume is the fourth and last one of the Comtesse de Genlis's Théâtre à l'usage des jeunes personnes, a collection of closet dramas known as 'The Theatre of Education' which would not have been out of place among the private theatricals the Austens would put on at home or with friends. Genlis's pioneering approach to education, in conjunction with her novels, became important influences on Jane Austen the novelist, and 1788 was also the year that the latter tried her own hand at writing drama. No further meetings between the two Janes are recorded, but in 1797 Jane Austen of Kippington married William John Campion of Danny, Sussex, and evidently took the present volume to her marital home where she added her book label. See illustration on preceding page.