Austen Citing Index

Jane Austen Society of Australia

Austen citing: Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë herself, as is well known, had no very high opinion of Jane’s work, and honestly besought the critic G H Lewes to tell her what he saw in it (‘Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point’ – letter to Lewes, 1848). Re-reading Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë (1970 reissue of 1908 edition), I came upon this wry story in a letter from Charlotte to Mr Williams, who worked for her publishers Smith, Elder and Co. In 1853, Charlotte’s Villette was attracting some mixed reviews, and many readers were anxious to know the identity of the real person on whom the character of M. Paul Emanuel had been based (it was actually Charlotte’s teacher in Brussels, M. Heger):

You see how much the ladies think of this little man, whom you none of you like. I had a letter the other day, announcing that a lady of some note, who had always determined that whenever she married, her husband should be the counterpart of ‘Mr Knightly’ [sic] in Miss Austen’s Emma, had now changed her mind, and vowed that she would either find the duplicate of Professor Emanuel, or remain for ever single!

Others of us will never give up the ideal of Mr Knightley!

Judy Stove

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10 June 2002

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