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Book review
The Author’s Inheritance: Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, and the Establishment of the Novel

By Jo Alyson Parker

Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1998

Reviewed by Yvette Field

It is universally acknowledged that at American universities funds flow fairly freely to Faculty. This fact is known to academic communities throughout the English-speaking world and sometimes is a cause of some chagrin from cash-strapped counterparts in less well endowed institutions in the Commonwealth. Our own Society has been a grateful recipient of the largesse available to American academics, as excellent speakers, flushed with travel grants to top off their research funds, have made their way to our conference podiums. A further benefit comes from the growth in University Presses in the States at the same time as many literary scholars turn their attention to Jane Austen and her period. PhD theses, which in previous eras would have sat, solidly bound, on one university library’s shelves, or perhaps been made available on microfiche for determined researchers, are, if deserving enough, plucked from such obscurity, their authors given the satisfaction of working on the book and, at last, of handling their own beautifully produced, quality copies. It is most probable that The Author’s Inheritance is one such volume.

It has all the characteristics of an academic text, and this can limit its general appeal to members of Jane Austen societies whose interest in Jane Austen is not for serious study purposes. Readers will find that the discussion is heavily weighted with intertextuality; references abound, to previous scholars of the early development of the novel and to Fielding and Austen criticism within the scope of the subject area. Jo Alyson Parker has an academic reader in mind, and can probably expect that her book will be available for readers at many universities. There are meticulous textual endnotes and a full reference list of cited works, rather than a general bibliography, again, in academic style. The focus of the book is finely limited in its scope. To find a gap in knowledge is an obvious necessity for original research and this ‘is the first extended study of the influence of Henry Fielding on the works of Jane Austen’ according to the book cover. Readers who are familiar only with Tom Jones among the works of Fielding, and that perhaps from film or the recent TV series, may find the equal discussion of three novels by Fielding outweighs the benefit of discussions of Jane Austen’s novels that can come from the Fielding comparison. Finally, academic language, with its habitual use of theoretical abstractions and erudite vocabulary, can slow the flow of clear communication. For example, on page 65, Parker refers to Fielding’s ‘prolegomenous’ theorising, rather self-consciously, since the word is in quotation marks, and it takes a moment to realise that she is referring to Fielding’s practice of theorising in prologues to his novels. For another, an early discussion of ‘bildungstrom’ did not illuminate this word for me completely, and active reading of the kind where one jumps up to find a reference book did not appeal. It was therefore a relief to find in the penultimate chapter a brief explanation that it refers to heroes and heroines – how they err, face up to errors and develop.

Having said all that, the discussion is informative and thorough and when she is not being so consciously erudite and attributive, Jo Alyson Parker can also write in a lively manner. An advantage in academic texts that is evident here is a very explicit structure, which enables readers to select what is important for their interests. The introduction sets out aims, themes, gives a thorough background to the early novel and explains how the chapters are organised. The overall aim is ‘to explore the textual strategies that Fielding and Austen employ to establish literary authority’ (p.6). This is explained as establishing both their moral authority as authors as the story unfolds and their attempts to legitimise the novel genre.

The author outlines her reasons for comparing Henry Fielding to Jane Austen, rather than to Samuel Richardson. Both men are generally regarded as major originators of the novel form, and according to Henry Austen’s Biographical Notice of 1817 (quoted) ‘she did not rank any work of Fielding quite so high’ as that of the author of Sir Charles Grandison. Parker prefers to consider Fielding in tracing an inheritance to Jane Austen, describing Richardson’s work as ‘circumscribed and sentimental’ whereas Fielding and Austen are great writers with an ‘expansive, comic’ spirit, ‘a wry narrative voice’, keeping a certain distance from their creations. She does point out later (p.120) that the Fielding heroines, Sophia in Tom Jones and Amelia in the novel of that name, are both based on his beloved first wife Charlotte Cradock, which seems to demonstrate much less objectivity than is seen in Austen’s work. A further aptness for comparison Parker sees is the writers’ attitudes to their chosen literary form. Fielding, she considers, saw himself as heir to a long tradition, whereas she finds Jane Austen ‘consistently’ aware of the genre’s ‘vexed status’ (p.8). This does not seem, however, very convincing for Austen’s mature novels, as Parker later has to admit. Finally she aims to explore gender- based strategies for legitimising the novel. In a later chapter, in the style that might put off some readers, the author sums up her themes by referring to a point by Lionel Trilling, who had first linked Tom Jones to Pride and Prejudice and Amelia to Mansfield Park. She declares that ‘Trilling’s statement anticipates the intra-canonic, trans-gendered, trans-generational connections that I have been making throughout’ (p.156). Quite so.

It would be easy to be selective if readers did not want to follow an analysis of the gender question for instance, or in Part 1 a discussion of Joseph Andrews or Shamela, as reactive novels, (since they were, of course prompted by Fielding’s dislike of Richardson’s Pamela ) compared to Jane Austen’s reactions to certain literary forms in Northanger Abbey. The pattern is that a chapter on Fielding’s novels is followed by one on Austen’s, both chapters comprising the content of one part of the book. Part 2 compares what Parker calls ‘the masterpieces’, Tom Jones and Pride and Prejudice and Part 3 discusses Fielding’s perfect wifely heroine, the eponymous Amelia, with Mansfield Park. The second chapter of Part 3 discusses Fanny as Austen’s conduct book heroine. It contributes quite enjoyably to the familiar discussion of how readers react to Fanny and to Austen’s partisan support for her, and was a fitting finale to the theme of moral authority. I liked one line here particularly, which will also illustrate what I mean by ‘lively’ writing. ‘Both are fixed – Lady Bertram on her couch, Fanny in her opinions’ (p.161).

This is an erudite book, with limited appeal to those who are not using it for academic purposes. The author does demonstrate her liveliness and her appreciation of Jane Austen throughout, so there is some more general value in reading her. I suspect this lady will be a good lecturer. Perhaps she will test the generosity of her new university, St Joseph’s, Philadelphia, for travel grants, and come to speak at one of our conferences one day.

10 August 2002

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