Allusions to Books and Authors in Jane Austen's writings

"Because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical; but that did not signify."
-- Sense and Sensibility

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The following index to literary allusions in Jane Austen's writings mainly comes from the indexes in Chapman's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (volume 5 of his edition) and the Minor Works (volume 6), supplemented with some citations from A Jane Austen Dictionary by George L. Apperson (collected on AUSTEN-L by Aysin Dedekorkut).

Titles of works alluded to by Jane Austen are enclosed in an HTML <CITE>...</CITE> element (and so will be rendered in italic by most WWW browsers), while the titles of Jane Austen's own writings (as well as James Edward Austen-Leigh's 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen and the 1913 Life) are in boldface.


INDEX OF LITERARY ALLUSIONS

Chapman's notes to his index:

To make the evidence for Miss Austen's reading complete, I have indexed the references to books, plays &c. in the Letters and Fragments, as well as those in the Novels. References to the Letters are enclosed in square brackets; they are referred to by their dates.

The dates of the performances of plays are taken from Genest's Account of the English Stage. I give the date of the first performance, and of some others which Miss Austen might possibly have seen or heard of. (But Genest's lists do not seem to be complete.)


Adelaide and Theodore: see GENLIS.

The Agricultural Reports: Emma (perhaps General Review of the Agriculture of the County of Surrey by William Stevenson. 1809, 1813).

Arabian Nights Entertainments: Persuasion, The Three Sisters.

[Artaxerxes (an opera translated from Metastasio): Letters 5 March 1814.]

[Joseph BARETTI: Letters 20 Feb. 1807. The reference is probably to A Journey from London to Genoa (1770), and certainly to An Account of the Manners and Customs of ltaly (1768); it is in Italy that Baretti is "dreadfully abusive of poor Mrs. (Mr.) Sharpe".]

The Baronetage: Persuasion (? J. Debrett, Baronetage of England, 2 vols. 12mo. London 1808).

[Eaton Stannard BARRETT: The Heroine, or Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader (1813), Letters 2 March 1814.]

[Sir John BARROW: Letters 24 Jan. 1813 "what are their Biglands and their Barrows, their Macartneys and Mackenzies, to Captain Pasley's Essay on the Military Policy (sic) ... and the Rejected Addresses?" -- of a rival Book Society. The association of names makes it certain that Barrow is the editor of Macartney's (q.v.) Embassy to China (1807), John BIGLAND was the author of a History of Spain (1810) and A System of Geography and History (1812); Sir George Steuart MACKENZIE wrote Travels in lceland (1811).]

[James BEATTIE: The Hermit quoted, Letters 23 Sept. 1813.]

[The Beehive (a musical farce attributed to Millingen; Lyceum Jan. 1811, Covent Garden June 1813): Letters 15 Sept. 1813.]

The Beggar's Petition: see MOSS.

Belinda: see EDGEWORTH.

[Arnaud BERQUIN: L'Ami de l'Adolescence (Paris 1785). A copy in the library of the Swansea Training College is inscribed Jane Austen 1797 in Vol. I, and Cass. Elizth. Austen in Vols. II and III; see Mr. Salmon's letter in Times Lit. Suppl. 16 Feb. 1922.]

[John BIGLAND: see BARROW.]

Hugh BLAIR: Sermons (1777-1801) Mansfield Park, Catharine; Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres alluded to Northanger Abbey.

[Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs: see GARRICK.]

[BOSWELL: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), Letters 25 Nov. 1798; Life of Johnson (1791), ibid., adapted Poem to the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy, quoted 8 Feb. 1807 ("my dear Dr. Johnson"), 3 Nov. 1813.]

Isaac Hawkins BROWNE (the elder, 1705-60): A Pipe of Tobacco quoted Mansfield Park.

[Mary BRUNTON: Self-Control: a novel (1810), Letters 30 April 1811, 11 Oct. 1813.]

[Sir Egerton BRYDGES: Arthur Fitz-Albini: a Novel (1798), Letters 25 Nov. 1798, 11 June 1799.]

[Claudius BUCHANAN?: Letters 24 Jan. 1813 "I am as much in love with the author (Captain Pasley, q.v.) as ever I was with Clarkson or Buchanan". Claudius Buchanan was author of An Apology for Promoting Christianity in India (1813), Eight Sermons (1812), &c., &c. Thomas CLARKSON wrote Memoirs of William Penn (1813).]

Frances BURNEY: Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress (1782) Northanger Abbey, chapter 5, Persuasion; Camilla, or a Picture of Youth (1796) Northanger Abbey chapter 5 "It's only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda", Sanditon chapter 6 "She took up a Book; it happened to be a volume of Camilla".
[Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (1778), "written by Dr. Johnson", Letters 2 June 1799; Lord Orville, May or June 1814, Captain Mirvan, 26 Nov. 1815; Madame Duval, 8 Feb. 1807; Cecilia: "Aunt Cassandras are quite as scarce as Miss Beverleys", 24 Jan. 1809 (referring to the first paragraph of the novel); Camilla (Miss J. Austen's name is in the list of subscribers): Dr. Marchmont, 5 Sept. 1796, "she admires Camilla", 15 Sept. 1796; The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties (1814), 23 Sept. 1813.]

[Sarah Harriet BURNEY: Clarentine; a Novel (1798), Letters 8 Feb. 1807.]

Robert BURNS: his "Lines to his Mary", Sanditon; his "known Irregularities" (Charlotte Heywood), Sanditon.

BYRON: The Giaour (1813), The Bride of Abydos (1813), Persuasion chapter 11, comparison of "Mr. Scott and Lord Byron"; The Corsair (1814) quoted (l. 1, "O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea").
[The Corsair: Letters 5 March 1814.]

Thomas CAMPBELL: Pleasures of Hope (1799) quoted Sanditon chapter 7 "Campbell in his Pleasures of Hope has touched the extreme of our Sensations".

[Sir John CARR: Descriptive Travels in the Southern and Eastern Parts of Spain and the Balearic isles, in the year 1809 (1811), Letters 24 Jan. 1813; and see Mansfield Park.]

The Castle of Wolfenbach: see PARSONS.

[The Chances (Beaumont and Fletcher, altered by the Duke of Buckingham; Theatre Royal 1667; often revived, 1777-1808): a prologue by James Austen is extant, written for the performance at Steventon Jan. 1788; Life 66.]

The Children of the Abbey: see ROCHE.

[The Clandestine Marriage: see COLMAN.]

[Thomas CLARKSON: see BUCHANAN.]

Clermont: see ROCHE.

[George COLMAN (the elder): The Clandestine Marriage (with Garrick; Drury Lane Feb. 1766; often revived, 1784-1813; Covent Garden Sept. 1813): Letters 15 Sept. and 25 Sept. 1813.]

George COLMAN (the younger): The Heir at Law Mansfield Park chapter 14 (Haymarket 1797, Covent Garden 1797, Drury Lane 1808).

Columella: see GRAVES.

The Book of Common Prayer: Mansfield Park; "N takes M" quoted from Form of Solemnization of Matrimony in prayer book, Emma, chapter 53.

[Mrs. COOKE: Battleridge, an historical tale founded on facts. By a lady of quality (London, Cawthorn, 1799), Letters 27 Oct. 1798.]

[William COOMBE: The Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812) Letters 2 March 1814.]

[Edward COOPER: Practical and Familiar Sermons (1809), Letters 24 Jan. 1809; Two Sermons preached at Wolverhampton (1816), Letters 8 Sept. 1816.]

[Corinna: Letters 27 Dec. 1808. Two translations of Mme. de Stael's Corinne were published in 1807.]

Mrs. Hannah COWLEY: Which is the Man? (a comedy by Mrs. Cowley; Covent Garden Feb. 1782, May 1791): The Three Sisters [acted at Tunbridge Sept. 1787 and at Steventon Christmas 1787, Life 64]; The Belle's Stratagem, Letters 14 Jan. 1801 "Mr. Doricourt has travelled; he knows best".

William COWPER: Sense and Sensibility; The Sofa quoted Mansfield Park; The Winter Evening quoted Emma; Tirocinium quoted Mansfield Park; "Truth" (Poems 1782), quoted Sanditon.
[His works to be purchased, Letters 25 Nov. 1798; read by Mr. Austen, 18 Dec. 1798; The Task, 8 Feb. 1807; Verses on Alexander Selkirk, 23 Sept. 1813; contrasted with Johnson, 3 Nov. 1813. Her favourite poetical moralist, Biographical Notice to Northanger Abbey.]

CRABBE: Tales (1812) Mansfield Park chapter 16 "Here are Crabbe's Tales and the Idler at hand to relieve you, if you tire of your great book". [Letters 15 Sept., 18 Oct., 6 Nov. 1813. The preface from which she "made out that he probably was married" was no doubt that to The Borough (1810); see the third paragraph.]

Johann Baptist CRAMER, composer: Emma.

Richard CUMBERLAND: The Wheel of Fortune, a Comedy Mansfield Park chapter 14. (Drury Lane 1795, Covent Garden 1804.)

[DEFOE: Robinson Crusoe, Letters 14 Sept. 1804.]

Delamere: The hero of Charlotte Smith's Emmeline q.v.

[The Devil to Pay (altered by Coffey from Jevon's The Devil of a Wife; Drury Lane Aug. 1731; often revived 1779-1811; Covent Garden March 1814): Letters 5 March 1814.]

[DODSLEY'S Collection of Poems By Several Hands sold (or proposed to be sold) by J. A. for 10s., Letters 21 May 1801. Whitehead's Je ne scai Quoi and Hawkins Browne's Pipe of Tobacco, quoted Mansfield Park are both in Volume II of the Collection. Also "From Words she almost came to Blows" in Jack and Alice.]

[Don Juan, or the libertine Destroyed (a pantomime, founded on Shadwell's Libertine; Drury Lane May 1792, May 1789; Covent Garden May 1789): Letters 15 Sept. 1813.]

Douglas: see HOME.

Sir William DUGDALE: Persuasion (doubtless The antient usage in bearing of such ensigns of honour as are commonly call'd arms; to which is added a catalogue of the present nobility and baronets of England, 1682).

Maria EDGEWORTH: Belinda (1801), Northanger Abbey chapter 5.
[J. A.'s admiration for her novels, Letters 28 Sept. 1814; Patronage (1814), August 1814, "one of my vanities, like your not reading Patronage".]

Elegant Extracts, or useful and entertaining pieces of poetry (1789) compiled by Vicesimus Knox, the essayist: Emma (but Kitty, q.v., is not to be found there).

[The Farmer's Wife (an opera by Charles Dibdin; Covent Garden, Feb. and July 1814): Letters 9 March 1814 "a musical thing in three acts".]

FIELDING: Tom Jones (1749) Northanger Abbey chapter 7 "There has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk". [Letters 9 Jan. 1796, Biographical Notice to Northanger Abbey].

[Five Hours at Brighton (The Boarding House; or, Five Hours &c., a musical farce by Samuel Beazley; Lyceum, Aug. 1811): Letters 15 Sept. 1813.]

James FORDYCE: Sermons to Young Women (1766) Pride and Prejudice chapter 14 (from which Mr Collins read to the Bennet family).

The Gamester: see MOORE.

GARRICK: Emma (see Kitty).
[Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs (Drury Lane March 1775): acted at Tunbridge Sept. 1787 and at Steventon Christmas 1787; Life. See also COLMAN, and High Life below Stairs.]

GAY: Fables: The Hare and Many Friends Northanger Abbey chapter 1, quoted Emma chapter 52 "For when a lady's in the case, you know all other things give place".

Madame de GENLIS: Adelaide and Theodore (1783) Emma chapter 53. Emma probably read this author in English (translation 1783), as Miss Austen herself did, see below.
[Alphonsine: or Maternal Affection. A Novel (second edition 1807), Letters 7 Jan. 1807 "Alphonsine did not do. We were disgusted in twenty pages, as, independent of a bad translation, it has indelicacies" &c. Les Veillées du Château, Letters 8 Nov. 1800. This may have been read in French, for the translation is called Tales of the Castle (Dublin 1785 is the earliest edition in the British Museum). Olympe et Théophile, Letters 13 March 1815, is a part of the voluminous Veillées; in Tales of the Castle it is styled Theophilus and Olympia; or the Errours of Youth and Age.]

William GILPIN: Three Essays: -- on Picturesque Beauty, -- on Picturesque Travel; and on Sketching Landscape: to which is added a Poem on Landscape Painting (1792), Biographical Notice to Northanger Abbey "At a very early age she was enamoured of Gilpin on the Picturesque"; Observations, relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, made in the Year 1776, on Several Parts of Great Britain, particularly the High-Lands of Scotland (1789) Love and Freindship (1790) "Her curiosity to behold the delightful scenes ... had been so much raised by Gilpin's Tour to the Highlands"; "those first of Men Robert Earl of Essex, Delamere, or Gilpin" The History of England (1791). Allusions to Gilpin: "The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth" (Pride and Prejudice, chapter 10); probably also "Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was" (Sense and Sensibility chapter 18).

[Thomas GISBORNE?: Letters 30 August 1805 "I am glad you recommended ``Gisborne'', for having begun, I am pleased with it, and I had quite determined not to read it". This is perhaps An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex by Thomas Gisborne, 1797.]

[William GODWIN: "as raffish in his appearance as I could wish every disciple of Godwin to be", Letters 21 May 1801.]

GOETHE: The Sorrows of Werter, Love and Freindship (1790). There were English versions earlier than 1790 by Richard Graves (1780) and by J. Gifford (1789).

GOLDSMITH: History of England Mansfield Park (Jane Austen's copy is the work in four volumes published in 1771); Vicar of Wakefield Emma chapter 4 "I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield"; When lovely woman Emma.
[J. A.'s annotated copy of the History of England, Life.]

[Mrs. Anne GRANT: Letters from the Mountains, being the real correspondence of a Lady, between the years 1773 and 1807 (1807), Letters 20 Feb. 1807, 24 Jan. and 9 Feb. 1813.]

Richard GRAVES (author of The Spiritual Quixote): Columella; or, The Distressed Anchoret (1779), Sense and Sensibility.

GRAY: the Elegy misquoted Northanger Abbey, Emma.

[Miss Elizabeth HAMILTON: The Cottagers of Glenburnie (1808) Letters 6 Nov. 1813.]

Hare and Many Friends: see GAY.

Sir John HAWKINS: Life of Johnson (1787), perhaps alluded to Persuasion.

[Laetitia Matilda HAWKINS: Rosanne; or a Father's Labour Lost (1814), Letter quoted in Memoir Ed. 2 p. 131.]

The Heir at Law: see COLMAN.

[Robert HENRY D.D.: The History of Great Britain, 6 vols. 4to, 1771-93: Letters 12 Nov. 1800. Each of the ten books is divided into seven chapters, the subjects being as stated by Jane Austen; the portion for Saturday is "the history of the manners, virtues, vices, remarkable customs, language, dress, diet, and diversions of the people".]

[High Life below Stairs (a farce, attributed to Garrick, but probably by Townley -- Genest. Drury Lane Oct. 1759 and frequently revived, e.g. Covent Garden May 1810): acted at Steventon Jan. 1790, Life 66.]

Prince HOARE: My Grandmother, a musical farce Mansfield Park allusion chapter 13 (Haymarket 1793; not again until 1823.)

John HOME: Douglas, a Tragedy quoted Mansfield Park chapter 13 "My name was Norval", chapter 14 (Edinburgh 1756, Covent Garden 1757, and often revived e.g. Covent Garden 1797-1803).

[HOOK'S Lessons for Beginners, Letters 16 Sept. 1813: perhaps James Hook's Guida di Musica, being a complete book of instructions for the Harpsichord or Pianoforte, 1790 new edition 1810.]

Horrid Mysteries: see WILL.

HUME: History Northanger Abbey.

[The Hypocrite (altered by Bickerstaffe from Cibber's version of Tartuffe, The Nonjuror; Drury Lane Nov. 1768 and often revived, e. g. Lyceum Jan. 1810, Haymarket July 1814, Drury Lane July 1814): Letters 25 April 1811.]

The Idler: see JOHNSON.

[Illusion, or the Trances of Nourjahad (a Melodramatic Spectacle -- Genest. Drury Lane Nov. 1813): Letters 5 March 1814.]

Mrs. INCHBALD: Lovers' Vows; From the German of Kotzebue Mansfield Park chapter 13, passim (translated from Kotzebue's Natural Son; Covent Garden Oct 1798, May 1809; Drury Lane, Nov. 1802; Haymarket May 1803.)

[Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage: a Tragedy; adapted by Garrick from Southerne's Fatal Marriage: Letters 28 Nov. 1814 "Miss O'Neill in Isabella".]

The Italian: see RADCLIFFE.

Jane Shore: see ROWE.

[William JEFFERSON: Entertaining literary Curiosities, consisting of Wonders of Nature and Art, remarkable characters; fragments, etc. (1808). This is no doubt the work for which Edward and Jane Austen subscribed, Letters 15 Jun and 26 June 1808.]

Samuel JOHNSON: "the first of Men", Poem to the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy; The Idler Mansfield Park chapter 16 "Here are Crabbe's Tales and the Idler at hand to relieve you"; the Dictionary Northanger Abbey; Rasselas quoted Mansfield Park. The passage in Love and Freindship which begins "we left Macdonald Hall, and... sate down by the side of a clear limpid stream" seems clearly written in parody of a well-known passage in A Journey to the Western Islands (1775, p. 86). The knowledge that there were two Universities in Aberdeen (Lesley Castle) probably came from Johnson's description of that city (Journey p. 27). See also BOSWELL.
[Her favourite moral writer in prose, Biographical Notice to Northanger Abbey.]

The Kentish Gazette (published from 1768): Sanditon.

Kitty, a fair but frozen maid: Emma chapter 9; the verses were Garrick's.

[Lake of Killarney: see PORTER.]

Francis LATHOM: The Midnight Bell. A German Story Founded on Incidents in Real Life (1798) (confirmed by Michael Sadleir) Northanger Abbey chapter 6. [Letters 27 Oct. 1798.]

[Charlotte LENNOX: The Female Quixote: or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752), Letters 7 Jan. 1807.]

Matthew Gregory LEWIS: The Monk. A Romance. By M. G. Lewis, Esq. M.P.; Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque, Hor. Dreams, magic terrors, spells of mighty pow'r, Witches, and ghosts who rove at midnight hour. Waterford (1796). The London edition of the same year is anonymous. Northanger Abbey chapter 7 "There has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk".

Lovers' Vows: see INCHBALD.

Lord MACARTNEY: Journal of the Embassy to China (1807) Mansfield Park.

[Sir George Steuart MACKENZIE?: see BARROW.]

Henry MACKENZIE: see Mirror.

"Malbrook", Lesley Castle. "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre" has been sung in England to the tune of "He's a jolly good fellow" and "We won't go home till morning" (Oxford Companion to Music).

[Margiana; or Widdrington Tower (1808): Letters 10 Jan. 1809.]

[Midas: an English Burletta (by O'Hara; Covent Garden Feb. 1764 and often revived, e.g. Covent Garden Sept. 1812 Drury Lane June 1815): Letters 15 Sept. 1813.]

The Midnight Bell: see LATHOM.

MILTON: Northanger Abbey; Paradise lost quoted Mansfield Park 43, l'Allegro quoted Emma "Hymen's saffron robe" [Letters 14 Oct. 1813, 9 Sept. 1814].

The Mirror, edited by Henry Mackenzie, 1779-80: Northanger Abbey.

The Monk: see LEWIS.

James MONTGOMERY: "has all the Fire of Poetry" (Sir Edward Denham), Sanditon.

Edward MOORE: The Gamester, a Tragedy Mansfield Park (Drury Lane 1753, 1813; Covent Garden 1797, 1803).

[Hannah MORE:

  • Coelebs in Search of a Wife (1809), Catharine, Letters 24 Jan and 30 Jan. 1809;
  • "Mrs. (sic) H. More's recent publication", Letters 31 May 1811, is no doubt Practical Piety (1811).]

The Morning Post: Sanditon.

Rev. Thomas MOSS: Poems on Several Occasions (Wolverhampton 1769), the first of which is The Beggar's Petition Northanger Abbey chapter 1.

My Grandmother: see HOARE.

The Mysterious Warning: see PARSONS.

Navy-list Persuasion.

The Necromancer: see TEUTHOLD.

The Orphan of the Rhine: see SLEATH.

[Sydney OWENSON (afterwards Lady Morgan): Woman, or Ida of Athens (1809), The Wild Irish Girl (1806), Letters 17 Jan. 1809.]

Mrs. PARSONS: The Castle of Wolfenbach, A German Story (1793), The Mysterious Warning, A German Tale (1796), Northanger Abbey chapter 6.

[Captain (Sir Charles William) PASLEY, R.E.: Essay on the Military Policy and Institutions of the British Empire (sic, not Police; but Police can mean the same thing as Policy) (1810): Letters 24 Jan., 9 Feb. 1813.]

[Mrs. PIOZZI: Letters to and from the late Samuel Johnson LL.D. (1788) quoted (Vol. I, p. 270), Letters 9 Dec. 1808; her epistolary style imitated, 11 June 1799.]

Alexander POPE: Northanger Abbey chapter 5; "admiring Pope no more than is proper" Sense and Sensibility, To the Memory of an Unfortunate lady quoted Northanger Abbey chapter 1, Essay on Criticism quoted Persuasion 150; Essay on Man (1733), burlesqued A Collection of Letters
[Essay on Man misquoted, "Whatever is, is best", Letters 20 Oct. 1813.]

[Anna Maria PORTER: Lake of Killarney (1804) Letters 24 Oct. 1808.]

PRIOR: Northanger Abbey; Henry and Emma Persuasion chapter 12 (an allusion) "Without emulating the feelings of an Emma towards her Henry, she would have attended on Louisa with a zeal above the common claims of regard, for his sake.".

The Psalms: Psalm 16 (prayer book version) misquoted Emma chapter 21.

The Quarterly Review (first published February 1809): Mansfield Park

Ann RADCLIFFE:

  • The Romance of the Forest: Interspersed with some Pieces of Poetry (1791), Emma chapter 4 "He never read the Romance of the Forest";
  • The Mysteries of Udolpho, a Romance; Interspersed with some Pieces of Poetry (1794), Northanger Abbey chapter 6 "While I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable", passim;
  • The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents. A Romance (1797), Northanger Abbey chapter 6 "When you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together".
  • [Letters 2 March 1814.]

Humphrey REPTON: author of Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1803), alluded to, Mansfield Park.

Samuel RICHARDSON:

  • "the most exceptionable parts", "in the line of the Lovelaces", Sanditon; Richardson's imitators, Sanditon;
  • Sir Charles Grandison (1753) Northanger Abbey chapter 6 "Mrs. Morland... very often reads Sir Charles Grandison herself; but new books do not fall in our way", Jack and Alice, Evelyn;
  • No. 97 of The Rambler quoted Northanger Abbey chapter 3 "if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared".
  • [Harriet Byron, Letters 15 Sept. 1813, 11 Oct. 1813;
  • J. A.'s intimacy with Sir Charles Grandison, Memoir Ed. 2, p. 84, Biographical Notice to Northanger Abbey.]

William ROBERTSON: Northanger Abbey.

Robin Adair: Emma.

Regina Maria ROCHE: The Children of the Abbey. A Tale (1798 D. N. B.; first edition not in British Museum), Emma chapter 4 (The book Robert Martin had never read); Clermont. A Tale (1798), Northanger Abbey chapter 6.

The Romance of the Forest: see RADCLIFFE.

Nicholas ROWE: Jane Shore (1714) History of England.

Sir Walter SCOTT:

  • Sense and Sensibility; "Mr. Scott and Lord Byron", Persuasion; his "beautiful Lines on the Sea" existing only in Sir Edward Denham's fancy, Sanditon;
  • Marmion (1808) Persuasion chapter 11 "Trying to ascertain whether Marmion or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred", "Oh! Woman in our Hours of Ease" (Marmion vi. 80) Sanditon;
  • The Lady of the Lake (1810) Persuasion chapter 11, "Some feelings are to Mortals given" (Lady of the Lake ii. 22) Sanditon;
  • The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) quoted Mansfield Park chapter 9 "Here are ... no banners, cousin, to be ``blown by the night wind of heaven''. No signs that a ``Scottish monarch sleeps below''", chapter 28 "Stopping at the entrance door like the Lady of Branxholm Hall, ``one moment and no more''."
  • [Marmion, Letters 20 June 1808, 10 Jan. 1809, parodied, 29 Jan. 1813, read aloud by J. A., Life 207;
  • The Lady of the Lake, 6 June 1811;
  • The Field of Waterloo (1815), 23 Nov. 1815;
  • "Walter Scott has no business to write novels" (i. e. Waverley, published 7 July 1814), 28 Sept. 1814;
  • The Antiquary (1816), 16 Dec. 1816.
  • Paul's Letter to his Kinsfolk, 23 Nov. 1815 "Scott's Account of Paris"; the Memoir says "this must have been Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk"; the Life suggests, alternatively, John Scott's Paris Revisited in 1815, but it is clear that J. A. was asking Mr. John Murray for a copy of one of his own publications. Paul was published by him (and others), Paris Revisited by Longmans.]

Thomas SEEKER: Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England (1769) Catharine (replaced in the MS. by Hannah More's Coelebs, q.v.).

SHAKESPEARE: "a part of an Englishman's constitution" Mansfield Park;

Richard Brinsley SHERIDAN: The Rivals, The School for Scandal, Mansfield Park chapter 14. The Critic (1779) is mentioned in The History of England.

[Thomas SHERLOCK: Letters 28 Sept. 1814 "I am very fond of Sherlock's Sermons and prefer them to almost any": no doubt Several Discourses preached at the Temple Church, 4 vols. 1754-8, and a fifth 1797; a new edition was printed at the Clarendon Press in 1812 (and is still on sale).]

Eleanor SLEATH: The Orphan of the Rhine, a Novel (1798), Northanger Abbey chapter 6; not in the British Museum Catalogue, which however, records the same author's Nocturnal Minstrel, or, The Spirit of the Wood.

Charlotte SMITH (1749-1800): Emmeline, or the Orphan of the Castle (1788) History of England, Catharine; Ethelinde, or the Recluse of the Lake (1789) Catharine.

[James and Horace SMITH: Rejected Addresses: or the new Theatrum Poetarum (1812), Letters 24 Jan. 1813 ("the two Mr. Smiths of the City").]

[SOUTHEY: Letters from England, by Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella (1807), Letters 1 Oct. 1808; Life of Nelson (1813), 11 Oct. 1813, The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo (1816), 24 Jan. 1817.]

The Spectator: Northanger Abbey chapter 5.

STERNE: Northanger Abbey; A Sentimental Journey quoted Mansfield Park. [Uncle Toby's Annuity (Tristram Shandy, Bk. III, ch. 22), Letters 14 Sept. 1804.]

[The Sultan, or A Peep into the Seraglio (a farce attributed to Bickerstaffe; Drury Lane Dec. 1775, and revived 1782-96): acted at Steventon Jan. 1790, Life.]

Peter TEUTHOLD: The Necromancer; or The Tale of the Black Forest. Founded on Facts. Translated from the German of Lawrence Flammenberg (1794), Northanger Abbey chapter 6.

THOMSON: Sense and Sensibility; Spring quoted Northanger Abbey.

VOLTAIRE: Sanditon (see COWPER).

[WEST, Mrs.: Alicia de Lacey, an Historical Romance (1814) Letters 28 Sept. 1814, 8 Sept. 1816.]

The Wheel of Fortune: see CUMBERLAND.

[Which is the Man: see COWLEY.]

William WHITEHEAD: The Je ne scai Quoi, a song quoted Mansfield Park (probably from Dodsley's Collection Vol. II), parodied in A Collection of Letters from the juvenilia.

Peter WILL: Horrid Mysteries: a Story. From the German of the Marquis of Grosse (1796), Northanger Abbey chapter 6 (mentioned in Chapter ii of Nightmare Abbey).

[Helen Maria WILLIAMS: A Narrative of the Events which have lately taken place in France (1815), Letters 24 Nov. 1815.]

[The Wonder: a Woman Keeps a Secret (a comedy by Mrs. Centlivre; Drury Lane April 1714 and frequently revived, e.g. Drury Lane Jan. 1787): acted at Steventon Christmas 1787, with a prologue by James Austen, Life 65.]

William WORDSWORTH: "has the true soul" of poetry (Sir Edward Denham), Sanditon.

Allusions not traced

Northanger Abbey: ``we are told to "despair of nothing we would attain", as "unwearied diligence our point would gain"'' -- obviously a rhymed couplet. But it has eluded the diligence of all my helpers.

Northanger Abbey: ``Did you ever hear the old song, "Going to one wedding brings on another?"'' -- this could no doubt be found in the old collections of popular songs.

Persuasion: ``The elegant little clock on the mantle-piece had struck "eleven with its silver sounds".'' -- Professor Grierson has suggested (Times Literary Supplement, 8 Dec. 1921) that this is a reminiscence of The Rape of the Lock, I. 13-18, "And the pressed watch returned a silver sound". If so the quotation-marks are misplaced. But the proofs of Persuasion were not seen by the author.


only in Apperson:

"The Task" by Cowper -- Emma chapter 41,
Mansfield Park chapter 6 (allusions).



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