Ha, it is probably a long time since I wrote a phrase like that. Anyway, I just read two biographies of nineteeth century women writers, Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen, and Frances Thomas' Christina Rosetti. Both were excellent - I do believe Claire Tomalin must be one of the best living biographers, she is so good - and reading them one after the other was quite an interesting excercise, although not deliberate.
The thing about Jane Austen is I always sort of forget how local she was. Although that is really impossible, as one of the Five Interesting Facts about Basingstoke is that she used to come here for dances at the Assembly Rooms (demolished in 1832, and now the site of Barclays Bank), and I know this and have always known it, and Chawton is only 15 miles away, and Steventon only eight, still, it is only when you read something where pretty much everything happens within a 20 mile radius of your own house that you realise that she basically lived here, in this exact part of Hampshire. This is weird, because I am used to thinking of Basingstoke as being pointless and ahistorical, even though I know this isn't true. We've had a Wednesday market since 1214 for goodness' sake.
Anyway, reading about Jane Austen made me look up some of the vanished big houses, like Kempshott Park and Manydown, and wonder which of them I would have worked in as a scullery maid, if I had been born here in the 19th century. However, this is all by the by. Really, when you read about Jane Austen's life, you find yourself feeling sorry for her because she couldn't marry the man she would have liked to marry, because he had no money and neither did she. And as her books are about marrying the right person (don't interrupt, I know there is more to them than that), this seems unfortunate. But when you read about her brother's wives, her mother, her aunts and cousins and nieces, all exhausted by endless, endless childbearing, you start to wonder. She says of one of her nieces (I think) who is pregnant immediately after marrying: 'Poor animal, she will be quite worn out by thirty' and she will, of course. They all have eight or nine or more children, these women, and the chances of any of them writing any books at all would have vanished like the wind. Tomalin says something like 'and would we exchange Jane's books for Jane's children?' and of course we wouldn't. Think of all those unwritten books, unwritten by women killed by babies. It is shocking really. Getting married killed Charlotte Bronte, didn't it?
And Christina is the same, although her reasons for staying single seem to be more to do with being very godly and conscious of one's soul (so she couldn't marry a man dabbling with Catholicism, for example, due to being very very Anglican indeed) rather than cash, there would be no carefully constructed melancholy poems from Christina the mamma.
Jane, like many middle class country women, was trapped at home in the winter, as she didn't ride, and without a horse you simply couldn't go anywhere, as the roads were too bad. At least Christina lived in London, so she could walk about whatever the season.
I am not very interested in poetry, and Christina's is generally not to my taste. It is quite Victorian and mostly about death in rather a - hmm - polite way that would have perhaps been more fun if she had been less godly... but reminds you over and over again that whatever Dante Gabriel Rosetti might get up to, or indeed Jane Austen's brothers - more staid but still adventurous - Jane and Christina had no opportunity for any of that. Having adventures could destroy you utterly. Just imagine that, it is rubbish.
(As an aside - I Googled 'christina rosetti biography' to find out Frances Thomas' name (easier than getting up and looking, right?) and it suggested I might want a 'christina rosetti biography for children'. I can't imagine why I would. I mean, I agree with Thomas that CGR is painfully undervalued as a poet, and overshadowed by her brother, and the other Pre-Raffs, and her life is a lot more interesting than you might expect for a very religious Victorian lady, but I can't see any children caring.)
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