Juxtaposing Sanditon, The Woman of Colour, and Owen Castle provides insight into how Austen was working within a set of established literary traditions, while creating ways to disrupt some of its problematic elements. This project looks at conventions of the mixed-race female characters in five ways. To begin, I discuss the mixed-race heroine and the compulsion to define her place of origin. Second, I consider the convention of describing mixed-race heiresses' rights to their inheritance. An analysis of the significance of naming mixed-race heiresses follows. I discuss literary conventions of the betrayal of mixed-race females. Lastly, I explore the common use of black maid figures in novels of this era to advance social critique against prejudice. Comparative analysis of Austen with other novels featuring mixed-race heroines in this era allows us to reach new understandings of Sanditon. Austen's unfinished last novel is shown to question the power of fortune, to undermine the orthodoxy of categorizing race and ethnicity, and to unsettle the hierarchy among characters of different races and ethnicities.
This edition has a gift dedication from the author's nephew to Edmund Gosse, suggesting he once owned the book. Dedicatation, "Mr. Edmund Gosse in remembrance of my Uncle Philip James Bailey Sep: 1902 F. CC."
This edition includes handwritten annotations to subscription lists. Many of the annotations are regarding numbers of copies, additional subscribers, etc.
This edition contains a handwritten poem near the back titled by the writer, “David’s Funeral Elegy over Saul and Jonathan.” Also, the page where the actual lamentation occurs in the text includes a reader’s note which says “How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war famished!” These might be the work of a student who was using the book.
This edition includes two flat signatures of William Morris, one is dated "8th of June 1802".
This editor's gift inscription appears to be to Jessie Benton Evans (1866-1954), "To Mrs. Evans from the Editor 1907". The bookplate in the volume is from Benton's Memorial Library.
I argue that, in the aftermath of the Union, these women writers often expressed specifically gendered concerns— such as the maintenance of social etiquette, better education for women, making sense of national prejudices, and the erasure of regional socio-economic differences. In doing so, they ranged beyond a typically masculine focus on parliamentary politics, international military endeavors, macro economy, and national churches. English women writers' attitudes towards the Union were more positive than those entertained by Scots authors, but compared with contemporary male writers, both sides were less optimistic about the potential for building a blanket national identity for the entire Kingdom.
Taken together, the chapters of the dissertation provide a more comprehensive view of how the Anglo-Scottish Union figured in the minds of Britons, male and female, a century after its establishment, when the Kingdom was going through the Napoleonic Wars and another union with Ireland. The dissertation enriches our research on women's use of literary genres and techniques when taking part in political debates. It also serves to point out the need for more extensive surveys of the nuances of individual women writers' national affiliations.