JANE AUSTEN

A contemporary feminist firebrand salutes the wicked wit of the legendary novelist

‘The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all – it is very tiresome.’ So says Catherine Morland of history books in Northanger Abbey,

the first novel Jane Austen completed (although the last to be published). Two centuries on, how little has changed. We still learn almost exclusively about men’s lives and achievements. And we wonder why women are frustrated.

The novelist has appeared with a strange regularity in my life. One of my first English reports mentions that I was ‘already reading Austen’ by the time I was 11. I studied her as my special author at Oxford University. And then in 2013, when I ran a successful campaign asking the Bank of England to include a female historical figure on its banknotes, they chose Austen as the woman to be featured.

I was delighted with the choice. It seemed to be peculiarly apt given how heavily engaged Austen is with the representation – and misrepresentation – of women. In my favourite novel Persuasion, the heroine, Anne, argues with Captain Harville about whether men or women are more fickle.

‘But let me observe,’ says Harville, ‘that all histories are against you – all stories, prose and verse. […] I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman’s fickleness. But perhaps, you will say, these were all written by men.’ ‘Perhaps I shall,’ replies Anne, who like Austen’s first heroine, Catherine, has little time for what is recorded in books. ‘Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.’

While I was happy with the Bank’s decision, I do quibble with the choice of quotation: ‘I declare, after all, that there is no enjoyment like reading!’ Not that this is a bad line – it’s actually a very funny one, spoken by Caroline Bingley in Pride and Prejudice just after she has, in fact, put her book down – one that she had originally picked up because it was the second volume of the tome Mr Darcy was reading. And, as we know, Caroline Bingley is in pursuit of Mr Darcy himself. The line, therefore, simply drips with irony.

No, the reason I took issue with the quotation is that it does a disservice to Austen’s caustic wit. The Bank, like too many other institutions, underestimates Austen. She is seen to be a safe, conservative choice: a nice, superficial lady writing about nice, superficial lady things.

Although, perhaps, that is her greatest achievement: she was writing at a time during which if women weren’t supposed to write, they certainly weren’t meant to be politically engaged. Thus, Austen smuggled her acid critiques into her work, concealing them beneath a light-hearted comedic surface. And it is testament to her skill that, 200 years later, she is still deceiving us.

‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez (£16.99, Chatto & Windus) will be published on 7 March.