VICTOBER 2025 discussion

Share your Victorian reading with a connection to Jane Austen here.
This can be something directly about Jane Austen, an author influenced by Jane Austen or Victorian literature similar to Austen's novels.

Katie posted a video recommending Elizabeth Gaskell's works that use themes similar to Austen's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTkC...

I'll be reading A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections by her nephew James Austen-Leigh, which was published in 1870.

I just finished reading The Semi Attached Couple by Emily Eden, and I heard/read she really admired Jane Austen. There's a mention in the book of one of the characters wanting to read a novel she saw in another character's home, Pride and Prejudice. And another mention in a conversation about "one of Miss Austen's novels. "

Lucy wrote: "I just finished reading The Semi Attached Couple by Emily Eden, and I heard/read she really admired Jane Austen."

That's interesting. More books for my TBR. :) Do you remember where you read that she had been a fan, Lucy?
I did a quick search in her letters and found only these two references to Pride and Prejudice (Mr Collins and Lady Catherine's house, the Rosing's):

"My dearest Theresa, I should have written sooner to tell you where to write to me, but I was rather in hopes George would let me stay another month at Tunbridge. Everybody was going away, so we might have had a very small house for half the price we gave for ours, and as the servants will eat whether they are there or in Grosvenor Street, I thought we might have lived more economically than in posting all over England. However, after much correspondence, George, who terrifies me by the way in which he spends his own money, settled that the expenses were nearly equal, and that being the case that he would rather have us with him. " I never met with such an instance of politeness all my life," as the immortal Collins observes, — not the Professor Collins, but the far greater " Pride and Prejudice " Collins. And so we packed up and came here, and I expect George and Mr. Wall to arrive every minute."
The Letter from Miss Eden to Miss Villiers, 1826 (Miss Eden's Letters)

We played at ‘ lottery,’ as we always do when we are by way of being alone, and they thought it delightful and agreedto make a great resource of it at Canton. It is a great triumph to ‘ Mrs. Phillips ’ that lottery tickets should have spread from her drawing-room, which was not bigger than the summer breakfast parlour at Rosing’s, to Canton by means of ---, and to Hyderabad by means of Colonel ---."
The Letter, 11th June, 1837 (Letters From India, vol. 2)

She apparently knew Pride and Prejudice quite well, to reference not only a side character but a fictional place from the book so casually.

I read Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. It fulfills loads of prompts as you would expect a chunky book by Dickens would. In order to connect to Austen, I made note of Daniel Poole's excellent book What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew. I reckon that should count well enough.

Hello everyone :)
for this challenge, I read The Rector, from the Carlingford Chronicles by Margaret Oliphant (which was recommanded by Katie for her challenge). It was really a short reading but I noted a few references to Jane Austen, such as the names of the characters (Wodehouse and Wentworth) and also the theme of the marriage, the choice to be married or not.
Maybe there were other references? If you read this story, I am very curious to discuss about it.

(PS : I'm French so excuse me if my comment is not well-written!)

I finished A Memoir of Jane Austen by James Austen-Leigh (1870) which is a very partial and loving portrayal of Jane Austen by her nephew, with lots of quotes from her letters to and from family members and famous people. I rather liked this little book, even if now just about everything in it has been quoted or referred to by modern biographers. It also includes the original ending of Persuasion that Austen re-wrote and some bits from Sanditon.

A summary of JA connections to my reading:

• Oliphant direct criticism of JA’s writing from a larger essay
• “To Jane Austen” Andrew Lang criticism
• Hester Roland has “fine eyes” and characters are individuals who behave according to their own psychological truths
• “My French Master” two of Austen’s brothers were Navy men during the French and Napoleonic wars
• Cranford and "The Cage at Cranford" Austen-like in subject, characterization, tone, and style
• Currently reading: Framley Parsonage Lucy Robarts has “fine eyes”