Runs on all three branches of his bank ruined him by the turn of the year, and he was declared a bankrupt.Ģ3 Hans Place, by Laurel Ann Nattress, I’m filling in this backstory for two reasons: It’s the basis of my thirteenth Jane Austen mystery novel, Jane and the Waterloo Map (Soho Crime, February 2, 2016), but it’s also important to understanding, I think, so much of Jane Austen’s work. Henry Austen was a banker and a militia payroll agent. Wellington had narrowly won the Battle of Waterloo six months before, at enormous human cost to both the Allied and the French forces, but as a result of Napoleon’s fall and the end of hostilities on the Continent and in America, tens of thousands of military men returned to England in want of jobs. He’d lost his wife a few years earlier, and now, as Jane celebrated her fortieth birthday, they were two middle-aged siblings supporting each other through the wretched autumn of 1815. She was there in part because Henry was ailing, and he was her favorite brother. Two hundred years ago this past Christmas, Jane Austen was staying with her brother Henry at his house in Hans Place, London-not far from the present-day Harrods.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2023
Categories |