Playing the palace, again

In life, Jane Austen’s royal connections were minimal. As Janeites will remember, the Prince Regent, later George IV, was a fan of her work. In 1815, a chance encounter scored Austen a private tour of the PR’s London residence, hosted by his librarian, and along the way, she received offer-you-can’t-refuse “permission” to dedicate Emma to the royal personage. She complied. And that was the sum total of her close encounters with crowned heads.

Posthumously, however, Austen has practically been adopted into the British royal family. Prince Albert read Pride and Prejudice aloud to Queen Victoria while she recuperated from measles in 1853, and they tackled Northanger Abbey a few years later. (Victoria’s Austen-love is discussed in this article, not yet available online.) More recently, three women who married into the royal family—Queen Camilla; the Princess of Wales, formerly Kate Middleton; and Sarah Ferguson, the (now former) Duchess of York—have claimed to be Austen fans.

Inevitably, then, this year’s Austen 250 celebrations are getting the royal treatment. Starting this weekend, visitors to Windsor Castle will have a limited opportunity to view two significant Austen editions from the Royal Library: the specially bound Emma first edition that Austen’s publisher sent to the Prince Regent, and an 1853 edition of Pride and Prejudice that is probably the very copy Albert read to Victoria. Also on display will be a P&P first edition that “was possibly part of the castle's Servants' Library* before it found its way into the present Royal Library,” the BBC reports.

Sadly, it seems that even royal publicists are not immune from promulgating Austen misinformation: Austen “was acquainted with the Prince Regent,” the castle’s Austen 250 page claims. In fact, Jane Austen was “acquainted with” the Prince Regent in much the same way that I am “acquainted with” Brad Pitt: She knew what he looked like, had read plenty of scurrilous gossip about his love life, and felt entitled to an opinion about how he treated his wife. She never actually met him. Can’t we get these things right, people?

But I digress. Back to those interesting Austen editions.

When I say that Windsor Castle visitors will have a “limited opportunity” to see these precious items, I’m not exaggerating: The book will be displayed in the appropriately palatial Queen’s Drawing Room for a two-hour period on six days between October 25 and November 2--a grand total of twelve hours.

Why such restrictive viewing? Oh, it’s probably something boring about keeping rare and fragile items safe from excess light exposure. But I prefer to imagine that it’s because Camilla and Kate can’t bear to let their favorite writer’s books out of their sight.

* I don’t know about you, but I am enchanted to learn that Windsor Castle’s servants had—perhaps still have?—their own library. When was this library established? Who chose the books? How often was the P&P first edition checked out? I am looking forward to the dissertation.