The Letters of Mrs Lefroy: Jane Austen's Beloved Friend edited by Helen Lefroy and Gavin Turner. Intelligent, charming and compassionate, Mrs Lefroy had a profound influence on Jane Austen, acknowledged in the poem Jane Austen wrote as a tribute to the memory of her older friend whom she much admired. The letters of Mrs Lefroy, written 1800-1804, constitute a remarkable historical resource, combining details of domestic life and country society in North Hampshire with commentary on events on the wider national stage at a time of great anxiety in Britain. Accounts of the rebellion in Ireland (and Tom Lefroy's role in safeguarding Dublin Castle) and the training of Volunteers to defend England against Napoleon's threatened invasion are thus found alongside family news and local gossip, horrifying road accidents, dances and other lively occasions. Helen Lefroy is a descendant of Mrs Lefroy and after a lifetime in publishing served on the committee of the Jane Austen Society for many years and is now a Vice President. Gavin Turner is a member of the Jane Austen Society and has written and lectured widely on Georgian literature and social history. 256pp, many indexes, map, 4pp in colour and a delightful drawing of Ashe Rectory by Ann Usborne, descendant of Mrs Lefroy, see her quick sketch of Chawton in recent Newsletter. Price and date not decided. Probably £15 and January. ISBN 0-9538174-8-2

"In the Steps of Jane Austen" is one of three books on walking in the steps by Anne-Marie Edwards. It includes walks in Steventon,Bath, Southampton, Box Hill and Winchester and is ideal for any visit to a place loved or endured by Jane Austen. It leads us around the town or countryside, noticing every familiar spot seen by Jane Austen that is still visible to her following. There are many attractive photos in the book and it is a very valuable prequisite to any serious researcher or someone who just enjoys her books. The price is £9.95, ISBN 1-85306-123 9 Enjoy! In the same series are In the Steps of Thomas Hardy and Walking with William Shakespeare. A Rambling Fancy in the footsteps of Jane Austen by Caroline Sanderson. This book accompanied by the book below will provide any Jane Austen devotee with everything they would want to know about the places that inspired or accommodated Jane and her family. This book has frequent quotes from her novels and is gently entertaining and amusing. It is published by Cadogan Guides, £8.99.

As the author relates, the Austen family had strong connections with Sherborne St John. The novelist was born and brought up only a few miles away, at Steventon. Her eldest brother, the Rev. James Austen, was for 28 years the Vicar of Sherborne St John, and a close friend of the Chute family who lived at The Vyne.

Jane herself seems to have had a low opinion of William Chute, the eccentric lord of the manor and local M.P., though he was generally much-loved and is the subject of numerous anecdotes. Chute's arrival in the county in 1790, decidedly 'a single man in possession of a good fortune', is thought to be immortalised in the famous opening passage to Pride and Prejudice. The gossip passed on by James, a regular dinner guest at The Vyne, may occasionally resurface in his sister's books.

Chute was a great enemy of modernity and, where his own person and property were concerned, refused to admit any change. Thus he persisted in tying his hair in a pigtail, and in wearing knee-breeches, long after these had ceased to be fashionable.

Never happier than when at home in Sherborne St John, he kept the village exactly as he had found it, despite the obvious need for land reform and for the reconstruction of its crumbling estate cottages. At the time of his death in 1824, the parish had barely changed physically since the Middle Ages.

Visitors to Sherborne St John were often discouraged by the muddy tracks that passed for roads, and the extent of its poverty and neglect was, even then, considered shocking. Large families were housed in tumbledown thatched cottages. Some of them had only one bedroom. Most of the inhabitants were illiterate peasants, who worked on the land or in trades from their own homes.

'The peasants were probably as conservative as Chute himself, and no doubt held him in great affection,' says the author, 'but one senses the discomfort of other members of his family. Mrs Chute devoted much of her time and energy to the poor and even presided over a daily soup kitchen in winter.'

It was left to William Chute's successor, William Wiggett Chute, to enclose the common fields, to found the still-thriving village school, and to embark on an extensive programme of reconstruction, almost re-founding the Sherborne St John that we know today.

Sherborne St John and The Vyne in the Time of Jane Austen describes the parish on the eve of its transformation. 'The sources for that period are particularly good,' says Mr Willoughby. 'Personalities, fashions, modes of speech, individual houses and cottages, even the experience of attending church, can all be re-created and described in extraordinary detail.

'I try to bring the past alive by focusing on minute details. For example, when William Chute sat down to dinner, his hunters were allowed to poke their heads through the dining-room windows. Then there was the orphaned niece who lived with him and used the Long Gallery as her playroom.

'It is also fascinating to discover what people had to endure in church. Attendance for the estate workers was compulsory, but they used to leave greasy marks on the wall where they had rested their heads in slumber. The building was freezing cold in the winter and often pitch dark. There were candles on the pulpit, but they were only lit for the sermon. As few of the congregation could read they can have had little idea of what was going on.'

Integrated into the narrative is a comprehensive survey of the parish history since the Middle Ages. There are descriptions, for example, of some memorable royal visits (including those of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I), and of the occasionally dramatic impact on Sherborne of the Civil War (when a majority of its population supported Parliament).

Sherborne St John and The Vyne in the Time of Jane Austen is on sale in all good bookshops and at other local outlets, priced at £9.95.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED FROM THE LITTLE BOOKROOM:
Jane Austen in Bath: Walking Tours of the Writer’s City is a beautifully illustrated book organized into four walking tours around the city of Bath–where she set both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion–two novels that mirrored her own experience: that of an impressionable, optimistic young girl hoping to meet the man she would marry and later, that of a mature woman disappointed in love. It was in Bath that many of Austen’s own romantic adventures and misadventures occurred, and this book artfully weaves together the story of Austen’s life there with those of her beloved characters.
Jane Austen in Bath is the perfect companion to discovering the vibrant and fashionable social scene of Bath during both Austen’s time and today.
For more information visit: The Little Bookroom
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