Jane Austen: Obstinate Heart  by Valerie Grosvenor Myer

Reviewed by Gerti

Having read all of Jane Austen’s novels and letters, I felt it was about time to do some in-depth research on the great British author’s life. The first biography that caught my interest was that by Valerie Grosvenor Myer, as it had the intriguing phrase “Obstinate Heart” attached to her name. What it seems Jane was most obstinate about was refusing to marry without love, and although Myer doesn’t pin things down as much as I’d like, she implies that several different men proposed to Jane and were turned down.

Why would that be the focus of my reading this 200+ page bio? I think that Jane’s own romances formed the basis for the plots of her 6 finished novels, especially as they concerned the love matches made by her heroines. Many of the novels include proposals, but they are each very different, and I read the book to try and investigate that issue – whether the novel proposals were so different because Jane herself had received nearly a half dozen varied offers of marriage.

The book is thorough in many ways, talking about where Jane lived and how she got from one location to another, usually travelling via the kindness of friends and family, as she rarely had enough money to pay for her own conveyance. That too harkens back to her novels like “Sense and Sensibility” and “Mansfield Park”, in which her heroines have limited resources and are often dependent on the largesse of relatives. But just like the featured ladies in her novels refused to marry for money although it would make their lives and the lives of their families easier, Jane refused at least one proposal that would have made her the mistress of a large country house and ended her monetary woes.

Of course, near the end of her life, Jane was making a healthy amount of money from her writing, but by then her health had been compromised. She died at age 41 from what is believed to be an adrenal gland disease. She died before 2 of her novels were even published, and I enjoyed learning that it was her brother Henry who named those works “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion.” In short, I loved learning details of Jane Austen’s life, even if Myer’s writing was sometimes dry and her paragraphs occasionally seemed misplaced, as if they had been tacked into the story without a concern about flow or continuity. It almost felt as though there had not been a final edit to this book, as odd facts would pop up during a discussion of something entirely different, which was jarring.

Unlike other critics however I enjoyed Myer trying to connect Jane’s novels with her life experiences, as it is something I do, too. I only wish we had more facts available about Austen’s life to fill in the time gaps that exist, and I sincerely wish that her sister Cassandra had not destroyed so many of her letters! Still, Myer has put together an educational, fact-filled and satisfying biography, and I recommend it.