Brian Southam, “The Novelist and the Navy” [from Jane Austen and the Navy]

Austen wrote throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and sailors and soldiers frequently appear in her novels, though her portrayal of these characters tends to focus far more on their domestic concerns than on their time in battles. Brian Southam’s Jane Austen and the Navy examines Austen’s family relationships and naval records, along with her novels, to position her as a historian of the British Navy. This chapter explores Austen’s personal connections to the Navy through her brothers and other family members. Southam argues that sailors represent a “distinct” character type in her novels and that Mansfield Park and Persuasion can be read, in part, as “a tribute” to those in naval service.

Brian Southam, “The Novelist and the Navy” [from Jane Austen and the Navy]