Begun in 1817, when Jane Austen had become ill with what researchers believe to be Addison’s disease, Sanditon remains incomplete. It promised to resemble Austen’s previous novels in its focus on the relationships of the fashionable. However, it also promised some differences, one of those being a focus on health, as three of her characters were hypochondriacs.

Austen wrote with a comic tone about illness, as she herself was dying. While she commented to her niece Fanny on March 23 that the writing was not going well, the activity provided satisfaction for Austen. Some critics feel she may have been trying to cheer herself by making fun of those who imagined themselves ill, others that the subject was simply so much on her mind that she naturally incorporated it into her work.

That those ill would travel to Bath for “the cure” did not signal a new practice. Seawater cures were common as early as 1750, and Austen had written to her sister Cassandra of her enjoyment of “bathing.”

Featuring healthy protagonist Charlotte Heywood, the plot was to turn on Charlotte’s visit to the seaside village Sanditon to stay with the Parkers and their offspring, the lazy Arthur and his bored, imaginative sisters, Diana and Susan. Upon her arrival, she meets Lady Denham, her niece Miss Denham, and her nephew, Sir Edward.

Diana, Susan, Sir Edward, and Lady Denham all seem caricatures, while Charlotte lacks humor, to the point of being annoyingly prim. Thus, Austen’s focus veers from complicated relationships and the strong characterizations exhibited in her other novels. It shifts to setting, bringing Sanditon and social conventions of the day to life, including fashion.

Living at Bath as she wrote, Austen had noticed that men had begun to carry umbrellas, which proved practical in that rainy town, but not everyone had accepted this new accessory as masculine. Austen demonstrates this minor conflict in Sanditon, as Mrs. Parker plans to buy her daughter a parasol in order to make her feel more mature and womanly, but Mr. Parker declares that his son should lead a more “robust” existence by playing in the sun.

The narrative is framed in irony, for Arthur Parker, said to be too “delicate” to enter the water, is actually overweight and inert with no intention of exerting himself in any manner. Her characters indulge in the baubles offered everywhere, as does Charlotte Heywood, who goes to the library to purchase gloves and brooches.

Mr. Parker takes great pride in his blue shoes and nankin boots, but Mr. Heywood remarks on the problems fashionable seaside retreats may cause the economy, raising prices and making “the poor good for nothing.” Austen does not make fun of those who indulge in the material, for they are not bad people. Conversely, Lady Denham is not sympathetically drawn; she is mean and old-world, completely unaccepting of those not of her own social level.

Austen also stressed one of her favorite subjects, the bleak future suffered by females who lacked wealth, expressed crudely by Lady Denham: “Young ladies that have no money are very much to be pitied.”

No one knows the turn the plot would have taken. Austen’s unusually hard satire, likely explained by her severe illness, differs so much from her traditional approach that any attempt to complete Sanditon could not depend on familiarity with Austen’s other novels. Such attempts have been made, including Julia Barrett’s Jane Austen’s Charlotte (2000).

Bibliography

Barrett, Julia. Jane Austen’s Charlotte. New York: M. Evans and Co., 2000.

Drabble, Margaret. Introduction to Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon. Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1974.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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