Jane Austen''s Remarkable Aunt, Philadelphia Hancock: ''A Girl of Genius and Feeling''

The orphaned Philadelphia Austen was forced to seek for herself those objects of eighteenth-century womanhood: social esteem and financial independence. Her story is circumscribed by the limitations of womens lives of that time and opens up a wider exploration of those times through a detailed examination of one particular woman: Jane Austens aunt Phila. The story of her aunt had impressed the young Jane Austen when she created a character, Cecilia Wynne, in her short fiction, Catharine or the Bower, written when she was sixteen. Cecilias experience as an orphaned girl of genius and feeling being sent in quest of a husband to Bengal, mirrored that of her recently deceased aunt. Such a connection between author and aunt sparked an interest in an otherwise neglected member of the Austen clan. How did this aunt who had provided inspiration for the young Jane manage to make her way in the world? How did the course of her life reflect the lives of other women of her times? What worlds did she move in? What people did she meet? Little was known about Philadelphia, yet her daughter Eliza, was said to be a central figure in Jane Austens life. The conventional trajectory Philadelphias was changed when, after completing a millinery apprenticeship in London, she took the chance of a journey to India and an arranged marriage. There she became part of the colourful world of the Honourable East India Company and encountered many of its most notable people. Her life was transformed. See more