It’s always sad when a fire severely damages a family home, and even more so when the building itself has historic or architectural interest. But when, as the British press reported earlier this month, the house in question has close links to Jane Austen’s most famous novel—well, then, that’s big news, right?
Hmm.
Blog readers will not be surprised to learn that my suspicions were aroused as I read stories about the catastrophic fire at the eighteenth-century Kent mansion Gennings Park—stories reporting that the house “may have been the inspiration for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice,” or is “believed to have inspired” Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, or, all qualifiers aside, “inspired Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.”
My doubts stemmed from many years’ experience with articles claiming that this or that house—usually one that’s for sale—is the original of some Austen stately home, or insisting that this or that man—usually a rich and titled one—must have been the model for Mr. Darcy. (See here and here for past blog posts on this issue.) Too often, these claims turn out to be unsupported by what we might quaintly call “evidence,” resting instead on a tissue-thin foundation of wishful thinking, speculation, and downright invention.
Gennings Park’s alleged Austen connection appears, alas, to be another example of the genre. As far as I can tell, every press claim about Gennings’ P&P link is attributed to the same source: Historic England, a UK government body dedicated to preserving and celebrating the nation’s historic sites.
Ordinarily, Historic England would be an unimpeachable source for a story like this. But dig deeper, and it appears that Historic England’s only mention of a Gennings Park link to Austen comes at the very end of its entry on the house. The passage reads as follows: “Thought to be the setting for Pride and Prejudice. (Mr. Mattingley, unpublished work on Gennings).”
Yes, that’s right: the claim that Gennings “inspired” P&P is sourced to an unpublished, untitled, undated piece of research attributed to someone whose first name is missing. A media contact for Historic England told me, via email, that the Mattingley reference was "very probably added at the time that the building was listed in 1984," but she couldn't provide additional details.
It’s possible that the mysterious Mr. Mattingley makes a great case for Gennings Park as a “setting” for Pride and Prejudice—though whether as the prototype of Longbourn, Netherfield, Rosings, Pemberley, or somewhere else entirely remains unclear--but given the slenderness of the citation, it’s impossible even to find his research, let alone evaluate its persuasiveness. But no matter: Thanks to the news reports on the fire, the internet’s disinformation machine has acquired a few more data points attesting to Gennings as an inspiration for P&P.
Indeed, it is lamentable that the BBC should add to these data points, with their article on the fire that reads like a series of bullet points. One asserts: "Jane Austen was a frequent visitor to Kent and had many family connections to the county." Hmm, ok.