“To put it bluntly, he was screwing her.” It’s not every day that my Jane Austen Google alert yields a line like that. Especially when the screw-ee in question is alleged to be the thirteen-year-old Jane Austen. Read it and weep: An Australian writer claims that Our Jane was the barely pubescent lover of a dashing, possibly criminal Irish-born surgeon nearly fourteen years her senior who emigrated to Australia and became an important public figure in the young colony. The surgeon’s name? D’Arcy Wentworth. The author of the newly released, apparently self-published Jane and D’Arcy: Folly is Not Always Folly, the first of a projected two volumes, is Wal Walker, himself a Wentworth descendant. Unsurprisingly, he’s certain that his new discovery – based on “research into both their lives and a detailed reading of Austen’s writing” -- will blow the fusty world of Jane Austen scholarship wide open. “Jane Austen ‘people’ are in fear of recognizing it,” Walker told the Weekend Australian. “This will change the whole way Jane Austen is viewed.’’ Austen first crossed paths with the oh-so-fascinating Wentworth when she was a ten-year-old schoolgirl in Reading, Walker says. “There was no romance, but he kissed her hand,’’ Walker explains. Things hotted up a couple of years later, when Wentworth landed in the employ of an apothecary in Alton, a town in Austen’s home county of Hampshire. From there, Walker suggests, the romance proceeded apace, culminating in a secret wedding, undertaken before Wentworth, pursued by charges of highway robbery, decamped for Botany Bay aboard a ship that left port right around Austen’s fourteenth birthday. But they kept in touch via letter, and Austen was so deeply attached that she named the hero of Pride and Prejudice after her exiled love, just so she could hear his name read aloud. At this point, those of us who’ve read Jane Austen’s letters, her family’s reminiscences of her life, and perhaps a biography or two may be wondering how this passionate episode slipped our minds. Not to worry: Walker acknowledges that he doesn’t have any of what the reporter calls “explicit evidence” – aka evidence – of the connection; he’s just figured out “where and when they might have met, and what brought them together,” a (surprisingly sympathetic) reviewer writes. I will not bother pointing out how utterly ludicrous this tale is, in every particular; the estimable Susannah Fullerton, president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, has done so elegantly. (“There is no factual basis for it, so you have to say it’s not true,” Fullerton notes, tactfully but firmly.) No, I’d prefer to focus on what seems to be Walker’s bedrock rationale for pursuing this silly fantasia. To wit: “She couldn’t have written those books without experiencing a love affair.” Taken at face value, this claim is bizarre. It’s not as if Jane Austen’s novels contain detailed sex scenes, or even lengthy passages of lovey-dovey talk; they’re about virginal young women feeling their first serious attractions to respectable men who never attempt to steal so much as a pre-engagement kiss. How extensive does the writer’s personal romantic experience have to be before she can plausibly tell such stories? But (Walker might argue): The emotion! The passion! The psychological depth! How could Austen possibly have portrayed all of that so compellingly if she hadn’t, say, screwed a surgeon in her early teen years? Sigh. Haven’t we been down this road before? (See – or, preferably, don’t see – Becoming Jane.) The explanation is quite simple -- or, from another perspective, quite profound. It’s called imagination. Perceptiveness. Acuity in observation. You know – novelistic genius. Why do so many people find it easier to believe in a phantom love affair that left no trace in the historical record than in brilliant artistry that flowered into six great masterpieces?
8 comments
Nov 3 2017 09:29PM by Alex Kelly
Dear Ms Gaffe did you say you are an Oxford graduate? & here you are in public ranting about a book you appear to have never read! For shame! I've read both volumes of Jane & D'Arcy, Folly is not always Folly and Such Talent and Such Success, and I'm utterly convinced the story is true, and that Jane herself told us a great deal about it, especially in her juvenilia, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion. I'm glad the Wentworth family has put the record straight after all these years of fibs and cover up. For me Jane & D'Arcy has told the true story at long last, and makes very clear the simple human reasons for the cover up. I suggest you read it, if you love Jane Austen, you will love her a great deal more. Alex Kelly Darwin AUSTRALIA.
Nov 3 2017 09:40PM by Deborah Yaffe
Glad to hear you enjoyed the book -- there's plenty of room for different points of view in the Janeite universe. Thanks for reading!
Feb 4 2018 08:05PM by Dr John Byrnes
Dear Deborah, am interested to see you think Wal Walker's conclusion a load of bunkum. I am a compiler of "Homebush Happenings" and Homebush ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebush,_New_South_Wales ) is named after the home/property of D'Arcy Wentworth. I'd much appreciate anything more you or anyone comes across on D'Arcy or Mr Walker, whatever -- send to john dot mail at ozemail dot com dot au. Homebush is in Strathfield Council area. Strathfield Council has been told that it is intended that it will be requested somehow to commemorate D'Arcy Wentworth, e.g. a plaque on front of the Council building. I met a woman randomly in Homebush one day who told me she was a direct descendant of D'Arcy's but that her ancestor was not in the Wentworth's big house on the hill but rather in something smaller like a gatehouse. Yet others much doubt D'Arcy ever had more than one mistress contemporaneously -- and think her family's story perhaps has gotten distorted. I wanted to record all her details but she said don't bother - she had already given full details to the Council. However when I later checked with Council was dismayed they knew nothing. So you see the whole thing is a little slippery perhaps. It is desired to preserve the history better. Good regards to you, John.
Feb 4 2018 08:31PM by Deborah Yaffe
I'm afraid I don't know anything about D'Arcy Wentworth -- I know enough about Jane Austen to be skeptical of Walker's conclusions about her, but that's about it. I wish you much luck with your local history research!
Jun 16 2019 12:12AM by Jillian Blackall
The son of D'Arcy Wentworth, William Charles, was practically the 'founding father' here (Vaucluse area of Sydney). And I had never heard this story of the connection between D'Arcy and Jane until now. It's quite hard to believe. Interestingly, William bought his property in Vaucluse from another Irishman who had a failed elopement in his past: Sir Henry Brown Hayes.
Aug 3 2019 06:28PM by Deborah Yaffe
Interesting! You Australians have so much fascinating history of which we Americans remain largely ignorant (even if your Jane Austen connection is, indeed, pretty hard to believe. . . )
Jan 15 2020 12:01PM by Nelia
Firstly the author Wal Walker says his relative told him Jane and Darcy had been married. That the story of Darcy came down through the family.T here is so many names in Jane Austen’s novels that are connected to Darcy Wentworth and the cover up of the Austen family all makes sense that she once loved and married him but her family stopped her from coming out to Australia. After Jane died her siblings burnt any written letters from that time. And there is a gap in that time period. If this is not the reason why did the Austen cover up this earlier years of Jane Austen’s life? I am very convinced by both books Jane and Darcy that they once loved each other and that Jane went on to use her own life experience and loss of the man she loved to write her famous novels. I’m a bit biased as my ancestor Mary Anne Lawes became the de facto wife of Darcy Wentworth.
Jan 20 2020 06:01PM by Deborah Yaffe
It's not true that the Austen family burnt all Jane Austen's letters; about 160 have come down to us, most of them preserved by family members, and there's no evidence that the ones Cassandra burnt (many years after JA's death) dated from a particular period of JA's life. But you are certainly entitled to your own opinions! Thanks for commenting!