Writing the novel also had some of the therapeutic effects of autobiography as well as those of wit and irony at the expense of people and attitudes I disliked. Central to the book is the close relationship of Jane and Elizabeth, and the care and concern that the latter had for the former reflected my relationship with my older sister Cassandra. Also the embarrassments of Mrs Bennet’s hypochondria owed something to my own mother’s gift for symptoms. I depicted a polite society in which people are sociable and articulate but aren’t released thereby from financial anxieties and embarrassments, as my own family was not. But fortunately Elizabeth does not decide to marry without affection for the sake of a prudent settlement like her friend Charlotte Lucas -- and I did this myself on one famous occasion.

Released into the no-community of Pemberley from the spiteful neighbourhood of voluntary spies in Hertfordshire, Elizabeth is empowered, rewarded for her integrity, is visited most often by those ideal parent-substitutes the Gardiners, and finds her much-loved sister Jane settled in the neighbouring county with her Bingley. People who were rude to Elizabeth like Lady Catherine and Caroline Bingley are forced to pay off any “arrears of civility”. And as an admirer of beautiful landscapes Elizabeth is allowed to own the natural beauties she views every day at Pemberley, which had some of the finest grounds in the country, something she had discovered when she visited earlier as a mere tourist. Finally, to complete Elizabeth’s felicity (her word), Mother (Mrs Bennet) became a little less silly, thanks to happy marriages and financial security. So in writing the novel I enjoyed participating in Elizabeth’s sense of her own good luck, although what happened to her was so very far from what happened to me.

Let’s look for a few more mothers in my writings. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is one, and sometimes sounds like a high-level return of scolding Mrs Bennet herself. Lady Susan, in the minor writings, wages war on her own daughter. In Emma the whole novel in a sense turns on “the absent mother” who has died and left Emma to care for rather than be cared for by Mr (Henry) Woodhouse, and to govern her governess Miss (Anne) Taylor, whose departure for Mr Weston’s domicile at Randalls is the motor of the action – not that Mrs Weston was a good mother substitute anyway. Is it something to do with patriarchy that a mother as clever as, say, Mr Bennet, whatever his other shortcomings, could not be represented? The mother of Catherine, the ingenous heroine of Northanger Abbey has only a cameo role, but isn’t she, in a way, represented or “stood in for” by Mrs Allen, Catherine’s Bath chaperone who lacks nothing in kindness but is tremendously lacking in imagination?

Interestingly, the good mothers are perhaps mother substitutes – Jane and Elizabeth are good with the Gardiner children in Pride and Prejudice, Anne Elliot, though married off in the end, looks initially like the perfect maiden Aunt, which involves substituting for mother, in Persuasion. But are my mothers bad in themselves, or is their inadequacy something to do with “the system”? Lady Bertram in Mansfield Park seems to be more or less dead much of the time, and we assume that in her inadequacy she bears some responsibility for the unhappy fates of Tom, Maria and Julia Bertram -- but it seems to have been part of her role to be waited on hand and foot, always bad for one.

On the other hand, in Emma I seemed to satirise the very idea of rising in society through trade and money, in favour of sustaining "the country gentry". This would prevent the new way of understanding social divisions through your idea of "class", which makes them less than absolute. Of course the ideas in Emma were focalised through Emma herself, and Emma is shown to be "wrong" in her assumptions about people, and social arrangements, at various points. Her rival Mrs Elton is an example of a trade -rich "arriviste" who can't see that people aren't ranked by mere possession of money, or at least new money. But Emma herself needs to be taught a lessson at Box Hill -- largely about respecting genteel poverty, ironically by the great gentleman Knightley. Mrs. Elton and Emma may share some points here; but money versus rank still seems to be the abstract form of their deadly rivalry. Mrs Elton is a rank outsider who can't quite see it, while Emma is not immune to using wealth as a criterion of acceptibility. Emma worships Mr Knightley as the embodiment of high rank, expressed in terms of his ancient property, Donwell. Ironically, he himself takes a more pragmatic view of his role. Again ironically, Emma's own youth, femininity and feeble father make her unsure of herself with respect to her own rank, so she is more easily rattled with respect to such things than she needs to be.

In Persuasion I rather turned on rank, showing how snobbish estate-owners owed their safety to naval officers they despise. It wasn't entirely clear if Sir Walter Elliot was a sterling example of gentry snobbery in general or just an isolated instance of an inept, extravagant landowner. Wentworth, the Harvilles and Admiral Croft show the way to greater social open-ness, although they owe such success as they command to gory sea-battles and the chance to enrich oneself through war. Finally I was a little uncertain as to how to rank rank itself, if I may express it that way!

I described Pride and Prejudice as too 'light, and bright, and sparkling', and this was because the novel is identified with the spirit of Elizabeth Bennet. She distrusts the world of rank and fashion and trips about the countryside as a 'free spirit', scorning the proposals of clergyman Collins who thinks she must marry him because she has little money, rejecting even the powerful Darcy as a source of misery for gentle sister Jane. In a fairy-tale ending, Elizabeth is rewarded for her charm and integrity .

In Fanny Price of Mansfield Park I embodied the opposite of Elizabeth - a shy girl plucked from Portsmouth and exposed to the terrors of Mansfield Park. The kindness of Edmund Bertram wins her heart, but she spends much of her time watching Edmund's infatuation with beautiful but cynical Mary Crawford. Her patience is rewarded: he realises Fanny is the wife a serious clergyman requires. I loved Fanny's goodness. In the case of Emma, my next heroine, I knew people would find her hard to take. Snobbish, manipulative, but much more naïve than she thinks she is, she becomes the dupe of her own cleverness. But I loved her beauty and brilliance. My last heroine, Anne Elliot of Persuasion, has missed out on love and has to watch her former suitor Captain Wentworth courting other ladies, while surrounded by peevishness and snobbery. Anne was my late-flowering ideal. But I admired Elizabeth Bennet without reserve. Who can resist her?!