Historian Lucy Worsley suggested this week that although Austen almost certainly never slept with a man, she may instead have slept with a woman. We know not if her relations with Sharp were anything more than platonic, but either way, the obscurity of the latter is just as Austen’s relatives would have wished it. While the great novelist considered her correspondent a most treasured confidante, Austen’s family took a very different view of Anne. For this woman was a member of the servant class. Indeed, she’d worked for the Austens themselves – as a governess to Jane’s niece.
Such a friendship flouted the social norms of the time. By keeping it out of official versions of Austen’s life, the family could create a false image of the famous author as a conservative maiden aunt, devoted above all else to kith and kin. As a result, the close bond she shared with Anne, who wrote plays in between teaching lessons, has become one of literature’s most enduring secrets.
Such a friendship flouted the social norms of the time. By keeping it out of official versions of Austen’s life, the family could create a false image of the famous author as a conservative maiden aunt, devoted above all else to kith and kin. As a result, the close bond she shared with Anne, who wrote plays in between teaching lessons, has become one of literature’s most enduring secrets.
A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney will be published by Aurum Press on 1 June 2017 (£20).
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