Austen and the Prince
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The archives of the British monarchy contain a wealth of interesting facts. An 1811 bill has just been discovered showing that Jane Austen's disliked Prince Regent, the future George IV, was the first reader to buy a copy of her novel Sense and Sensibility . The date of the document shows that the Prince bought Austen's work on 28 October for 15 shillings (about £35 today), two days before the first advertisements for the novel appeared.
Amusingly, Austen loathed the Prince of Wales, whose conduct caused considerable consternation in the conservative English province. Although Emma , published in 1815, is dedicated to the Regent, one Austen scholar has called the entry “one of the worst sentences she ever committed to print.” It read: “To his Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, this work is, by His Royal Highness's Permission, most Respectfully Dedicated by his Royal Highness's Dutiful and Obedient Humble Servant.” The author of Pride and Prejudice dedicated the novel to the Prince at his express request, conveyed through James Stanier Clarke, his private librarian. Clarke maintained a lively correspondence with Austen, even suggesting that they write a novel about the royal family. Austen declined the offer.
When Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, Austen was a complete anonymous figure. Four years later, however, gossip in London at the time was that the Prince Regent admired Austen's writing talent. Perhaps he knew that she would go down in history primarily because of her books?
