Jane Austen's great lost love was Irish MP and Lord Chief Justice Tom Lefroy
Jane Austen was the seventh child and second daughter of the Rev George Austen, a Church of England clergyman, and his wife Cassandra Leigh. Of her brothers, two became clergymen, one inherited rich estates in Kent and Hampshire from a distant cousin, and the two youngest became admirals in the Royal Navy.
Born on December 16 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire, Jane led an uneventful life and never married but wrote six of the finest novels in the English language.
She began to write as a teenager. Her first novel, 'Sense and Sensibility', appeared in 1811. 'Pride and Prejudice' was published in 1813 and received highly favourable reviews. 'Mansfield Park' and 'Emma' followed in 1814 and 1816 respectively. 'Emma' was dedicated to the Prince Regent, who was aware of her identity, an admirer of her novels and kept a set at each of his residences.
In 1816 Jane’s health deteriorated rapidly. She died, aged 41, on July 18 1817 in Winchester.
Buried in the north aisle of the nave of Winchester Cathedral, her epitaph composed by her brother James praises Jane's personal qualities, expresses hope for her salvation and acknowledges the ‘extraordinary endowments of her mind’, but makes no reference to her literary achievement.
This ought to occasion no great surprise because her novels published during her lifetime were published anonymously. (‘Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published posthumously, and a final novel was left incomplete.)
‘Pride and Prejudice’ is undeniably her most popular novel and Jane regarded Elizabeth Bennet as her favourite character, an assessment almost universally shared by modern readers who readily appreciate Elizabeth’s intelligence, wit and energy. P D James was surely correct in describing Elizabeth as ‘probably the most enchanting female character in English literature’.
The novel’s arresting opening sentence – ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife’ – highlights that marriage is one of the book’s three key themes, the others being money and class.
Many novels have a significant autobiographical content. Elizabeth’s close relationship with her sister Jane is paralleled by Jane’s close relationship with her sister Cassandra.
In the mid-1790s Jane met Tom Lefroy at a ball or another social gathering, and it is clear from Austen's letters to Cassandra that they spent considerable time together: ‘I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together . . . He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you.’
Does ‘Pride and Prejudice’ owe something to Jane’s flirtation with Tom Lefroy? Does Tom Lefroy inform the character of Mr Darcy? Jane wrote the original version of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ around the time of her flirtation with Tom Lefroy, the nephew of Anne Lefroy, an older female friend of Jane’s.
Of Huguenot descent, Thomas Langlois Lefroy was to become a significant Irish political and judicial figure. An evangelical and a Tory, between 1830 and 1841 he was one of the two MPs for Trinity College, Dublin. In 1835 he was appointed to the membership of the Irish Privy Council and in 1841 he was appointed to the Irish judiciary. In May 1848, Lefroy presided at the trial of John Mitchel for treason felony. Between 1852 and 1866 he was Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
In the early 1790s Lefroy had distinguished himself academically at TCD. He may have been even proud and intellectually arrogant, like Mr Darcy. As the eldest son of a large family, 11 children with five daughters ahead of him, Lefroy was made to feel that the future of his entire family was on his shoulders.
Unlike Mr Darcy, Lefroy was not the heir to great estates or wealth. Tom’s family expected him to marry well. It is perfectly possible Tom adored Jane and she him but she unfortunately lacked the wealth to meet his family’s expectations. In a letter started on Thursday (January 14 1796), and finished the following morning, Jane wrote: ‘Friday – At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.’
In March 1799 Tom married Mary Paul who possessed the requisite fortune. They had seven children. Their first daughter, born on June 24 1802, was called Jane. While it is possible that the child was named after the author of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, it is more likely the girl was named after her maternal grandmother.
Tom Lefroy certainly did not forget about Jane. Learning of Jane’s death, he travelled to England to pay his respects in 1817.
Furthermore, at an auction of publisher Thomas Cadell’s papers, Tom Lefroy bought Cadell’s rejection letter for First Impressions. In old age, Tom was reported to have answered in the affirmative to the question, ‘Were you ever in love with Jane Austen?’ ‘With a boyish love.’
Jon Spence in ‘Becoming Jane Austen’ (London, 2003) offers an interesting thesis which turns things on their head. Spence suggests that Jane used herself as a model for Mr Darcy (and his measured demeanour) and Tom provided the model for the more gregarious Elizabeth Bennett.
In November 1798 Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra that Tom’s aunt Mrs Lefroy had been to visit, but she had not said anything about her nephew ‘to me, and I was too proud [perhaps lending weight Spence’s thesis] to make any enquiries; but on my father’s afterwards asking where he was, I learnt that he was gone back to London in his way to Ireland, where he is called to the Bar and means to practise’. Claire Tomalin, the author of a biography of Austen published in 2000, believes this letter demonstrates Austen’s ‘bleak remembrance, and persistent interest’ in Lefroy.
So, while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on ‘Pride and Prejudice’ may be a subject for debate, it is possible that his presence in Austen’s life is reflected in the novel.
Jon Spence’s book provides the title for a fictional film version of the romance between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen which appeared in 2007. More speculative than Spence’s book, the film, with James McAvoy playing the role of Tom and Anne Hathaway the role of Jane, strays well beyond the evidence.
While life often imitates art, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ may constitute an example of life informing art but with art having a happier ending. Perhaps we should console ourselves with the thought that if Jane Austen had become Mrs Lefroy, we might have been deprived of some the finest works of English literature.