What is going on across the Atlantic? Thanks to Zen of Writing, I find that Jane Austen is ‘too ugly’ for book covers (BBC News).
Basically, they took the only authenticated Jane portrait, by her sister Cassandra, and ran it through Photoshop to make her look more attractive:
Before: watercolor sketch of Jane Austen (1810) by Cassandra Austen, held by the National Portrait Gallery, London. After: new Jane Austen portrait (2007), from Wordsworth publishing.
Yikes.
I’ve been trying to tell myself that, in a decade when Kiera Knightly is Lizzy (whither hast thou gone, Jennifer Ehle?), the worthy end of increasing Jane’s readership justifies the means. But in this case, the book in question isn’t actually by Jane – it’s a memoir about her, by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh.
It’s just so bleeping sad that you have to prettify a female author, even a long-dead master of her genre, to make her interesting as a person to consumers. On the other hand, who am I kidding? Reprints of P&P and Emma almost always feature a generic, rosy-cheeked maiden on the cover. And this isn’t the first time that Jane’s portrait has been redacted – the most popular depiction of Jane Austen, the 1870 engraving by Lizars, is an obvious “improvement” over the watercolor portrait. (Lizars’ version was commissioned for the Victorian edition of the memoir by Austen-Leigh).
See this article for an overview of various Austen portraits.
This is the memoir in question by James Edward Austen-Leigh (online via Gutenberg), so for heaven’s sake, read it there and don’t buy the sexy Jane edition.
Oh, they just HAD to get rid of that dowdy cap. SO two-centuries-ago.
And the dowdy nose, too? The original Jane does look peeved – but the new Jane looks embarassed.