In an early scene in Kate Evans' Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen, she depicts 3-month-old, bundled-up baby Jane being smuggled out through the back door of her family's large home. The man who takes the baby is John Littleworth, a local tenant farmer, whose wife, Elizabeth, will care for the infant in their modest cottage for a small fee until Jane, at 2 years old, is returned.
In the notes section at the end of the book, Evans admits that the real Lizzy Littleworth would have been older than the visual depiction of her in the biography. But by warping this historical detail, Evans intended to emphasize the central role that such a "vibrant and attractive" presence would have had on the Austen children; she wanted, in other words, to lead readers into a richer appreciation of Austen's relationship with her mother and, in turn, the world-famous novelist's complicated views on motherhood, mother-daughter relationships and class divisions.
While some might be bothered by a biography that regularly, and proudly, takes liberties with facts and chronology, such artistry is the heart and strength of Evans' delightful and illuminating Patchwork. This energetic book, brimming with bright pages of illustration paired with often bounteous text, is premised on a piecing together – hence, the crafting metaphor of its title – of the threadbare record of its subject's short but productive life. The book will be highly satisfying to anyone craving more companionship with Jane Austen, both her life and her work.
Evans is the author-artist of an equally compelling 2015 graphic biography about Rosa Luxemburg. This latest book, which parses out the internal and external workings of a very different kind of life, is built around clips and snippets. These come from Evans' extensive research of biographies, academic studies and related Jane Austen texts and archives, as well as excerpts from Austen's novels, poems and the letters exchanged between the novelist and her (mostly) loved ones. Many of Austen's letters were famously burned after her death, by her sister, Cassandra, who was likely intending to preserve her beloved's reputation. Hence, even this already incongruous record is full of holes.
But Evans' strategy, of whimsy and play side by side with serious excavation, turns gaps and uncertainties into opportunities for greater connection and insight. Sometimes, for example, the gentle riffing preserves the potency of lingering images from Austen's novels, even if these contradict historical fact. "I was not prepared to let the truth get in the way of a Pride & Prejudice reference," the biographer explains in one note, of her choice to color a depiction of Austen's adored brother, Henry, in a scarlet rather than blue military coat, in deference to a line from the novel. Other times, Evans seeks to make visible historical contexts generally ignored in discussions or representations of Austen and her fiction. In the interlude to the book, the biographer briefly but powerfully broadens the scope of her project, attempting to show how the world in which Austen lived was premised on the blood, sweat, tears and freedom of a variety of subjects living around the globe at the same time. These included child workers in Lancashire, weavers in Dhaka, Irish laborers in the countryside, and Black slaves on southern American plantations. Such unexpected forays sharpen the biography, expanding what it means to think about Austen's world.
The publication of this book coincides with the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth year. Austen, who died in 1817 at 41 years old, wrote six novels over the course of her life that would eventually garner her worldwide renown and that have remained nearly constantly in print since her death. Only four of these novels, beginning with Sense and Sensibility in 1811, were published during her lifetime, and they were attributed to an anonymous author ("By a lady"). For the most part, Austen would live and die at the hands of other people's patronage and loyalty.
While much ink has been spilled on various facets of her personal life – whole mythologies have been constructed, for example, on the scant evidence that remains of Jane's possible romantic dalliances – Evans is most interested in tracking "A mind lively, and at ease," in all the complexity that such a description entails. It was a mind that deftly captured, and somehow made broadly sympathetic and relatable, "the ordinary trauma of the English upper class," including, especially, the lives of women. While the contributions that Austen's careful eye and sardonic pen have made are impossible to quantify, the vitality of her vision is easily felt on every page of this sensitive work of deep appreciation.
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