And another thing | 25 October 2008

In times of anxiety, I always turn to Jane Austen’s novels for tranquil distraction. Not that Jane was unfamiliar with financial crises and banking failures. On the contrary: she knew all about them from personal experience. As a young girl she seems to have regarded bankers as rather glamorous figures. In Lady Susan, written when she was 22, she observed: ‘When a man has once got his name in a banking house, he rolls in money.’ So when her favourite brother, Henry, decided to become a banker, and set up his own bank, she was delighted.

Henry was four years older than Jane. He was clever and self-assured, with beautiful manners, and a man of the world. His outstanding characteristic was optimism, and he could be relied on to spread cheer when others were sad. He was closer to her novel-writing than any other member of the family. He took upon himself the business of getting her published, and succeeded.