and help further to establish the inestimable contribution her far-from ‘slightskirmishing’ made to the development of the novel.

Jennie BatchelorUniversity of Kent

The Whig World, 1760-1837. Leslie Mitchell. London: Hambledon. 2005. 222 pp.£19.99 hb, £12.99 pb. 1-85285-456-1.

Leslie Mitchell is an accomplished guide to the world of Whigs, and he writes aboutit with great affection, sympathy and knowledge. Mitchell argues that Whigs couldonly operate in a system where parliamentary life was firmly separated from mostdemocratic considerations, and that the moment between autocracy and democracywas the Whig moment. He skilfully discusses circles of acquaintance, Whig milieux,particular ideas, enemies and the disappearance of the Whigs. It would be fair tosay, however, that by beginning in 1760 earlier strands of Whiggery are neglected.For example to state that ‘Whig politics rested on the simple proposition thatproperty was king’ (p.135) is overly bald. Nevertheless, the mental world of theWhigs of Mitchell’s period is capably depicted. In particular, there is a very fineaccount of how Whiggery was historically rooted. This again could have benefitedfrom a discussion of the situation pre-1760, but, nevertheless, as Mitchell pointsout, in their subsequent long years of opposition, Whigs wrote history as avindication and as a point of catharsis, with every contemporary situation placed inan historical context. Mitchell aptly writes that ‘the Whig account is a penny-dreadful story with virtue wrestling with wickedness, cliff-hanging crises and theultimate triumph of good’ (p.150). In this neo-Gothic panorama the Stuarts were tothe fore among the villains, while Whigs could find heroes among their ancestors.Furthermore, the present was coined into historical myth, as with Charles JamesFox, who, as soon as he died in 1806, gained iconic status. This was seen inchristening names as well as annual dinners. Liberty was thus asserted andcarefully grafted onto Whig family trees. Visually, the Whigs placed themselvesbefore visitors in appropriate settings. In the sixth Duke of Bedford’s Temple ofWorthies at Woburn, Fox was present with the fifth and sixth Dukes as well as theElder and Younger Brutus, as remembrances of heroic virtue, while a pediment byFlaxman depicted Liberty and a frieze by Westmacott the march of Progress.

Such claims invited satire, but Whiggery was criticised by radicals, Tories andothers for a host of reasons, including the international context. Earlier Whigs werecriticised for being pro-Hanoverian, their later counterparts being seen as pro-French,either the France of the Enlightenment or that of the Revolution. Whig social politicswas deplored, Whig confidence in the future mocked, and Whig morals condemned,not least in the person of Fox. To both radicals and Tories, Whigs were the exponentsof oligarchy, while to Tories they were the allies of radicalism. The latter was ironic,because the Whigs had little time for radicalism. Criticism, however, is seen byMitchell as leading to a Whig sense of being under siege. In assessing the fate ofWhiggery, Mitchell suggests that the two world wars destroyed the Whig programme,as there was no longer the possibility of a gentle drift towards democracy, with moreand more people becoming electors on Whig terms. Instead, the exigencies of wartimepolitics could only be contained by opening up the political process. Mitchell moreover

Book Reviews 609

© 2008 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

points out that the acquisition of great purchasing power by the bulk of thepopulation also acted as a solvent. This is a thoughtful, reflective and interesting bookon part of the Whig period and legacy in British history.

Jeremy BlackUniversity of Exeter

The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen. General Editor Janet Todd.Persuasion. Edited by Janet Todd and Antje Blank. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. 2006. lxxxv + 392 pp. £55 hb. 0-521-82418-4.

Given the availability of several excellent editions of Persuasion one might initiallywonder if this particular version merely completes the 2006 nine-volume CambridgeEdition of the Works of Jane Austen. Although this edition provides little new material,it is an excellent resource for the Austen reader as it collates information from a vastrange of sources – letters, historical texts, secondary criticism and other editions. Theintroduction situates Persuasion as a text imbued with the Revolutionary andNapoleonic wars arguing that ‘more than any other of her novels [it] is rooted in thespecific events of a particular year’ (p.lviii). The editors suggestively situate it amongstthe prose of Williams, Scott, Edgeworth, d’Arblay and Smith and alongside poems byCrabbe, Scott, Southey and Byron. They reiterate the importance of the British Navy,refer to popular sea fiction and the important role women writers played indesignating the Navy a ‘noble service’.

The bibliographic history discusses the initial framing of Austen in her brotherHenry’s Biographical Notice (provided in Appendix 2), a notice I would prefer to seemore accurately positioned preceding the text rather than as an appendix. Thatquibble aside we have a thorough summary of the critical approaches to Persuasionthat variously focus on Austen’s ‘finer feelings’, her style, her ‘intense moral concern’,her Romantic sensibility, her cultural contextualising, before concluding with thosecritics who focus on psychological dimensions and dilemmas. This rich critical surveyspeaks to the debate about Austen in general, Persuasion in particular. The fullreproduction of the cancelled chapters (Appendix 1) provides the reader with anexcellent opportunity to attempt the manuscript pages. A transcript is provided for thefaint of heart, but it is a salutary insight into some of the challenges editors face.

While the introduction provides a good understanding of what preoccupied Austenand her readers the edition frustrated me on several counts. The introduction isinformative but choppy. Differences of opinion over the best way to present selectedinformation are inevitable but the chosen order left me with a disjointed sense of thevolume as a whole. The placement of the Biographical Notice is not the only jarringaspect. The Chronology is appealingly set out with a useful breakdown of specificmonths for appropriately busy years and starts with the Austen parents’ weddingrather than the more conventional birth of Jane herself. This suggests a fullerchronology which sadly is not forthcoming. The resulting patchiness might stem fromthe pressures on space or the mixing of historical details with Austen family facts inone column. For instance 1782 indicates the first of the Austen ‘family amateurtheatrical productions takes place’ but no further references are made to anyproductions over the subsequent years. There is very selective mention made ofsignificant friendships which factored so heavily in Austen’s life. There is no referenceto the charges pressed against (and later acquittal of) Austen’s aunt Mrs Leigh-Perrot

610 BOOK REVIEWS

© 2008 British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies