Usher rare book auction this week

Usher’s Auctions in kells this week host their annual antiquarian, collectable and rare books auction, on Thursday 25th June at 11.30 am.
There will be treasures galore and something for every type of book-lover at this sale. This auction includes part one of the library of Carrigglas Manor, Longford, famous for its connections with Jane Austen, a portfolio of military documents from 1798, Lough Eske Donegal estate papers and much more.
As with previous book auctions, the sale will also feature a selection of ephemeral items, historical memorabilia, stamps and postcards including photos and papers connected to the Nixon Family and Lusitania.
There will be items relating to all eras of Irish history. With regards to local reading, this auction will feature Borough of Kells – Minute book of the Commissioners appointed from 1840 including handdrawn map of Kells town and Co Meath polling District of Kells 1892 (Both of these items were unearthed whilst doing a local house clearance). Also of interest to Meath are Discovery of the Tomb of Ollamh Fodhla (Loughcrew) , Beauties and Antiquities of the Boyne by W R. Wilde. Also works of Lord Dunsany and many other Meath lots.
Viewing for this auction will be on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th 10am -6pm and  on morning of sale. Catalogue and selection of pictures can be viewed at www.usherauctions.com - further information from Oliver on 046/9241097 and 086/1706767.

 

Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen - the Carrigglas Manor connection

Thomas Langlois Lefroy (1776-1869), Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, was born in County Limerick, and descended from an old Huguenot family. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a member of the Historical Society and won four gold medals for oratory. Called to the Bar in 1797, he married at Abergavenny a Miss Paul, a member of one of the many Wexford families that moved to Wales after the 1798 Rebellion. He rose to high office, became MP for Dublin University, and sat as judge during the political trials of 1848, and passed sentence on John Mitchel and other leaders of the Young Ireland movement.

Richard Lalor Sheil said of him 'As a judge, he was remarkable for the quickness with which he apprehended the essential features of the cases submitted to him, while his comprehensive grasp of legal principles, and his skill in the application of them, have rarely, if ever, been surpassed.

In 1796, Lefroy began a flirtation with English novelist Jane Austen, who was a friend of an older female relative. Jane Austen wrote two letters to her sister Cassandra mentioning 'Tom Lefroy', and some have suggested that it may have been he whom Austen had in mind when she invented the character of Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, as the courtship between Tom Lefroy and Jane Austen took place over the year or so that Pride and Prejudice was written. In his 2003 biography, Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence suggests that Jane Austen actually used personalities as the models for Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, but not in an expected way. Mr. Spence suggests that Jane Austen used herself as a model for Mr. Darcy and his measured demeanour while Tom Lefroy acted as the model for the more gregarious Elizabeth Bennet. So while the exact influence of Tom Lefroy on Pride and Prejudice continues to be debated, it does seem certain that his presence in Austen's life is in some way reflected in the novel.

In a letter dated Saturday (9 January 1796), Austen mentioned:

You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that 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. I can expose myself however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which day we are to have a dance at Ashe after all. He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs. Lefroy a few days ago …. After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr. Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove — it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.

In a letter started on Thursday (14 January 1796), and finished the following morning, there was another mention of him.

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.

Austen's surviving correspondence contains only one other mention of Tom Lefroy, in a November 1798 letter that Austen biographer Claire Tomalin believes demonstrates the author's 'bleak remembrance, and persistent interest' in Lefroy. In the letter to her sister, Austen writes that Tom's aunt Mrs. Lefroy had been to visit, but had not said anything about her nephew: '.... to me, and I was too proud 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”.

Upon learning of Jane Austen’s death (18 July 1817), Thomas Langlois Lefroy travelled from Ireland to England to pay his respects to the British author. In addition, at an auction of Cadell's papers (possibly in London), one Tom Lefroy bought a Cadell publisher's rejection letter - for Austen's early version of Pride and Prejudice, titled First Impressions. Caroline Austen said in her letter to James Edward Austen-Leigh on 1 April 1869: “I enclose a copy of Mr. Austen's letter to Cadell - I do not know which novel he would have sent - The letter does not do much credit to the tact or courtesy of our good Grandfather for Cadell was a great man in his day, and it is not surprising that he should have refused the favour so offered from an unknown - but the circumstance may be worth noting, especially as we have so few incidents to produce. At a sale of Cadell's papers &c Tom Lefroy picked up the original letter - and Jemima copied it for me”.

It was rather unlikely that Caroline Austen would address the Chief Justice Lefroy as only 'Tom Lefroy' (she indeed addressed him as the still living 'Chief Justice' in the later part of the letter). However, if it is true that the original Tom Lefroy purchased the Cadell letter after Jane's death, it is possible that he later handed it over to Thomas Edward Preston Lefroy (T.E.P. Lefroy; husband of Jemima Lefroy who was the daughter of Anna Austen Lefroy and Benjamin Lefroy). T.E.P. Lefroy later would give Cadell's letter to Caroline for reference. Cadell & Davies firm was closed down in 1836 after the death of Thomas Cadell Jr. The sale of Cadell's papers took place in 1840, possibly in November.

In the latter years of Tom Lefroy's life, he was questioned about his relationship with Jane Austen by his nephew, and admitted to having loved Jane Austen, but stated that it was a 'boyish love'.