California Southwest Region
“A Horse and Carriage”
April 10, 2010
Sandy Lerner
Run, don’t walk to a lecture by Sandy Lerner if your local JASNA group is lucky enough to secure an appearance by her. Dr. Lerner, as most Janeites know, co-founded Cisco Systems, the internet communications company, and in 1992, she used some of her fortune to save Chawton House from hotel developers. Jane Austen lived in a cottage on the Hampshire, England estate for the second half of her life, and the now-restored manor house is a center for women’s writing from 1600 to 1830, stocked largely with Dr. Lerner’s donated book collection.
Dr. Lerner can also add “19th Century Transportation Expert” to her impressive resume, which includes, partially, restaurateur, bibliophile, organic farmer, animal-friendly cosmetics company founder, preserver of heritage livestock breeds, restorer of 19th Century coaches and accomplished coach driver.
In a riveting lecture to guests attending JASNA-Southwest Region’s spring meeting in early April, Dr. Lerner showed how Austen used carriages, coaches and curricles as a way to advance characterization in her novels, in much the same way that her descriptions of estates like Pemberley and Rosings Park reflect Austen’s attitude toward their owners. Dr. Lerner’s lecture took place at the Calamigos Equestrian Center in Burbank, California, a perfect setting for her recounting of the role that horse-drawn carriages played in Regency England. As stylish equestrians took jumps in nearby riding rings and grooms brushed horses outside rows of stables, Dr. Lerner traced the history of carriages from their first appearance in Hungary in the mid-15th Century to their rise in dominance beginning in 1775 to their fading importance by the 1830s, when trains began to replace them. British coaches earned a reputation as the best built, she said, while the French excelled at decorating them.
Not surprisingly, given her computer background, Dr. Lerner researched her topic by creating a spreadsheet detailing the 394 times that Austen mentioned vehicles in her six novels. Because of the immense expense of stabling and feeding horses as well as employing grooms, Dr. Lerner equated owning a carriage in Regency England to owning a Lear jet today. Only one percent of the population owned a carriage—and everyone else walked.
Austen’s heroes and even heroines (driving was one of the rare activities that women could engage in alone) drove vehicles that were first and foremost practical. Less sympathetic characters in Austen novels are depicted as owning or coveting carriages as status symbols, Dr. Lerner said. The social-climbing Mrs. Elton in Emma repeatedly name drops her sister and brother-in-law’s barouche-landau, a vehicle that was extremely expensive to maintain with its four, or sometimes six, horses.
JASNA-Southwest Region’s all-day meeting included readings from Austen’s novels, songs about Austen characters with lyrics by JASNA-SW board member Jana Bickel, and a personal account by Dr. Alice Villaseñor, former JASNA-SW board member, about her experiences studying at Chawton House as a Jane Austen Society International Visitor.
—Jaye Scholl