Jane Austen's Mansfield Park - location names not completed?

[hornblower]

My dd is reading this & she keeps coming across location names being replaced with a line. So for eg.

 

Ch. 5

 

"...a little about the horse which he had to run at the B______ races."

 

Ch. 6

 

"Mr. Bertram set off for _______,......"

 

Anyone know why these are blanked out? Is it just our edition?

[Mothersweets]

Mine is like that, too. I don't know why she did that and find it mildly irritating. Hoping someone who knows will come on and enlighten us. :)

[Mrs Mungo]

This is a very common literary convention in 18th and 19th century novels. It was thought it would make the story more appealing to a wide audience. They could fill in the blank with their own, local, ___shire or Mr. ____. I think it was also supposed to make it seem like a "names have been changed to protect the innocent" type of thing and therefore more real.

[lionfamily1999]

This is a very common literary convention in 18th and 19th century novels. It was thought it would make the story more appealing to a wide audience. They could fill in the blank with their own, local, ___shire or Mr. ____. I think it was also supposed to make it seem like a "names have been changed to protect the innocent" type of thing and therefore more real.

:iagree:

 

I believe Dickens does that at times too. I've seen it in numerous older books.

[hornblower]

Thanks Mrs. Mungo -

 

It's odd that she doesn't do it in her other books. Edward studies in Plymouth in Sense & Sensibility. In Pride and Prejudice we hear about Brighton and Bath.... that's kind of why it surprised us.

[KAR120C]

This is a very common literary convention in 18th and 19th century novels. It was thought it would make the story more appealing to a wide audience. They could fill in the blank with their own, local, ___shire or Mr. ____. I think it was also supposed to make it seem like a "names have been changed to protect the innocent" type of thing and therefore more real.

I think in some cases it's like of like "wherever doesn't matter - make up your own". There's a bit in Have His Carcase where they've tracked a license plate and it's a "___shire number" -- which isn't going to be referred to again except insofar as they figure out whose car it is. If the location matters, or means something to the story, they include it.

[Mrs Mungo]

Thanks Mrs. Mungo -

 

It's odd that she doesn't do it in her other books. Edward studies in Plymouth in Sense & Sensibility. In Pride and Prejudice we hear about Brighton and Bath.... that's kind of why it surprised us.

 

But she *does* do it in Pride and Prejudice. Not with Brighton or Bath but those are specific cities, most people would have known them and they had (and have, even now) a particular "flavor." The towns that are named by ___shire (or such) are little, generic, country villages. In Pride and Prejudice I know the militia is referred to as the ___shire militia.

[Kareni]

We saw the same convention in one translation of Les Miserables but not in another. It was curious.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[MichelleWI]

It extends beyond novels, as well. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, used this method often to obscure individuals within his own diaries.

 

It was his wish that his papers be destroyed upon his death, but his family did not do so. Perhaps he knew that this desire may go unfulfilled and so "changed the names to protect the innocent" and, at times, the guilty.

[Laura in CA]

I've wondered about this since I was a kid and first started reading classics. After a while I decided it was (at least sometimes) done so the author could take 'artistic license' and not have readers say things like But December 6th was a *Monday* that year! or But the railway line didn't extend to that town back then! or But there wasn't a full moon that night! -- which they could, if details like the place name or year were given. I'm pretty sure it was after I read an annotated version of Sherlock Holmes stories that I came to this conclusion -- the fans had spent an inordinate amount of time tracking down the most obscure details!

 

So, the funny part -- I was just starting to read The Warden by Trollope (inspired, I think, by a recent thread here!) and here's the very beginning:

 

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ------; let us call it Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected.

 

At least in this book it's spelled out ;-)

 

~Laura

[Sebastian (a lady)]

You even run into this in books like Black Beauty (Anna Sewell 1877). I wonder if some of it is because the art of the novel was still a rather new form. There might have been some sense that readers would not assume that the places and figures presented were fictional.

[Nan in Mass]

Which thread? I must of missed it. I like Trollope.

[Laura in CA]

Which thread? I must of missed it. I like Trollope.

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135310

 

It gave me lots of ideas! ;-)

 

~Laura