Paula Byrne has written about Jane Austen frequently, and now has some thoughts regarding Austen's likeness on the new British £10 note. As she tells London's The Guardian:
"Jane Austen is the funniest writer to walk this planet, and she's been made to look dim-witted."
In the Bank of England's defense, there isn't much to go on regarding Austen's actual appearance. Having died in 1817, Austen really didn't leave a legacy of photographic evidence. The only interpretation of Austen done during her lifetime was the sketch you see above on the left, drawn by her sister Cassandra. The picture on the right is Austen's likeness on the new £10 note, which borrows from a painting done by Austen's nephew 50 years after her death.
This hasn't stopped Byrne's criticism, who is absolute in Cassandra Austen's wistful, pencil-sketch interpretation.
"They've made her look like a doll, with big eyes," Byrne tells The Guardian. "She wasn't smiling in the original and she is in this. It is a Victorian airbrushing of her."
Because Jane Austen was physically incapable of smiling?
Yes, but how do you really feel, Paula?
"I can't believe they have gone for such a saccharine picture [...] but they've chosen a picture that makes her look a cosy, middle-class writer."
No! Not the cosy middle-class!
What else, Paula?
"[I]t's just that it would have been better to show her as much more spiky..."
Because if Jane Austen doesn't look like an 18th-century Sid Vicious, we've clearly gone astray.
photo: The Guardian
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