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Jane Austen penned the last sentences of her unfinished manuscript for the novel we know as Sanditon in March 1817 before she died that July. Like me, many Austen fans often stumble upon this work after they have read all six of her completed novels.

At this point, readers of Austen feel like they know her and have sought out Sanditon because they want more of what they loved in her other works. However, they are often surprised by what they find.

In the final months of her life, Austen had moved away from writing about the English country house. The titular Sanditon is instead a seaside health resort, and the novel follows characters who spend a season there trying to get healthy or wealthy.

Austen’s most striking departure from the rest of her work, however, is in her inclusion of the character of Miss Lambe – a young heiress staying at the resort who is of African descent. Sanditon is the only Austen novel to contain an explicitly Black character.

Sanditon’s narrator explains that Miss Lambe is a mixed-race Black heiress of just 17 years old. Austen calls her a “chilly and tender” girl who attracts attention because she requires luxuries such as “a maid of her own”, and “the best room in the lodgings”.

Far from being disadvantaged because of race, Miss Lambe has more privileges than many of her white peers, and they react with interest and envy. The resort’s scheming foundress, Lady Denham, even fantasises about making an advantageous match for her nephew with the girl.

This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

Miss Lambe’s presence in Austen’s novel presents a stark challenge to any assumptions that Austen never wrote about people of colour. Many still assume that authors in Austen’s time simply weren’t writing about Black characters.

However, Miss Lambe is not the only character of this background to appear in books of the period. I am currently finishing up a book on the subject of Black representation in British marriage plots. I research Black characters who are heiresses, escapees, keepers of dark secrets, and participants in all manner of surprise twists and turns.

For example, in the anonymously authored 1808 novel The Woman of Colour, trouble ensues when a young Black woman, Olivia Fairfield, travels to England from Jamaica in order to marry according to her father’s wishes.

There have also been several rich and wonderful research projects demonstrating the enormous variety of Black British history in Jane Austen’s England. The writer and academic Gretchen Gerzina’s book Black England, for example, brings to life a vision of this world that included Black community, activism and intellectualism.

Read more:
Austen and Turner: A Country House Encounter captures the spirit of two great geniuses, born 250 years ago

The Mapping Black London project, a stunningly detailed digital resource from Northeastern University, London, provides interactive maps demonstrating evidence of Black life in the city through the records of everyday people. We can see the proof of Black Britons being baptised, getting married, or being buried in London during Austen’s lifetime.

We can also turn to Black writers from the period who tell us their story directly, such as Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, and Mary Prince. Black British writers like these commented directly on their experience of finding ways to survive the violence of transatlantic chattel slavery.

In contrast to these writers’ real experiences, however, Miss Lambe’s in Austen’s literary take on Regency England is markedly different. As an heiress, she has a lot more in common with real historical figures who were the children of white British enslavers and Afro-Caribbean women.

Read more:
Jane Austen: why are adaptations of Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey so rare?

The scholar of early American and Atlantic history, Daniel Livesay, has written extensively on these figures in his book Children of Uncertain Fortune, detailing the lives of the privileged few who were acknowledged by white fathers, and were either born free or granted their freedom. Such children were often educated on both sides of the Atlantic and might apply for special legal status, giving them similar rights to those of white British subjects.

Austen hints at this background for Miss Lambe in discussions of her wealth. Like the children Livesay discusses, Miss Lambe has left the West Indies and is now growing up in England. She is in the care of Mrs Griffiths, an older lady who treats her as “beyond comparison the most important and precious” client. This is because Miss Lambe “paid in proportion to her fortune”.

A wealthy family member would have needed to set up this arrangement with Mrs Griffiths. The family member also would have helped Miss Lambe gain the special legal status necessary for a Black person to inherit a fortune under colonial law.

While we can celebrate Austen’s inclusion of a Black character, we know that representation alone is not empowerment. As Kerry Sinanan, an academic in pre-1800 literature and culture, has insisted, we need to be careful about an uncritical celebration of Austen’s “radical politics”.

Read more:
Jane Austen at 250: Why we shouldn’t exaggerate her radicalism

When we think of Black life in Austen’s world we need to think both about the Black wealth and privilege Austen chooses to represent in Miss Lambe as well as the enslavement Austen never addresses. If we long for Austen to be a champion of all women, including Black women, we may be sorely disappointed by Austen’s ten brief sentences mentioning her sole Black character.

Nevertheless, Miss Lambe remains an important reminder as we celebrate Austen’s enduring legacy 250 years on: Black British life and experience have always been part of British literature and history. Remembering this character in Austen’s writing can only help to add urgency to the ongoing re-evaluation of how we teach, learn and understand that literature and history.

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Olivia Carpenter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.