EP24: The Thing About Fordyce's Sermons

Mr. Collins is preparing to read aloud to all of us, and the chosen volume is Fordyce's Sermons. We discuss the rise and fall of Fordyce's popularity, and take a look at how Austen's reference to Fordyce in Pride and Prejudice serves as both cultural commentary and comedy.

Selected episode sources

• Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy. London: Hambledon Press, 2002.
• Ford, Susan Allen. “Mr. Collins Interrupted: Reading Fordyce’s Sermons with Pride and Prejudice.” Persuasions On-Line34, no. 1 (2013). https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol34no1/ford.html.
• Grundy, Isobel. “Jane Austen and Literary Traditions.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, 2nd ed., 189–210. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Harris, Muriel. “‘Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers.’” In A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One, edited by Bennett A. Rafoth, 2nd ed., 24–34. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 2005.
• The British Library. “Sermons to Young Women.” Accessed January 28, 2022. https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sermons-to-young-women.
• Sprayberry, Marie A. “Fanny Price as Fordyce’s Ideal Woman? And Why?” Persuasions On-Line 35, no. 1 (2014). https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol35no1/sprayberry.html.
• Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003.
• Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Edited by Janet M. Todd. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Worsley, Lucy. Jane Austen at Home. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017.
• Yeazell, Ruth Bernard. Fictions of Modesty: Women and Courtship in the English Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.