Credit and Credibility: The Economics of Gossip in Jane Austen's Novels

Gossip is everywhere in Jane Austen’s work, circulated through networks of friends, family, and acquaintances. These communities closely resemble the trust-based localised credit economies that in Austen’s lifetime (1775–1817) were slowly fading away. Those medieval and early modern credit economies had been sustained by repeat transactions between neighbours whose credibility was based on criteria like trustworthiness and ability to meet socioeconomic obligations. In the rural communities that make up Austen’s novels, gossip circulates in a similar manner, evaluated and exchanged by trustworthy—that is, truthful—participants. In Austen’s time, however, England’s localised economies were being reorganised into centralised, relatively impersonal credit institutions. Austen witnessed the growing pains of centralising British credit and wove these anxieties into the fabric of her novels. Thus, Austen’s trust-based credit networks are often communities in crisis. In such an environment, the credibility of information is closely tied with that of the informant. As Emma Woodhouse says, participants must stand upon “an equal footing of truth and honour.”

This thesis examines the ways that internal and paratextual concepts of credit and credibility shape exchanges of gossip in Austen’s novels. The first three chapters deconstruct these nebulous ideas, breaking them down into discussions about trust, value, and obligation, respectively. These chapters delineate Austen’s gossip networks while assessing the sociological impact of information—both true and false—circulated within them. The fourth chapter widens the lens of this discussion, analysing the workings of gossip and paper credit—particularly bank notes—in Austen’s work alongside Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801) and Frances Burney’s The Wanderer (1814). Positioning Austen within a broader landscape of contemporary literature offers a more comprehensive portrait of the innovations Austen’s gossip networks represent within both the history of the novel and the economic history of Britain.