“There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something – offices for the sale, not quite of human flesh, but of human intellect”, to which Mrs Elton replies with, “Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition.” Passages like the one above, from Jane Austen’s novel Emma, would seem to suggest Austen herself was in favor of the abolitionists. However, as anyone who doesn’t live under a tea cozy would know, controversy was stirred … Continue reading Was Jane Austen Woke?