Austen in London, Ackermann's Repository of Arts, and the Inception of Emma

Jane Austen's spring 1813 trips to London and her reading in this London magazine (hereafter Ackermann's Repository) coincided to inspire many details of the novel that Austen would soon begin writing. [...]Southampton Street leads the pedestrian quickly to 101 the Strand (in the numbering system of those days), which was Ackermann's Repository of Arts-the store. Austen's incorporation into Emma of this column's concerns about professional and matrimonial prospects for women and the magazine's broader presentation of commercial patriotism show Austen with an eye on and a memory for these contemporary social issues as presented here. Each young lady must submit for appraisal by patrons a picture of herself: I propose that one of my rooms shall be altogether appropriated to portraits, which must be of such young ladies as are qualified to produce them by their own efforts in that branch of art: . . . a young lady of respectable family, agreeable person, amiable manners, and suitable accomplishments, though of a circumscribed fortune, is worthy the attention of, and a becoming match for any gentleman.