这枚戒指镶的是蓝绿色的绿松石而非红宝石或祖母绿，戒圈仅为9开金（可标称为黄金的最低成色），却在2012年拍出152,450英镑。它曾属于简·奥斯汀（1775年12月16日生，2025年12月为诞辰250周年），被在2002年赢得美国选秀节目的凯莉·克拉克森拍得后，英国以“国家珍宝”为由延缓出口，争取时间让位于汉普郡乔顿的奥斯汀故居博物馆筹款购回。
文本用一连串精确收入门槛把阶层差异量化：玛丽安认为体面年收入为2,000英镑，恰为埃莉诺标准（1,000英镑）的两倍；350英镑/年“不足以舒适度日”，而最终得到的850英镑/年“就够了”。它还给出生活方式的价格表：100英镑/年可雇一名女仆，400英镑/年可配厨娘与女佣等，约700–1,000英镑/年可养马车，2,000英镑/年可支撑“体面的仆役编制”并可能拥有一两辆马车，而追求伦敦第二居所的需求至少要4,000英镑/年。
把这些数字放入1798年前后的收入分布后，所谓“拮据”也常位于顶端：达什伍德一家靠500英镑/年生活仍高于95%以上家庭的平均收入，贝茨小姐母女若约有100英镑/年也可能高于约70%家庭。作者收益与出版交易同样可量化：奥斯汀终身约赚631英镑，远低于玛丽亚·埃奇沃思的11,062.44英镑与范妮·伯尼的约4,280英镑；她以110英镑卖出《傲慢与偏见》版权，并在1815年拒绝了三部作品共450英镑的版权报价，而小说中的“永久收入”（1957）与“年金导致过度长寿”（1998）式直觉被认为领先了180年以上。
The ring holds turquoise, not ruby or emerald, and sits in just 9-carat gold (the lowest purity that can be marketed as gold), yet it sold for £152,450 in 2012. Owned by Jane Austen (born December 16, 1775, making December 2025 her 250th-birthday month) and bought by Kelly Clarkson, who won a U.S. talent show in 2002, its export was delayed as a “national treasure” so the Jane Austen’s House museum in Chawton could raise funds to buy it.
The context quantifies status through explicit income benchmarks: Marianne names £2,000 a year as “enough,” exactly twice Elinor’s £1,000. It also prices comfort and rank—£350 a year is insufficient, £850 suffices; ~£100 buys one maid, ~£400 supports multiple servants, ~£700–£1,000 keeps a carriage, £2,000 sustains a “proper” establishment with carriage(s), and at least £4,000 a year is implied for London-plus-country expectations.
Mapped onto late-1790s income distributions, “retrenched” lives can still be elite: the Dashwoods’ £500 a year exceeds the average income of over 95% of families, and Miss Bates at about £100 a year may exceed roughly 70%. Author pay and publishing risk are similarly numerical—Austen earned about £631 versus Maria Edgeworth’s £11,062.44 and Fanny Burney’s ~£4,280; she sold Pride and Prejudice’s copyright for £110 and in 1815 declined £450 for three copyrights, while the novels foreshadow “permanent income” (1957) and annuity-longevity arguments (1998) by 180+ years.
Source: How Jane Austen revealed the economic basis of society
Subtitle: Some unacknowledged truths about money
Dateline: 12月 18, 2025 05:43 上午