Block:Jane Austen Character Embraces "base ball" In Northanger Abbey: 1818

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Data	Jane Austen employed the term "base ball" in a description of her character Catherine Morland in the novel Northanger Abbey: "It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had by nature nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, base ball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of fourteen, to books."
Sources	Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, by Jane Austen, London, 1818, John Murray, Vol. I, p. 7
Block Notes	It is believed that Austen initially drafted the work that would become Northanger Abbey in the years 1798 and 1799, but it was not published until after her death (in conjunction with Persuasion). Austen in her younger days often visited her mother's first cousin, Cassandra Cooke, who also used the term baseball in her writings. In addition, one of Austen's childhood playmates in rural Hampshire County was Mary Russell, the mother of writer Mary Russell Mitford who also mentioned baseball in her works.
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