Austen, Austen Everywhere, Part II

A selection of some wonderful links to all things of Austen interest:

1. JASNA.org announces the latest Persuasions-Online, vol. 30, no. 2, on “New Directions in Austen Studies” – also, click here for the table of contents to the next Persuasions 31, now at the printer, from the 2009 AGM on Austen’s Brothers and Sisters..

2. The New York Public Library’s online Digital Collection has a variety of collections worth looking at; here is one that is Austen-related:

Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era

They toil not indeed, nor indeed do they spin. | Yet they never are idle when once they begin. | But are very intent on increasing their store. | And always keep shuffling & cutting for more.

Image ID: PS_CPS_CD4_051

They toil not indeed, nor indeed do they spin. | Yet they never are idle when once they begin. | But are very intent on … (1807) [Bath Guide. Image from the NYPL Digital Collection]

3. A blog just discovered: Bitch in a Bonnet, “reclaiming Jane Austen from the stiffs, the snobs, the simps and the saps”

4. Sotheby’s Auction: A Celebration of the English Country House, April 15, 2010: click here for the online catalogue

5. News on the Winchester Cathedral Jane Austen Exhibit:

Jane Austen exhibition reveals author’s life and brings new prominence to her final resting place

22 March 2010. As the bicentenary decade of Jane Austen’s heyday and early death approaches, a new permanent exhibition at her resting place in Winchester Cathedral opens on 10 April 2010 to unveil the life and times of the renowned author like never before.

The exhibition, which will document Jane’s home and social life, will be supported by a mix of permanent and rolling exhibits borrowed from collections around the world. From 10 April until 20 September items from Winchester Cathedral’s and Winchester College’s archives will be on display. Some of these items have rarely, if ever, been displayed publicly before and include her burial register, first editions and fragments of Jane’s own writing.

Guided tours, specific exhibition and talks will take visitors through her life and works to mark her legacy and set the stage for Jane’s bicentenary. Stand out events are:

I May: Special Evensong to mark Jane Austen’s life, and place in the Cathedral’s history

16-18 July: Jane Austen Weekend (including Regency Dinner) which coincides with the Jane Austen Society AGM

5-6 August: Outside theatre production of Pride and Prejudice

Extended tours which take visitors beyond the Cathedral to see Jane’s final home just beyond the Cathedral Inner Close.

6. London Remembers, a site documenting all the memorials in London [people, events, etc.] – search “Jane Austen” and two sites come up, both locations where her brother Henry Austen lived in London.

7. Search the blog London Calling for “Jane Austen” and you will find a number of posts on Austen: about the theatre, William Wilberforce, Southampton, Steventon, etc. – informative posts with great photographs from this Austen-obsessed Londoner [lucky guy!]

8. After Austen’s time, but an interesting online exhibit to view at Facing the Late Victorians, containing rarely seem images of and by British artists in the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection: [click on each image for an enlarged view]