Well, this is everywhere so only posting this so everyone knows I am actually paying attention. The UK seems to be in the news an awful lot this week, and while I find this quite funny:
[from https://www.facebook.com/politicalhumor ]
I don’t agree! I am unashamedly an Anglophile of the highest order [my parents were born there], and I had Tea every day as soon as I got home from school and have never changed the habit, and so all this stuff is just sort of ingrained…
So very excited this week, both about the Royal Baby AND the £10 note to feature Jane Austen.
So first a hearty congratulations to all in the Royal Family about George Alexander Louis – after George Knightley I am assuming, and a fine model for any young man (not to mention his great-grandfather)…
[Image: CBS News]
************************
And then Jane takes front-row seat after several weeks of mind-boggling discussion and various petitions on who shall grace the next issue of the £10 note, a woman it was to be, and Jane Austen it is – we can assume the Bank of England was a tad nonplussed by all of Jane Austen fandom raving for her to be chosen…
Here are the details – though they will not be in circulation until 2017 – I do wonder if they are concerned that any such Austen covered notes appearing shall just as quickly disappear into people’s scrapbooks and they shall have to start all over again – I cannot even imagine SPENDING this money, can you??
[ Image: news.com.au ]
The portrait of Jane Austen, which will appear on the banknote, is adapted from a sketch drawn by her sister Cassandra Austen. Other features include:
• A quote from Pride and Prejudice – “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!”
• An illustration of Elizabeth Bennet, one of the characters in Pride and Prejudice
• An image of Godmersham Park in Kent – the home of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, and the inspiration for a number of novels
• A central background design of the author’s writing table which she used at home at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire
Fellow writers William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens have appeared on banknotes in recent times. Dickens was on the £10 note [Jane Austen shall be replacing Charles Darwin who is currently on the £10 note] and Shakespeare on the £20 note.
Bank of England notes can be spent throughout the UK. In addition, three banks in Scotland and four in Northern Ireland are authorised to issue banknotes.
On Twitter, Mr Osborne wrote: “[Incoming Bank of England governor] Mark Carney’s choice of Jane Austen as face of £10 note is great. After understandable row over lack of women, shows sense and sensibility.”
[Good to know someone knows their Austen…]
[Quoting from BBC News, where you can find a list of all the previous banknotes with famous faces…]
[Image: CBS News]
******************
UPDATE: adding a few links here to other writings on the kerfuffle of Jane on the £10 note:
-
Janine Barchas at the Johns Hopkins U Press blog: Jane Austen on the Tenner—great idea, bad execution
-
Arnie Perlstein at his Sharp Elves Society blog: The New TEN-POUND Banknote Honoring Jane Austen: “I shall keep my TEN POUNDS too, to wrap myself up in next winter….”
-
John Mullan at The Guardian: Why that Jane Austen quotation on the new £10 note is a major blunder
Jane Austen in Vermont 