I have been reader of Austen for many years; was re-introduced when my daughter was in college and reading "Emma" and I read it along with her, and thus re-discovered Austen with a whole new appreciation! Happily my daughter, Jess, "got" that "Emma" was quite funny, the only one to do so in her class, I might add.
I re-read the books periodically and find them a tonic for the soul, as well as the best gauge of humanity I have ever encountered....and the humor helps immensely (not to mention Darcy!) My favorite book is Persuasion, I find Fanny the truest of feminists, NOT the major milktoast of all fiction characters, Elizabeth is a delight, and I often forget that these people ARE NOT REAL!
I have a group of friends scattered around New England who gather together several times a year to discuss books, most often Austen, as she is really the anchor (all due to the delightful, wonderful Ingrid G. of New Hampshire, who started this all many years ago with a weekend at Pinkham Notch at the base of Mount Washington in NH with a workshop "I'd Rather be Reading Jane Austen"!)...we call ourselves the Wild Women, but really, how can that be possible, trekking about the White Mountains, sipping tea and conversing about Austen!
And it all helps that I have a used bookstore called Bygone Books, now only an online presence. Every booklover's dream is to own a bookstore....and I challenge each and everyone of you to try it for a week!
I am currently the Advisory Chair for the JASNA-South Carolina Region. I post information about both this region and the JASNA-Vermont Region and its events on this blog.
Breaking news from The Guardian: [and now all over the blogsphere!]
Jane Austen rare manuscript
up for sale
A rare, handwritten manuscript of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons is to be sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London.
by Mark Brown, The Guardian, May 20, 2011
An incredibly rare handwritten manuscript of an unfinished novel by Jane Austen – the only one that is still in private hands – is to appear at auction inLondon.
The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are for her unfinished work The Watsons, a novel which many believe could easily have been as good as her six completed works.
Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s senior specialist in books and manuscripts, said it was “a thrill and privilege” to be selling it: “It is very exciting. This is the most significant Austen material to come on the market since the late 1980s.”
It is unquestionably rare. Original manuscripts of her published novels do not exist, aside from two cancelled chapters of Persuasion in the British Library.
The novel is considered around a quarter completed and the manuscript has 68 pages – hand-trimmed by Austen – which have been split up into 11 booklets.
It is most but not all of Austen’s unfinished novel. The first 12 pages were sold by an Austen descendent during the first world war to help the Red Cross and are now in New York’s Pierpont Morgan Library, while the next few pages were inexplicably lost by Queen Mary, University of London which has been looking after the manuscript.
The college’s director of library services Emma Bull said it happened six years ago, before she arrived, and had resulted in a full investigation which, alas, “did not really come to any firm conclusions about what specifically happened.” There had been a hope that they would turn up, but clearly that is now highly unlikely.
The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen’s other manuscripts must have looked. It also shines an interesting light on how she worked. Austen took a piece of paper, cut it in two and then folded over each half to make eight-page booklets. Then she would write, small neat handwriting leaving little room for corrections – of which there are many. “You can really see the mind at work with all the corrections and revisions,” said Heaton.
Scene from Pride & Prejudice, by Isabel Bishop - Morgan Library
At one stage she crosses so much out that she starts a page again and pins it in. It seems, in Austen’s mind, her manuscript had to look like a book. “Writers often fall into two categories,” said Heaton. “The ones who fall into a moment of great inspiration and that’s it and then you have others who endlessly go back and write and tinker. Austen is clearly of the latter variety. It really is a wonderful, evocative document.”
The Watsons was written in 1804, not a hugely happy time for Austen professionally – she had one novel rejected and another bought by a publisher who failed to print it.
It was also a difficult time personally and one reason it was not finished may be because fact came too close to the fiction. The Watsons heroine is Emma, one of four sisters who are daughters of a sick and widowed clergyman. The novel would have had the father die leaving Emma in a precarious financial position. In real life, Austen’s clergyman father died leaving her in a similar pickle to her fictional heroine.
Had Austen completed The Watsons there are many who believe it would have been a classic. Margaret Drabble described it as “a tantalising, delightful and highly accomplished fragment, which must surely have proved the equal of her other six novels, had she finished it.”
The manuscript was bought by the present owner in 1988 when it was sold by the British Rail Pension Fund. It had been bought from Austen descendents in the 1970s when manuscripts, rare books and fine art seemed like perfectly sensible things for nationalised pension funds to buy.
The manuscript has been valued at £200,000 to £300,000 and will be sold at Sotheby’s in London on 14 July.
One of the best places to visit in London if you have any interest in English domestic life is the Geffrye Museum – this has been on my ‘to-visit’ list for several years and I just haven’t made it there on previous trips to London – so when I met up with Tony Grant and he said said his favorite museum is the Geffrye – well, done deal, off we went!
As mentioned above, I did not have my camera, and we got there late, spent too much time chatting over tea, and the place closed down before I could finish the tour on contemporary life and go to the shop – so I cannot offer much more than a link to their fabulous website, where you can take any number of virtual tours through the various rooms, and begin to imagine Jane Austen in her own time and place!
From their website:
The Geffrye Museum depicts the quintessential style of English middle-class living rooms. Its collections of furniture, textiles, paintings and decorative arts are displayed in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day.
The displays lead the visitor on a walk through time, from the 17th century with oak furniture and panelling, past the refined splendour of the Georgian period and the high style of the Victorians, to 20th century modernity as seen in a 1930s flat, a mid-century room in ‘contemporary style’ and a late-20th century living space in a converted warehouse.
The museum is set in elegant 18th century almshouses with a contemporary wing surrounded by attractive gardens, which include an award-winning walled herb garden and a series of period gardens.
A parlour in 1790 – photography John Hammond
The use of the parlour remained much the same as earlier in the century; it was the room where the family would have gathered, received guests and taken meals. However, the way it was decorated and furnished had changed considerably.
In diaries, journals and letters of the time people often referred to rooms and furnishings that they liked as ‘neat’, which meant bright and stylish as well as clean and tidy. This taste required lighter colours and more delicate decoration. Wallpapered walls were particularly useful for achieving this effect, replacing heavily moulded panelling.
In the museum’s room the wallpaper is a modern replica copied from a fragment dating to around 1780. The plaster frieze is copied from a house in Cross Street, Islington. Interest in classical design and decoration was increasingly widespread towards the end of the century.
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When you first walk in, you are faced with a series of chairs depicting each era – a wondeful way to see the changes in that most essential piece of furniture – the lofty chair. And then you begin your tour through the period rooms, starting with a Hall of 1630. Each room is arranged to look as though someone just got up and left – letters half written, chairs a bit askew, cards spread out. Tony is a teacher and he said he loves bringing young people to this very hands-on museum – he would focus on a particular item or habit – for example, light – and have his students really think about how our use of and access to different kinds of light has changed through the years. It is a marvelous way of really putting yourself in each room and seeing how one would have to function in that context.
A drawing room in 1830 – photography Chris Ridley
The Almshouse was not open when I visited, so here again from their website:
An almshouse room in 1880 – photography Morley von Sternberg
The 1880s room, situated on the upper floor, shows how a former governess living in the Geffrye almshouses during the 1880s may have furnished it.
The interior exemplifies the principle of genteel poverty. Within this context, the objects on display reflect many of the principal themes related to daily life during the nineteenth century, such as scientific and technological developments, moral and social trends, travel, and educational and artistic accomplishments.
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The Museum also houses elegant gardens from the 17th to 20th centuries; here is one from the 18th c – you can visit the website for lists of key plants:
18th century period garden – photography Jayne Lloyd
A lovely visit, despite my lack of camera! – and again my hearty thanks to Tony Grant for taking me there!
All the images posted here are from the website, where you can visit all the rooms, take virtual tours, shop*, and discover this magical world of the English home.
*the shop has many books, such as The History of the Geffrye Almshouses, by Kathy Haslam.
or gifts:
You can also visit them on Facebook here, where you can like them!
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Have just returned from a week in London – hence the blogging silence – will post more pictures and some thoughts, but to start here are a few. I met up for a delightful tea and afternoon of sight-seeing with Tony Grant, of the blog London Calling [alas! he just lately removed it from the blogsphere] – Tony now writes regularly for Vic at Jane Austen’s World, where you can see his pictures and posts on Austen’s England [see his latest on The Library of an 18th-century Gentleman and also today’s post at Jane Austen Today on Brighton Pier.]
As I did the unbelievable, mind-boggling error of leaving my camera in the hotel, I have only this one photo of Tony and I [taken by an obliging passer-by on Tony’s camera] to prove that we actually met up!
Here we are in front of Henry Austen’s home/office at 10 Henrietta Street where Jane stayed!
I went back a few days later to get a photograph of the plaque on the building:
Many thanks to Tony for a lovely day of walking around London – I find that it was all the more satisfying because I DID forget my camera – one ceases to look at everything from the inside of that little box, framing all in view for just the right shot – so everything seen remains all the more etched in my memory.
More to come – museums, plays, walking, walking, walking in search of Austen in Regency London – and in perfect sunshine all week! Stay tuned!
Westminster Abbey
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Registration for the 2011 AGM in Fort Worth Texas is now open. You must be a member of JASNA to participate, so what better time to join than now, when you can head off into the sunset with all new thoughts about Sense and Sensibility [and perhaps a Col. Brandon by your side!] – check out all the events at the AGM website here as JASNA celebrates the 200th anniversary of Austen’s first published novel:
The ABC Sydney, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has posted online its weekly “Self-Improvement Wednesday.” This week’s lesson is an 11 minute chat on “Jane Austen’s Crime” with Susannah Fullerton, the JASA President and author of the fabulous Jane Austen & Crime.
Enjoy this very quick and entertaining run through all the possible crimes in Georgian England as seen in Austen’s writings: adultery and crim con, dueling, prostitution, murder, elopement, rape, theft, smuggling, gaming, and the various punishments. Better yet, read the book! [you can read my review here.]
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
A Boston-based friend of mine attends a spinning class where one of the instructors goes the extra mile in making the music accompaniment so enjoyable that the hour passes with nary a thought to the pain of exercise. This past Sunday said instructor had compiled an entire musical revue for the Royal Wedding! –
As my friend only followed the nuptial event superficially [sort of like my husband who the day before was moaning about “all this wedding ‘nonsense’ (to use a polite word) flooding the airwaves”, but then spent the wee hours of Friday morning “transfixed” by the whole thing (his own words!)] – Anne was not too keen pedaling away to royal-related wedding music for an hour, but was delightfully surprised by the brilliance of the whole playlist – her instructor graciously has posted the list online: here it is – head over to your itunes and make up your own playlist and enjoy!
Official Wedding Photo
Royal Wedding Spin Class Playlist…….Definitive
Bill’s class Sunday May 1st —- Dedicated to Kate & William
Someday my Prince will Come
WeddingBellBlues — The 5th Dimension
Get Me to the Church On Time (Live)—Frank Sinatra with Count Basie
White Wedding — Billy Idol
Kiss — Prince & The Revolution
LondonCalling — The Clash
A Girl Like You — Edwyn Collins
Live With Me — The Rolling Stones
Can’t Buy Me Love — The Beatles
Nothing Compares — Annie Lenox
Everlasting Love — U2
Pressure — Queen
I Just Can’t Wait to Be King — Soundtrack The Lion King
To celebrate the marriage of Prince William and Kate, Kensington Palace has brought out six sumptuous gowns – seldom seen by the public – all worn by royal brides over the past 200 years.
Take a look with Senior Curator Joanna Marschner, and see how fashions changed through the decades.
[Image: Princess Margaret’s wedding dress, 1960, from the Kensington Palace website]
Fantastic Ferens ~ The Canaletto on display in the Ferens Gallery, Hull
Plus: All the latest news from the world of Jane Austen, as well as Letters, Book Reviews, the always difficult Quiz, a Competition, and Jottings from JAS and JASNA.
*We are very pleased to see that our very own JASNA-Vermont member Kelly McDonald has another article in JARW – congratulations Kelly! You can follow Kelly on her blog Two Teens in the Time of Austen.
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
In A Jane Austen Education, Austen scholar William Deresiewicz turns to the author’s novels to reveal the remarkable life lessons hidden within. With humor and candor, Deresiewicz employs his own experiences to demonstrate the enduring power of Austen’s teachings. Progressing from his days as an immature student to a happily married man, Deresiewicz’s A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man’s discovery of the world outside himself.
A self-styled intellectual rebel dedicated to writers such as James Joyce and Joseph Conrad, Deresiewicz never thought Austen’s novels would have anything to offer him. But when he was assigned to read Emma as a graduate student at Columbia, something extraordinary happened. Austen’s devotion to the everyday, and her belief in the value of ordinary lives, ignited something in Deresiewicz. He began viewing the world through Austen’s eyes and treating those around him as generously as Austen treated her characters. Along the way, Deresiewicz was amazed to discover that the people in his life developed the depth and richness of literary characters-that his own life had suddenly acquired all the fascination of a novel. His real education had finally begun.
Weaving his own story-and Austen’s-around the ones her novels tell, Deresiewicz shows how her books are both about education and themselves an education. Her heroines learn about friendship and feeling, staying young and being good, and, of course, love. As they grow up, they learn lessons that are imparted to Austen’s reader, who learns and grows by their sides.
A Jane Austen Education is a testament to the transformative power of literature, a celebration of Austen’s mastery, and a joy to read. Whether for a newcomer to Austen or a lifelong devotee, Deresiewicz brings fresh insights to the novelist and her beloved works. Ultimately, Austen’s world becomes indelibly entwined with our own, showing the relevance of her message and the triumph of her vision.
A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
ISBN 9781594202889
272 pages
Release date: 28 Apr 2011
The Penguin Press: available in hardover for $25.95; ebook / adobe reader for $12.99
About the author:
William Deresiewicz was an associate professor of English at Yale University until 2008 and is a widely published literary critic who writes for a popular audience. His reviews and criticism regularly appear in The New Republic, The Nation, The American Scholar, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times. In 2008 he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Jane Austen in Vermont 