c2012 David Price, Allport Editions
Cards available for $2.50 ea or $14.95 for a box of 15
****************
Category: Jane Austen Popular Culture
All I Want for Christmas? ~ Anything Jane Austen Please! Day 3: A Jane Austen Bracelet
The 12 Days of Christmas:
- Day 1: A Minitaure Edition of Emma
- Day 2: A Literary Tour with Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia
Day 3: a Jane Austen Cuff Bracelet:
All I Want for Christmas? ~ Anything Jane Austen Please! ~ Day 1: A Miniature edition of Emma
I begin today a run through the next 12 days of the Christmas Season with some thoughts on gifts for your favorite Austen fan or gifts to add to your own “Want-List” – if you have been “nice” and not naughty all year [please do check Henry Tilney’s dispute over the meaning of the word in Vol. I, ch. 14 of Northanger Abbey], you might find some of these under your tree!
Day 1. A miniature edition of Emma, from Plum Park Press [see update on a second printing below!]
Hot off the Press! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine, No. 61
The January/February issue (No. 61) of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine, marking the bicentenary of Pride & Prejudice, has just been published and is being mailed to subscribers over the holiday period.
Continue reading “Hot off the Press! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine, No. 61″
Happy Birthday Jane Austen! ~ The Ten Best Reasons to Go to a JASNA AGM ~ It’s All About You Jane!
Comment below for the chance to win a surprise Jane Austen-related giveaway!
*****************
The Ten Best Reasons to Go to a JASNA AGM, Or, Why I would celebrate Jane Austen’s Birthday
by Spiriting Her Around Such an Event
Well, I had the best of intentions to do a full write-up of all the major events at the latest JASNA AGM in Brooklyn – a special location for me personally as I am a New Yorker born and bred – but as I have mentioned elsewhere life gets in the way of our best-laid plans and as the AGM now seems light-years away, I propose to just offer a grand summary in the context of why one should go to this annual Jane Austen conference; and why do so many plan on being there year after year? Friends and family just shake their heads with the typical “she only wrote 6 books, whatever can you talk about for 4 days??” and I nod knowingly that a lifetime of conferences would not satisfy… It takes me a long while to re-enter the 21st century – how delightful it is to enjoy the late 18th and early 19th without all the attendant inconveniences! I shall make a best effort to give the salient points of this year’s conference, memory perhaps failing me, with a dependence upon sketchy notes, not enough pictures taken (and those that were, not very good…)
Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment by Elsa Solender ~ Now in Real Book Format!
Elsa Solender’s book Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment was released last year as a kindle ebook only – it is now available as a real hold-in-the-hand, turn-the-pages book! – Hurray! – you can find it here at Amazon.com:
You can read my interview with Elsa here:
Diana Birchall reviewed the book for this blog here:
My review of the book will appear in this winter’s JASNA News [and why it is not here on the blog] – if you are a collector of Jane Austen materials, you should add this book to your collection without delay – the kindle edition has been great to read, but there is nothing like the real thing on your bookshelves when it comes to Jane Austen! – and a perfect Holiday gift to your favorite Austen fan…
c2012, Jane Austen in Vermont
Reader’s Digest recommends Jane Austen in motion
Reader’s Digest recommends Jane Austen in motion.
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2, edited by Russ Kick, has just been released – Pride and Prejudice graces the cover!
JASNA-Vermont’s “An Afternoon with Jane Austen” ~ The Perfect Visit by Stuart Bennett
Dear Readers:
Coming up this weekend [Sunday September 23, 2012] is JASNA-Vermont’s “An Afternoon with Jane Austen”: wherein we shall hear about ‘Channeling’, ‘Imagining’, and ‘Dressing’ Jane Austen’. Presentations by authors Elsa Solender (Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment) and Stuart Bennett (The Perfect Visit) will take us back in time to meet our favorite author! These two sessions will be linked with a talk by our very own Hope Greenberg as she takes us through the stages of “Dressing Jane” in the proper Regency clothing of her day.
Yesterday I posted a review of Elsa Solender’s Jane Austen in Love by Diana Birchall; today I am headlining Stuart Bennett’s The Perfect Visit – Stuart will be talking about his foray into historical fantasy/fiction, where he follows his long career in the world of antiquarian bookselling and scholarly publications on bookbinders and publishers in Jacobean, Augustan, and Regency England. He will ask the audience to consider how much scholarship properly belongs in an historical novel, and what is the right balance between fact and fiction? “Imagining Jane Austen” will focus on these topics, illustrated by short passages from The Perfect Visit. Audience participation is invited.
I append here the various reviews of Stuart’s book that can be found on Amazon – links to my interview with Stuart are at the end of the post.
Hoping you can join us tomorrow to hear Stuart and Elsa each talk about their books!
************************
*The Perfect Visit starts a little slowly, but I soon became absorbed in the characters and the plot. Who thought time travel would be so complicated? This novel is well written with close attention to detail. The characters are life-like, with clear motivations. One doesn’t have to love Shakespeare and Austen to make this a good read, but it helps. Hope there is a sequel, or another book by this fine author. (Esther Sisler)
***************
*Finished The Perfect Visit a few days ago. I found it a literate, well-written historical novel of time travel, romance, interesting content on book collecting (accurate for a welcome change), Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and a villain or two. I liked it and was sorry for it to end. But the author left Ned and Vanessa stranded in 1833 London so there can hopefully be a continuation of the story. Hope so… I have often dreamed of buying books in St. Pauls churchyard and Fleet Street in the 1570’s in London. Or visiting Lackington Allen and Co.’s Temple of the Muses in the early 1800s. Well researched; the historical accuracy gives the reader the feel of Shakespeare’s London or of Regency England. Stuart Bennett has been an auctioneer at Christie’s in London, and is the author of books on collecting photography and on English trade bookbindings. He is presently a dealer in rare books. (Richard Cady)
***************
*Bennett writes with an encyclopedic knowledge of English culture allowing the reader to ‘time travel’ with the wild abandon of a breathtaking game of ‘pretend.’ His expertise on the subject of English culture is dwarfed by his love of the same terrain. Among the many delights of this read are the great descriptions of faces, architecture, wine, meat, landscape and-love! The various dialects from the respective eras are astonishingly distinctive from one another. If you would like to remember how to be seven years old again and also gain enormous insights into these two eras of English history please read and enjoy ‘The Perfect Visit.’ (Sally Christian)
***************
*Earlier reviews have praised Bennett’s mastery with words, his exceptional evocation of the Elizabethan and Regency periods, his meticulous detailing of the limits both of time travel itself and his invented machine, his fast-moving plot with its ingenious twists. I agree wholeheartedly and will add only that I came away from my reading of The Perfect Visit thinking, “I’m going to miss Vanessa and Ned.” So, for me that’s exceptional character-building, too. But let me speak, very quietly, to the book collector among prospective readers: You are going to be astonished by the absolutely impeccable bibliographic details so casually introduced. For a few of us, Ned’s 1607 bookshop purchases may rival all the derring-do for pure, pure excitement. (Bee Thorpe)
*************
*I don’t think you have to like Jane Austin (sic), I don’t think you have to be enthralled with jolly old England. I think you will enjoy Stuart Bennett’s delightful time-travel novel if you like the way words can be bent into visions, the way descriptions can create feelings, the way unexpected plot twists can spank your imagination. Bennett is a master with words, and his novel is a perfect visit to a world of wonder, romance and friendship. (Michael Lester)
***************
*I spent a pleasurable weekend reading Stuart Bennett’s graceful, happy and imaginative THE PERFECT VISIT. For those of us who have daydreamed of finding ourselves walking through Elizabethan London or being in the same room with Jane Austen, this is a delightful means to make real those daydreams, or as real as a well written novel can devise. He gives vivid life to names which have been obscure and dusty and walks us through the streets of London and Bath better than Google maps. Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, of course, are admired for their shaping of the English language. Stuart Bennett meets the challenge of making them the centrifugal forces of his novel with prose that they would enjoy, and, occasionally, recognize. Dear Reader, enjoy! (Sarah Baldwin)
****************
*For anyone who has read each of Jane Austen’s novels a half dozen times or more, and is looking for something else to read before reading them all again, this is the book! The premise of time traveling turns out to be a marvelous platform on which to present an engaging tale, and to flesh out aspects of Jane Austen’s world which she had no need to describe in detail to her original readers. Stuart Bennett’s descriptions of art, music, popular literature, architecture, manners, the minutiae of apparel (especially feminine apparel), even of equestrian practices, paint a remarkably detailed picture of a particular time and place. As such it provides an valuable complement to Austen’s works. The Perfect Visit is also a worthwhile work of fiction. As the story unwound towards it’s inevitable conclusion, I found myself drawn into the situation of it’s principal characters, a 21st century couple, trapped in the 19th, and living out a scenario which could easily be a plot out of an Austen novel. (Alan Cate)
***************
*Historical novels provide a form of time travel allowing the reader to meet the characters, customs, costumes, cities and settings which have already created the foundations of our own time, and to imagine what it would be like now if things had turned out differently. Not only does “The Perfect Visit” encompass these traits with charm and depth, but also includes some thought-provoking aspects of the paradoxes of time travel. This is a captivating story, filled with rich historical details dovetailing with adventure and romance. We become embroiled in the world of rare early literary manuscripts and their authors, as the main characters, modern time travelers, learn to adapt to the customs of the past about which they know some things — but not everything. Tying it all together for this reviewer is a delightful musical thread masterfully weaving the present with the past and its future. (M. Woolf)
***************
*A Perfect Visit, Stuart Bennett’s entertaining new novel about two present-day sleuths who separately travel through time to collect books and manuscripts from the English Regency and Stuart eras, pays homage to readers’ never-ending fascination with Jane Austen and William Shakespeare. Bennett’s thorough appreciation of both authors and their milieu is evident on every page as his characters, Vanessa and Ned, seek out their literary heroes and, of course, run into grave complications that imperil not only their ability to return to “reality” but also their chances of living together happily ever after. Bennett gives his readers a fast-paced narrative filled with unexpected twists–while also perfectly reproducing the tone and quality of the best Regency-period novels. I highly recommend A Perfect Visit to anyone experiencing Jane Austin (sic) withdrawal symptoms. (Rockwell Stensrud)
***********************
So reasons enough to pick up a copy of The Perfect Visit!
You can read more about Stuart Bennett here:
- Stuart Bennett Rare Books
- Longbourn Press
- An interview with Stuart Bennett at Jane Austen in Vermont: Part I and Part II
- You can read an interview with Stuart Bennett by Sheila Markham at ILAB here [and the source for the above photograph]
- You can view a video interview with Mr. Bennett on ILAB here
c2012, Jane Austen in Vermont
Jane Austen in Love by Elsa Solender ~ A Review by Diana Birchall ~ ‘A Light and Lovely Literary Biography’
Dear Readers:
Coming up this weekend [Sunday September 23, 2012] is JASNA-Vermont’s “An Afternoon with Jane Austen”: wherein we shall hear about ‘Channeling’, ‘Imagining’, and ‘Dressing’ Jane Austen’. Presentations by authors Elsa Solender (Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment) and Stuart Bennett (The Perfect Visit) will take us back in time to meet our favorite author! These two sessions will be linked with a talk by our very own Hope Greenberg as she takes us through the stages of “Dressing Jane” in the proper Regency clothing of her day.
I had reviewed Elsa Solender’s book for the JASNA News [it shall be in the next issue] and so cannot post that review here until it is published, so I have asked Diana Birchall, who read and enjoyed the book very much, to share her thoughts on Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainement.
**********************
A Light and Lovely Literary Biography
The Austenalia, Austenesque, Austen-related fiction field is now so rich and wide that there is something for every taste, passion, and level of knowledge. Jane Austen’s works have always left the reader wishing for more, and by now all her novels have been continued, extended, squeezed and sequelized, transmuted into every possible genre, and almost loved to death by writers and fans of every conceivable skill set and range of imagination and learning. The subject of Jane Austen’s own life and loves has not been neglected, but it is not as commonly treated as those of her fictional characters. Perhaps it is easier to picture to oneself the future lives of Darcy and Elizabeth than it is to write authoritatively and persuasively about the veritable Austen herself, the mysterious and hidden woman of two hundred odd years ago, whose life was never on display, whose relatives burned selected letters and presented a sweetened version of her to the world. A lifetime of study and scholarship leaves one only more deeply aware of just how enigmatic she was. For this reason most modern re-imaginings of her life cannot satisfy – too often they clash wincingly with our own vision, or try to pump up the almost incredibly scantily known romantic aspects of her life into a sensational love story. Only a precious few come close to presenting a plausible enough version to permit us to think that yes, maybe, just maybe, life was like that for Jane Austen.
Elsa Solender’s Jane Austen in Love accomplishes this, and is one of the most valid and satisfying attempted imaginings of Austen’s emotions and interior life – and that of her sister Cassandra, who serves as a natural, if somewhat somber, narrator. Solender has the advantage of lifelong study of Austen, for as writer, editor, and former President of JASNA, she has clearly never branched far away from the Austen tree of knowledge, but has kept it twining around her mind and heart, evergreen. She is also a felicitous, unobtrusive, graceful writer, who wears her great scholarship lightly and is never prosy or dry, but modest and elegant, just as Austen would surely approve. She keeps her fertile imagination closely reined in to the probable, and therefore the reader who wants to see a little more of “what Jane Austen was like,” is given the gift of a delicate and wholly believable version of reality.
Solender has a light touch and a sensitive ability to catch and recreate a tone, a mood, and she displays this winningly throughout. The sober sadness of the older Cassandra is piquantly contrasted with the bright, high spirited portrait of the young Jane in the bosom of her family, each of her brothers lively and inimitable, especially the clever but unstable Henry. Solender artfully intersperses nuggets of literary biography with her sketches, giving us the pleasure of seeing Jane Austen’s family at home, in the act of being themselves. The cast of characters comes to life and disports itself with almost Austenian variety and vivacity: Eliza, Mrs Lefroy, uncles and aunts, are all impressively yet endearingly recalled to life. The light-yet-probable touch is equally imparted to all the romances that touched Austen: the disappointing flirtation with Tom Lefroy, the deeper love for the Sidmouth gentleman, the abortive Bigg-Wither experiment. They are all smoothly stitched into the sampler.
Jane Austen in Love is a charmingly, effectively dramatized literary biography, a lovely book to add to the Austen collection. The only pity is that thus far it is only available as an e-book, when it so well deserves to be on the best shelves and in the best hands. It is a book that you cannot call a labor of love, for it is not laborious. An entertaining effusion of affection, home brewed honey wine for the reader who loves drinking drafts that are sweet and pure, wholesome and sparkling.
About Diana:
Diana Birchall is a story analyst who reads novels for Warner Bros Studios. She is the author of the Jane Austen-related novels Mrs. Darcy’s Dilemma and Mrs. Elton in America, and also a scholarly biography of her grandmother, Onoto Watanna, the first Asian American novelist. Her story “Jane Austen’s Cat” appears in the anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It, and her several Austen-related plays have had staged readings around the country and in Canada. She has also given many talks on Jane Austen, at such venues as Yale, Oxford, and the Chawton House Library in England.
Thank you Diana! – wish you could be here on Sunday!
**************************
You can read more about Elsa’s book here:
Another review at Austenprose by Aia A. Hussein here:
http://austenprose.com/2012/04/25/jane-austen-in-love-an-entertainment-by-elsa-a-solender-a-review/
Come prepared on Sunday to hear Elsa “channel Jane Austen” – she would sign books available for purchase but alas! as Diana notes the book is only in ebook format at present – but there will be a door prize, so bring your kindle so you can download it right there and then if you are the lucky winner!
More information on Sunday’s event here:
Up later this week: Stuart Bennett’s The Perfect Visit – Mr. Bennett [no relation to that esteemed gentleman Mr. Bennet] will also be speaking at our Sunday event, on “Imagining Jane Austen”… a full afternoon of Jane Austen indeed!
c2012, Jane Austen in Vermont
Winner of the Audiobooks – Austen!…
…is Felicia! – Please email me and I will put you in touch with Elizabeth Rodgers on how to get the free app [if you do not have an iPhone, please let me know and I will draw another name]
Thanks all for responding – I recommend you buy the app for 99c and start listening right away! Visit Audiobook Pop! to order. [Also note that the app will be free on the opening day of the JASNA AGM in Brooklyn – available on October 5, 2012]
[Risa, I will have Ms. Rodgers answer your question.]
Jane Austen in Vermont 