Category: Jane Austen

Austen Literary History & Criticism · Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · Museum Exhibitions · Regency England

“What Jane Saw” ~ Janine Barchas’s Tour of the 1813 Joshua Reynolds Exhibition …

BookLady DebLeave a comment

…has launched today! – visit the website What Jane Saw and you can follow Jane Austen as she tours the exhibit!

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The perfect time-travel adventure – it is May 24, 1813 –  what do you see?…

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From the website: [ http://www.whatjanesaw.org/index.php ]

On 24 May 1813, Jane Austen visited an important and  much-talked-about art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall, London. The show  was a retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), England’s  celebrated portrait painter.

No visual record of this show is known to have survived, although it  attracted hundreds of daily visitors during its much-publicized three-month run.  However, many details of the exhibit can be reconstructed from the original 1813  “Catalogue of Pictures,” a one-shilling pamphlet purchased by visitors as a guide  through the three large rooms where hung 141 paintings by Reynolds. Armed with  surviving copies of this pamphlet, narrative accounts in nineteenth-century newspapers  and books, and precise architectural measurements of the British Institution’s exhibit  space, this website reconstructs the Reynolds show as Jane Austen (as well as any Jane  Doe) saw it.

I. Why reconstruct this museum exhibit from 1813?

In truth, even if Jane Austen had not attended this public  exhibit, it would still be well worth reconstructing. The British Institution’s show  was a star-studded “first” of great magnitude for the art community and a turning point  in the history of modern exhibit practices. The 1813 show amounted to the first  commemorative exhibition devoted to a single artist ever staged by an institution.  Although Reynolds, who had died a mere twenty-one years earlier, did not yet qualify as  an Old Master, he was already hailed as the founder of the British School and  celebrated as a model for contemporary artists to emulate. The preface to the exhibit  catalogue, written by Richard Payne Knight, treats the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a  national treasure in order “to call attention generally to British, in preference to  Foreign Art” (Knight, 9). Knight allows that some of Reynolds’ paintings are better  than others, likening the show to a pedagogical tool for artists and connoisseurs. He  also insists upon the show’s modernity, hailing “the genuine excellence of modern”  artists over the work of their forbearers (Knight, 9). In light of the coverage it  received in the popular press and the London crowds that attended, the British  Institution’s Reynolds exhibit presaged the modern museum blockbuster.

In the age before the photograph, portraits of the rich and famous were  often reproduced by engravers as inexpensive prints. These black and white  reproductions circulated Reynolds’ images of contemporary celebrities widely,  providing pinups to the middling consumer. In this manner, Reynolds’ works  functioned as the modern photographs of Annie Leibovitz do today, making it  hard to say whether he recorded or created celebrity with his art. Wherever  possible, the light-boxes in the e-exhibit therefore show an early engraving  as well as the original canvas. Reynolds’ portraits of “abnormally interesting  people” whom we now term celebrities offer concrete examples of just how  someone like Austen, who did not personally circulate among the social elite,  was nonetheless immersed in England’s vibrant celebrity culture (Roach,  1).

More questions are answered under the About WJS page:

  • Is there a connection between this exhibit and Jane Austen’s fiction?
  • Who, other than the Austens, attended this 1813 exhibit?
  • How did visitors in 1813 experience the British Institution?
  • Did the Catalogue function as a museum guide in 1813?
  • How historically accurate is this website?
  • Room for interpretation and improvement
  • Works Cited / Site Credits

It is a rainy weekend here in Vermont – what better way to spend a few hours but at such an exhibition as this!

Further reading:

reynolds - self-portrait detail - britannica

Sir Joshua Reynolds

barchas-janine

Janine Barchas is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.  She is the author of  Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity (Johns Hopkins University Press, August 2012).  Her  first book, Graphic Design, Print Culture, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Cambridge UP, 2003), won the SHARP book prize for best work in the field of book history.  Her newest project is the website What Jane Saw (www.whatjanesaw.org).

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c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

Austen Literary History & Criticism · Jane Austen · Literature · Regency England

Summering with Jane Austen

BookLady Deb2 Comments

There are a number of Jane Austen courses and conferences this summer, many in celebration of the 200 years of Pride and Prejudice.  How I wish I had a clone to send to any and all of these events!  But alas! I shall have to content myself with reading about others’ adventures of “summering with Jane” and hope that at least some of the talks will be published somewhere soon. Today I start with a first of several posts on the various offerings – on the weekend course at the University of North Carolina, the Jane Austen Summer Program: [ http://humanities.unc.edu/programs/jasp/ ]

UNClogoDon’t miss the first Jane Austen Summer Program —
held on UNC’s campus June 27-30, 2013!

Organized by UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature in conjunction with the Program in the Humanities, this four-day summer program celebrates the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice.

Learning experiences include lecture formats and discussion groups daily. Discussions will focus on Pride and Prejudice in its historical context as well as its many afterlives in fiction and film.

Additional events include a Regency ball, the chance to partake in an English tea, a silent auction of Austen-related items, and the opportunity to view special exhibits tailored to the conference.

Detailed Schedule for the Jane Austen Summer Program: http://humanities.unc.edu/programs/jasp/jaspschedule/

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But here are the basics: please no drooling on your keyboard … [note that I have left out all the mealtimes – there will be time for food!]

Thursday, June 27: Welcome and check-in

3:15 – 3:30: Introduction and Welcome: Dr. Terry Rhodes, Senior Associate Dean of the Fine Arts & Humanities, UNC-CH

3:30 – 4:30:  Plenary Lecture and Discussion, “Manners Envy in Pride and Prejudice” – James Thompson, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UNC-CH

4:45 – 5:45:  Context Class sections I: Money and Land – With Maria Wisdom and Danielle Coreale; Beverly Taylor and Laurie Langbauer; Doug Murray and Jessica Richard; Susan Allen Ford and Sarah Marsh

7:00 – 8:00: Plenary Lecture, “The Networked Novel and what it did to Domestic Fiction” – Nancy Armstrong, Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Professor of English and Editor, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Duke University 

Friday, June 28: Romantic Education

9:15 – 10:00: Context Class sections II: Mothers and Daughters

10:15 – 11:00:Plenary Panel on Jane Austen and Romance – Sarah Frantz, Associate Professor of English, Fayetteville State University; Emma Calabrese, Teaching Assistant, English, UNC-CH; Phil Stillman, Graduate Student, English, Duke University; Kumarini Silva, Assistant Professor of Communications Studies, UNC-CH

11:15 – 11:45: Elevenses and
Presentation of Collection of Editions of Pride and Prejudice – Virginia Claire Tharrington, Independent Scholar

12:00 – 12:45: Response discussion sessions I – With Phil Stillman and Suzanna Geiser; Whitney Jones and Jane Lim; Doreen Theirauf and Meghan Blair; Michele Robinson and Ashley Guy

2:15 – 3:15: Plenary Lecture, “Education and Experience in Pride and Prejudice” – Jessica Richard, Associate Professor of English, Wake Forest University

3:30 – 4:15: Response discussion sessions II

4:30 – 5:30: Dance Instruction, Session 1 – Mr. Jack Maus and the NC Assembly Dancers

7:30 – 10:00: Production of Austen’s Juvenilia by Ashley Guy, Ted Scheinman, and Adam McCune, and Showing of Wright’s Pride and Prejudice

Saturday, June 29: Pride and Prejudice’s Afterlives 

9:15 – 10:00: Context Class sections III

10:15 – 11:00: Plenary Roundtable Panel on Jane Austen and Film Adaptation – Inger Brodey, Bank of America Distinguished Term Professor of Honors, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Asian Studies, and Global Studies, and Director of the Comparative Literature Program, UNC-CH; Suzanne Pucci, Professor of French and Italian Studies; Director of the Committee on Social Theory, University of Kentucky; Ellen Moody, English, George Mason University; Ted Scheinman, Research Assistant, English, UNC-CH

11:00 – 11:30: Elevenses

11:30 – 12:15: Response discussion sessions III

1:30 – 2:30: Dance Instruction, Session 2

2:45 – 4:00: Plenary Lecture and Discussion, “The Placement of a Waist – Character through Costume in Pride and Prejudice” – Jade Bettin, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Dramatic Arts, UNC-CH

7:00 – 9:00: Regency Ball: Refreshments, Whist, and Silent Auction – Jack Maus, Caller; Ted Earhard, Fiddle; Julie Gorka, Piano 

Sunday, June 30: Mr. Collins and Others

mrcollins-brock

[Mr. Collins proposing – C. E. Brock – from http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/ppv1n19.html ]

9:15 – 10:00: Context Class sections IV

10:15 – 11:00: BREAKOUT sessions

-“The Eyes Have It:  The Male and Female Gaze in Pride and Prejudice” – Douglas Murray, Professor of English, Belmont University

-“Mr. Collins Interrupted: Reading Fordyce’s Sermons with Pride and Prejudice” – Susan Allen Ford, Professor of English, Delta State University

“‘What think you of books?’ Thoughts on Collecting Editions of Pride and Prejudice” – Virginia Claire Tharrington, Independent Scholar

11:30 – 12:30: Finger Food and conclude silent auction of Austen-related items

12:30 – 1:00: Formal Farewell and Leavetaking

3:00 – 4:30: English Tea (optional)

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[Content and image from the UNC website]

Visit the website for accommodation information; you can register here: https://hhv.oasis.unc.edu/

If you go, please take notes and send me your thoughts for posting here!

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Books · Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · Rare Books · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

Have to Share: “Uncommon and Expensive” – Edwards’s The British Herbal

BookLady Deb8 Comments

Well now that Spring finally feels like it has arrived, one’s thoughts head into dirt and gardens and plants and herbs, so wanted to share this article from the most recent issue of Colonial Williamsburg:  “Uncommon and Expensive” by Mary Miley Theobald, on John Edwards’s The British Herbal   – you can read it online here:

There may be no better guide to the plants that grew in eighteenth-century gardens than The British Herbal, a rare collection of botanicals by artist John Edwards, published in 1770. “It’s one of the most valuable books we have,” said Wesley Greene, garden historian in Colonial Williamsburg’s historic trades department. “It lets us document the sort of plants that were available in the colonial era.” Edwards referenced Linnaeus for every plant, allowing Greene and others to identify species precisely. 

Continue reading

titlepage britishherbal

Edwards, John. The British Herbal, containing one hundred plates of the most beautiful and scarce flowers and useful Medicinal Plants which blow in the open air of Great Britain, accurately coloured from nature with their Botanical Characters, and a short account of their cultivation. London: Printed for the Author; and sold by J. Edmonson…and J. Walter, 1770.

You can see this slideshow of a number of the prints here:  http://history.org/foundation/journal/Spring13/herbals_slideshow/#images/herbals4.jpg

herbals18

[images from the Colonial Williamsburg article, photography by Barbara Lombardi]

The book is indeed quite rare: a quick look at auction records shows that one sold for $17,026 in 1993; for $25,300 in 1997 and for $36,000 in 2000.

One wonders if Jane Austen knew this work – there is no mention of it in her letters or novels, nor is it in Gilson’s bibliography as a work known to have been owned by her.

She may have been more familiar [as I was] with Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (London, 1739) – you can view this whole work online at the British Library at their “Turning Pages” site: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/blackwells/accessible/introduction.html#content

titlepage blackwell herbal

Blackwell’s illustrations are quite lovely as this one example of a male peony shows:

blackwell - male peony

[image from Picturing Plants]

The story of Elizabeth Blackwell’s (1707-1758) creation and publication of this work is an interesting tale – she drew, engraved and colored all the illustrations to accompany the botanical descriptions of her doctor husband in order to pay his debts and effect his release from prison.  Many of the plant specimens were from the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. A copy sold at Christies in 2009 for $17,500, and various plates appear at auction periodically.

We do know that Jane Austen knew of Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne (1789), and whose house, now a museum, was near the Austen’s home in Chawton. The herb garden at White’s house is depicted in Kim Wilson’s In the Garden with Jane Austen [page 98] with a list of the herbs, and you can visit the house and garden site here.

So now into the garden and away from the computer … but will ask, What is your favorite herbal book?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Societies · JASNA · JASNA-Vermont events · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

Please Join Us! ~ JASNA-Vermont Meeting – June 2, 2013 ~ Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice, with Sheryl Craig

BookLady Deb4 Comments

ja silhouetteYou are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s June Meeting 

 “Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice;
Or, Why ‘Mr. Darcy Improves upon Acquaintance’!”

 with Sheryl Craig* 

Sheryl Craig
Sheryl Craig

What Jane Austen’s first readers did not need to be told was that a man named Fitzwilliam Darcy had to be a moderate Whig, one who supported Tory Prime Minister William Pitt’s tax and Poor Law reform proposals, and that Darcy’s home county, Derbyshire, paid high wages, provided generous welfare benefits, and funded the best system of poor houses in England.  Thus, Darcy, and moderate Whigs like him, were worthy of both Elizabeth Bennet’s and the reader’s esteem and served as role models to be emulated throughout Georgian Britain and, as it turns out, throughout time.   

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Sunday, 2 June 2013, 2 – 4 p.m. 

 Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center,
375 Maple St Burlington VT  

~Free & open to the Public~
~Light refreshments served~ 

For more information:   JASNAVermont [at] gmail [dot] com
Please visit our blog at: http://JaneAustenInVermont.wordpress.com


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* Sheryl Craig has published articles in Jane Austen’s Regency World, Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and The Explicator.  She has also written film reviews for the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.  Sheryl was JASNA’s International Visitor in 2008, is the editor of JASNA News, and was JASNA’s Traveling Lecturer for the Central region in 2012.   She has a Ph.D. in Nineteenth-century British literature from the University of Kansas, has taught at the University of Central Missouri for over twenty years, and is a life member of JASNA.

 800px-Microcosm_of_London_Plate_096_-_Workhouse,_St_James's_Parish

Workhouse at St. James’s Parish – from The Microcosm of London, 1810, [wikipedia commons]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont
Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · London · Museum Exhibitions · Regency England

“What Jane [Austen] Saw” ~ Launching on May 24, 2013 ~ by Janine Barchas

BookLady Deb2 Comments

“We have been both to the Exhibition & Sir J. Reynolds’, – and I am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. [Darcy] at either. – I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any Picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye. – I can imagine he w’d have that sort [of omitted] feeling – that mixture of Love, Pride & Delicacy.- Setting aside this disappointment, I had great amusement among the Pictures…”

[Jane Austen, Letter 85, Monday 24 May 1813]

Those who have read Jane Austen’s letters are familiar with her comments on visiting London. It has been an ongoing project of mine to figure out where she went and what she did and how she uses the pieces of her London treks in her novels.  One of the more interesting and frustrating is her reference to the art exhibit of Sir Joshua Reynolds – what did she see there, other than not finding a portrait of Mrs. Darcy? It has been revealed today that we will now have a chance to see exactly that, sort of following Jane herself around the galleries, as Professor Janine Barchas of the University of Texas at Austin launches What Jane Saw – a complete reconstruction of that exhibit. You will surely want to bookmark this new website and mark your calendars to view the happening on May 24, 2013!

From the website:

Home_a

On 24 May 1813, Jane Austen visited an art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall, London. The popular show was the first-ever retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), England’s celebrated portrait painter.  On 24 May 2013, two centuries to the day that Austen viewed the 141 paintings in that exhibit, this site will open its doors as a public e-gallery, offering the modern visitor a precise historical reconstruction of that long-lost Regency blockbuster.

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I will be posting more on this as we near the launch date – this is very exciting, so stay tuned!!

[image from What Jane Saw]

reynolds - self-portrait detail - britannica

Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Book reviews · Books · Jane Austen · Regency England

Life without Jane (Austen, that is); Or, How To Survive Moving…

BookLady Deb8 Comments

The Jane Austen in Vermont blog has been silent for the past month, for which I apologize, but as I have now returned somewhat to a “normal” life, I can begin again to obsess on “all things Jane” – blogging, twittering, facebooking, researching, writing, and best of all Reading!

moving-snoopy2

Moving is a nightmare, no matter how organized one might be, and of all my various strengths and weaknesses, the will to organize has always been the driving force; so take the contents of one old house, pack it all up and put it all in storage, and six months later, move all into a new maintenance-free house, and spend the next 3+ weeks unpacking, overdosing on cardboard and paper, as 25,000 pounds (or so the mover tells me) of “stuff” (including my own book collection) finds a place in the new home … so bad back notwithstanding, the deed is done, my books are on the shelves (though alas! not yet fully alphabetized, she says shame-faced), all the drawers and closets are organized, the kitchen is in fine working order (surviving on take-out has become a very nice habit – whoever said I actually needed a kitchen in this new place?), and all the pictures are hung – so “normal” returns in a fashion, and time to get back to real life…

What have I done these past 3+ weeks for my sanity? – the quick break from unpacking, organizing and hammering? I have existed, not only on take-out, but also on the comfort-food of reading mysteries and romance novels – my mind might now be a tad mushy, as I fear the worst in trying to get my head around “game theory” in reading the grandly enlightening Jane Austen, Game Theorist (I promise an author interview shortly, but see in the meantime Michael Chwe’s website here: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/austen/ ) – but it has been great fun – so here is my list, all highly recommended as just great reads, and even Jane might approve, as they are each and every one, “only a novel”!

Georgette Heyer: I should add here that for the packing-up part last fall, I re-read all my favorite Georgette Heyers – hard to choose, but I read at least ten all in a row, and can now safely say that I can barely tell one from the other, but the joy of the moment of reading is nearly perfection!

heyer jatoday[Image courtesy of Jane Austen Today, with thanks]

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cover-duty-to-deadCharles Todd, the Bess Crawford mysteries:  I am a fan of the Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs series , largely because I love the time between the two World Wars, so was happy to discover that the Charles Todd mother-son duo (of Ian Rutledge fame) had started a similar series a few years ago – have read the first three and have just started the latest. The titles in order:

  • A Duty to the Dead
  • An Impartial Witness
  • A Bitter Truth
  • An Unmarked Grave 

– all featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI, who seems to forever be stumbling headlong into murder and mayhem, as well as the very-helpful-in-a-murder-mystery-plot-device of  having veritable strangers tell her the most amazing things – great fun – you must read them in order… and the fact that there is a very close family friend who seems to always be there when needed adds a little spice and anticipation – his name is Simon Brandon, so nice to know that Jane Austen, as always, is in the mix somehow… [I think Knightley would have been too obvious…]

See their website at http://charlestodd.com/ for more information.

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Tutor'sDaughter_mck.indd

Julie Klassen’s The Tutor’s Daughter:  I have read a few of Klassen’s books and find them to be the perfect read, so was happy to take on her latest The Tutor’s Daughter. It does not disappoint: raging Cornwall weather; two brothers with opposite personalities and each with a history with the lively heroine, the nearly-on-the-shelf daughter of the live-in tutor to the two younger sons of the new wife of Sir Giles; add in an old-rambling castle-like home with a wing one is to stay out of and some ghostly goings-on, and you have a fine historical romance that combines Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre into one delightful confection……

For more information on this and other books by Klassen, see her website here: http://www.julieklassen.com/index.html

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Candice Hern: Thanks to Laurel Ann and her mentions of Ms. Hern, I have read most of the books in the Reading Challenge at Austenprose (though I did not sign up, didn’t think I would have the time! – no matter, it is the reading that counts!): again, each tells a fine regency-era tale with the requisite heroines, rakes, fashions, and settings you will be sure to savor:

  • A Proper Companion
  • A Change of Heart
  • An Affair of Honor
  • A Garden Folly
  • The Best Intentions
  • “Desperate Measures”
  • “Lady Ann’s Excellent Adventure”

cover propercomp-hearn

For more information, visit Hern’s website here: http://candicehern.com/ – and be sure to click on the “Regency World” section of her website for a wealth of information about the times of which she writes.  And for those attending the Jane Austen JASNA AGM in Minneapolis this year, you will be fortunate to see Ms. Hern’s collection of Regency artifacts on display – she wrote an article on vinaigrettes for the Mar/Apr issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine.

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Ok, so all of this made the joys of moving more than bearable – I am almost disappointed to have to return to real life after all – but I am not quite done yet: I will be moving all my Bygone Books business back into the house in the next 2 weeks, so I can keep reading these delightful escapist tales after all – Hern’s Miss Lacey’s Last Fling and Todd’s Unmarked Grave await! and then I shall return to Austen and celebrating Pride and Prejudice, so stay-tuned…

cover-misslacey-hearnbook cover unmarkedgrave

What do you like to read when going through a stressful, energy-intensive time?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Auctions · Austen Literary History & Criticism · Books · Collecting Jane Austen · Jane Austen · Literature · Publishing History · Rare Books

Austen on the Block! ~ Affordable Jane

BookLady Deb1 Comment

The Leslie Hindman Auctioneers sale on April 10, 2013 in Chicago: Sale 239 – Fine Books and Manuscripts  [preview starts April 6] has three items of interest to collectors and readers of Jane Austen, and this time a pleasant surprise to see them in a more affordable range…

1.  Lot 319:

MP-2ded

* JANE AUSTEN.  Mansfield Park. London: J. Murray, 1816.

3 vols. 12mo, modern quarter morocco, renewed endpapers. Second edition. Lacks half-titles; 2-inch tear to title page vol. 2 restored; spines deteriorating and hinges cracked; otherwise the interior is in near fine condition with very little brownspotting.

Estimate $ 1,000-2,000.

 

2.  Lot 320:

Fragment

* JANE AUSTEN.  Fragment of a Novel, written January-March 1817. Now First Printed from the Manuscript [Sandition]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925.

8vo, publisher’s cloth-backed blue boards, printed spine label, facsimile frontispiece. Limited edition facsimile, one of 250 copies on handmade paper. Boards lightly soiled with some loss to spine label; otherwise very good.

Estimate $ 100-200.

 

3. Lot 434A:

works-1882

JANE AUSTEN.  Works (COLLECTED WORKS). London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1882.

6 vols. 8vo, 3/4 maroon morocco over decorative boards, title in gilt to black leather spine labels, t.e.g. Light edgewear; otherwise fine.

Estimate $ 100-200.

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My note:  this last item does not offer a very comprehensive description, so I would suggest an inquiry to the auction house for more information.  This is likely the Steventon Edition that Bentley published in 1882, limited to 375 sets; size is 20.5 cm, or a small octavo (8vo), obviously rebound here; there are illustrations (those that appeared in Bentley’s original Standard Novels of 1833, and a few additional woodcuts and a facsimile of Austen’s letter to Anna Lefroy (29 Nov 1814)) – full information on the edition can be found in Gilson at D13; but again, please check with the auction house to verify that it is this edition (there was a reissue in 1886).  The interest in the Steventon Edition is that it was the last complete edition of Jane Austen’s works to be published by Bentley, her major publisher in England from 1833 to 1882, and holder of the copyrights until their various successive expiry dates.

[Images from the Leslie Hindman Auctioneers website.]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Author Interviews · Books · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Jane Austen Sequels

Winner announced in Giveaway of Claire LaZebnik’s The Trouble With Flirting!

BookLady DebLeave a comment

bookcover-troubleClaire LaZebnik, the author of The Trouble with Flirting, a modern-day re-telling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, wrote here on this blog about ‘updating Jane‘. The publisher HarperTeen graciously offered a giveaway, and a random drawing reveals that the winner is:   junewilliams7 who wrote:

So in my version, Franny learns that the guy who makes you wait while he pants after someone else just isn’t worth waiting for.

Wow! That’s great, I was never crazy about him anyway. But did you put her with a reformed Henry? That’s what I would like, except for all my friends who insist that Henry is too naughty.

Will you take on Sense & Sensibility next? That story needs a modern update!

and in a second comment June wrote:

Sense and Sensibility is such a dark story — it starts with widowhood, greed, and eviction and goes to statutory rape, unwed teen pregnancy, the tale of a forced marriage by an unethical guardian and a type of kidnapping (sending Brandon to India and Eliza’s tale), two marriages for money, Marianne being near death…. none of this is bright or funny or witty. Whoever writes fanfic about Elinor and Edward? Few write fics about Marianne and Brandon. Jane Austen’s couples in this book are NOT favorites of many. If you could translate this into a modern story, it would be challenging and remarkable indeed.

Ahem, please note that I am not willing to undertake the challenge myself. TOO difficult!

Congratulations June! please email me with your mailing contact information as soon a possible – the publisher will send you the book directly.

And again, my thanks to Claire LaZebnik for writing her delightful book and for sharing it on this blog, and to HarperTeen for the giveaway, and to all of you for your comments!

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Books · Collecting Jane Austen · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Literature · Publishing History

Want List: A Miniature Pride and Prejudice from Plum Park Press

BookLady Deb3 Comments

I posted several months ago about a miniature Emma, published by the bookbinder Tony Firman at his Plum Park Press. Since then I have received my very own Emma and am delighted with it:

Miniature Emma from Park Plum Press
Miniature ‘Emma’ from Park Plum Press

And now doubly delighted to hear from Tony that he is planning a similar miniature edition of Pride and Prejudice – perfect timing for this bicentenary year.  It will be another triple-decker, as was the original, in the same format and size as Emma with the same typeface. Each of the three volumes is to be published separately, in April, June, and August; the third volume will include a slipcase for the set.

Volume I and II will contain 240 pages, and 260 pages for Vol. III, all bound in a lovely soft faux leather, in a pretty butterscotch color. The endpapers will be decorated with colored illustrations from the 1907 Dent edition, four different pictures in each volume. The slipcase will be decorated with some of the same illustrations. It will be a limited edition of 15 copies. [no image is yet available]

C. E. Brock - Pride and Prejudice, Dent 1907 - Mollands
C. E. Brock – ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – Dent 1907 – Mollands

The first volume will be available near the end of April; price is $35. / volume, the complete set with slipcase, $105.  You can order either by volume as they become available or wait for the complete set in August, but with only 15 sets available, you best get your order in soon!  [There was a second edition of Emma, and there are copies still available.]

Other titles that Tony has published in this miniature format: [see his website for more information on each]

  • Priestley: Experiments and Observations of Different Kinds of Air
  • Curtis: The Botanical Magazine
  • Housman: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems
  • Davenport: English Embroidered Bookbindings
  • Hubbard: William Morris
  • Crane: A Floral Fantasy
  • Huygens: Treatise on Light
  • Morris: A Dream of John Ball
  • Higgin: Handbook of Embroidery
  • Browning: The Last Ride
  • Blades: The Enemies of Books
  • Geikie: Geology
  • Einstein: Relativity
  • Austen: Emma
  • Wells: The Time Machine
  • Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
  • Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry
  • Fitzwilliam: Jacobean Embroidery

firmanlogo
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Further reading: and if you have any questions, please comment below…

In the United States, a miniature book is usually considered to be one which is no more than three inches in height, width, or thickness. Some aficionados collect slightly larger books while others specialize in even smaller sizes. Outside of the United States, books up to four inches are often considered miniature.

 c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Auctions · Books · Jane Austen · Publishing History · Rare Books

Austen on the Block! ~ Jane Austen’s Emma Sells High

BookLady Deb4 Comments

The first edition Emma that I wrote about here, the one with the interesting John Hawkshaw bookplate, sold yesterday (March 19, 2013) at Bonham’s London for £8,125 (inc. premium) or about $12,312. –  about in line with the original estimate at the November 2012 auction of £6,000 – 8,000  (€7,400 – 9,900;  US$ 9,500 – 13,000), and substanitally higher than the estimate for this auction: £4,000 – 5,000 (€4,600 – 5,800;  US$ 6,100 – 7,700).

Emma bonhams 3-2013

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont