*Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems, founder of Urban Decay Cosmetics, founder of the Ayrshire Farm in Virginia, and, most dear to us, is also the founder and moving force behind the Chawton House Library. She is now Chairman of Trustees, Chawton House Library and the Centre for the Study of Early English Women’s Writing, a place for research and camaraderie for scholars from all over the world. What better place than the former home of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen-Knight to study Austen and her literary antecedents and contemporaries!
Lerner’s book Second Impressions, written under the nom de plume of Ava Farmer, is set 10 years after the action in Pride and Prejudice, and explores the changes to the Darcy family’s lives, to Europe post-Napoleon, and to life in late Regency England, all as homage to Jane Austen, written in her “stile”, and with a fascinating yet credible plot. So let’s step into Lerner’s world to discover such things as: What do Darcy and Elizabeth do all day at Pemberley? Is Lady Catherine a welcome and constant visitor? Are the Wickhams reformed? And what becomes of England’s most eligible female Georgiana Darcy? And Anne de Bourgh? And dare we ask about Mr. and Mrs. Collins?!
Second Impressionswill be available for purchase and signing, all proceeds to benefit Chawton House Library.
During the Tea we shall engage in Playing Word Games with Jane Austen, a most suitable and refined entertainment for a wintry afternoon!
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!
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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*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)
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So reasons enough to pick up a copy of The Perfect Visit!
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.
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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!
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!
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!
We are pleased to welcome our two Distinguished Authors and one Regency Fashionista for a
full Afternoon with Jane Austen!
The event is co-sponsored by JASNA-Vermont and Bygone Books as part of the Burlington Book Festival.
There will be Door Prizes!
Books will be available for purchase and signing!
Light Refreshments will be served! Regency dress encouraged!
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Join us for an afternoon of ‘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.
[*no relation to the esteemed Mr. Bennet…]
We will meet at the Hauke Conference Center of Champlain College on Sunday 23 September, 2012, from 1-5 pm; the visiting authors’ books will be available for purchase and signing; other books relating to Jane Austen and her times will also be offered for sale; and light refreshments will be served. Regency dress is encouraged!
1-2 pm: Elsa Solender: “Channeling Jane Austen”
Who was Jane Austen – really? Was she the chaste, unworldly spinster, mild and religious, who miraculously created six of the world’s most beloved love stories? Or a sharp-eyed ironist whose engaging plot and characters disguise the splinter of ice in her heart that transformed what she saw and heard into subversive criticism of her world that resonates to this day? In her novel, Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment, Elsa Solender retells the novelist’s own life story, blending missing aspects of her “romantic career” with the sparse known facts. She will describe her search for a voice and style not unlike Austen’s to explore Jane’s inner life as the heroine of her own bright tale.
About the author:
Elsa A. Solender, a New Yorker, was president of the Jane Austen Society of North America from 1996-2000. Educated at Barnard College and the University of Chicago, she has worked as a journalist, editor, and college teacher in Chicago, Baltimore and New York. She represented an international non-governmental women’s organization at the United Nations during a six-year residency in Geneva. She wrote and delivered to the United Nations Social Council the first-ever joint statement by the Women’s International Non-Governmental Organizations (WINGO) on the right of women and girls to participate in the development of their country. She has published articles and reviews in a variety of American magazines and newspapers and has won three awards for journalism. Her short story, “Second Thoughts,” was named one of three prizewinners in the 2009 Chawton House Library Short Story Competition, chosen from over 300 writers who submitted stories inspired by Jane Austen or the village of Chawton. The story was published in Dancing with Mr. Darcy, an anthology of the twenty top-rated stories of the contest, and is part of her new work Jane Austen in Love.
Ms. Solender’s story “A Special Calling” was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Short Short Story Competition, and of more than 1,000 stories submitted, was ranked among the top fifty and was granted Honorable Mention. She has served on the boards of a non-profit theater, a private library and various literary and alumnae associations. Ms. Solender is married, has two married sons and seven grandchildren, and lives in Manhattan.
2:30 – 3:30 pm: Stuart Bennett: “Imagining Jane Austen”
Stuart Bennett’s foray into historical fantasy/fiction, The Perfect Visit, 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.
About the Author:
Stuart Bennett was an auctioneer at Christie’s in London before starting his own rare book business. He is the author of the Christie’s Collectors Guide How to Buy Photographs (1987), Trade Binding in the British Isles (2004) which the London Times Literary Supplement called “a bold and welcome step forward” in the history of bookbinding, and many publications on early photography, auctions and auctioneers, and rare books. He currently lives and works near Boston, Massachusetts.
4:00- 5:00: Hope Greenberg: “Dressing Jane Austen”
Can one dance comfortably in a corset? Is it true that some ladies dampen their gowns to make them cling revealingly? Must one wear white all the time? Jane Austen’s novels and letters contain many fashion tidbits. Modern films offer their own take on the fashions of the period, but do they get it right? Through a collection of over 400 fashion images we will explore the revolutionary changes in fashion during Austen’s lifetime. Shifts, trains, petticoats, apron gowns, pelisses, spencers, narrow backs, high waists–we’ll see them all. Then together, we will try to solve a fashion mystery.
About the Speaker:
Hope Greenberg holds an MA in History from the University of Vermont where she is currently an Information Technology Specialist in the Center for Teaching and Learning, promoting and supporting the use of technology to further research and education. She is also an avid English Country Dancer. Her fascination with the creation and wearing of historic clothing as a way of gaining insight into the past predates all of these. Her absolute joy at the willingness of historic clothiers to share their insights is matched only by her gratitude to the museums and collectors that increasingly publish examples of extant clothing and fashion plates online so that we may continue to develop our understanding of clothing of all periods.
Hope you can join us for this Afternoon of All Things Austen!
the June 3 2012 flyer: share with your friends! ****************************
*We are honored to welcome Professor Rachel Brownstein, author of Becoming a Heroine (1982), Tragic Muse: Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise (1993), and Why Jane Austen? (2011). Films, feminism, and popular fetishes are among the subjects of her new work, an engaging treasure-filled meditation on Jane Austen as writer, woman, social commentator, and 21st-century icon. But most of all it is about reading, which Brownstein has been encouraging people to do, at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School of CUNY, for several decades.
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Please Join Us!
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~ Upcoming in 2012 and beyond ~
Sept. 23: Burlington Book Festival: ‘An Afternoon with Jane Austen’: authors Elsa Solender on Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment, Stuart Bennett on The Perfect Visit; and Hope Greenberg on “Dressing Jane”!
Dec. 2: Annual Birthday Tea with Paul Monod of Middlebury College on
“The Royal Navy in the Age of Nelson, 1775-1815”
Mar. 2013 [TBA]: “’Fifty Miles of Good Road’: Travelling in Jane Austen” with Deb Barnum
Gentle Readers: I welcome today Theodora Ziolkowski, * a student at the University of Vermont, who attended our JASNA-Vermont event on April 15, a talk on “Jane Austen’s Sanditon” by UVM Professor Eric Lindstrom.
Theodora wrote a piece for the UVM student newspaper The Cynic, and I append it here with her permission. Always joyful to see young people at these events, and Theodora brought her friend Dan Bishop along as well – a young man with an interest in Jane is not an everyday occurance, so we were all doubly pleased to have them both in attendance!
The day started off with what is every organizer-of-an-event’s worst nightmare: a major misspelling in the sandwich board signage that announces the talk on the street [on three corners of the campus] – I did not at first notice the signs while I was busy setting up for the day, but it was pointed out to me by some early-birds, and the inital shock of realizing my error of giving signage info over the phone rather than by email hit home hard – so
“Jane Austen’s Sanditon”
was broadcast to the world as
“Jane Austen’s Fanditon”
– that old “S” and “F” confusion over the phone, now permanently in print for all the world – and thankfully here photographed by one of our members – it did of course end up being the hit of the day – people thinking we had a full fan-fest in the works! – and now I am thinking it would make for a great title for such an all-day event!
Now on to Theodora’s essay on the talk, with thanks for her insightful commentary!:
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Jane Austen’s “Sanditon” – A Talk by UVM Professor Eric Lindstrom forthe Jane Austen Society of North America, Vermont Region – April 15, 2012.
by Theodora Ziolkowski
Soft chamber music, peppermint bonbons, cucumber sandwiches and steaming cups of English breakfast tea: all means of transporting a community of Jane Austen fans to rural nineteenth century England.
On Sunday, April 15th, the Hauke Conference Center at Champlain College held yet another event for the Vermont chapter of “JASNA,” the Jane Austen Society of North America. “Janeites,” or declared Austen enthusiasts, gathered in the Champlain College building to celebrate a shared admiration for a beloved writer.
The sunny afternoon event began with students and JASNA members filling up their plates and mugs for the talk. Many milled about the tables of Austen memorabilia items for sale, including calendars, paper dolls, bookmarks and notecards. Others stood in tea-drinking circles to speak with fellow Austen enthusiasts.
Deb Barnum, JASNA-Vermont Regional Coordinator, introduced the event, the novel and UVM Professor Lindstrom, the event speaker. Lindstrom’s talk, “How to Love ‘Sanditon’” revolved around Austen’s last and unfinished novel. The [twelve]-chapter manuscript was first published by editor R. W. Chapman in 1925, many years after Austen’s death in 1817.
Eric Lindstrom
Lindstrom began his talk sharing internet clips of Austen-related interviews and pictures, including a photograph of a Peep diorama entered for the competition held by the Washington Post.
Lindstrom also showed a watercolor of Austen painted by her sister, Cassandra, in which Austen is seen only from the back. The “history and mystery” of this faceless Jane, Lindstrom said, contributes to the appeal of this visual representation of the novelist.
For a novel boasting a brief fifty pages, “Sanditon” offers an unavoidable contrast to the marriage plot typical of Austen novels. The absence of the marriage plot leaves room for readers to study Austen’s temperament, Lindstrom contended.
In “Sanditon,” we find a more ironic vision—a “book that might leave Austen readers cold,” Lindstrom said in his opening remarks. In the novel, two towns echo one another, a trait indicative of the changing English national character, Lindstrom said. “Sanditon” can thus be considered a “condition of England novel,” or a storyline where housing and the quest for perfect health exist at its heart.
The novel’s characters themselves are caricatures, and the thematic obsession with illness and the decaying body can be seen as contributing to what Lindstrom depicted as the “menacing” mood of the novel.
Lindstrom described “Sanditon” as understanding beyond its limitations of England. Even the name, “Sanditon,” suggests an “un-foundational” place – Austen, he pointed out, is discreet in the novel: she had to pretend the world was better than it was at the time.
The Vermont branch of JASNA hosts many events throughout the year, including talks and an annual birthday tea.
Theodora Ziolkowski, an English major and Film and Television Studies minor, will graduate in May from the University of Vermont (UVM). Theodora has served her four years as an undergraduate as an editor for Vantage Point, the student-run arts and literary journal at UVM. She recently began writing for The Cynic, the UVM student newspaper, for which she writes reviews and a poetry column for the Arts pages. A lover of writing, books and good coffee, Theodora wrote a manuscript of poetry for her senior honors defense. Her love for Jane Austen began in high school when she became enchanted by Elizabeth Bennet and her world of sisters, elegant dances, piano-playing, and romance.
[Theodora tells me that her first date with Dan was watching the DVD of her favorite Austen novel – Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense andSensibility! ]
the June 3 2012 flyer: share with your friends! ****************************
*We are honored to welcome Professor Rachel Brownstein, author of Becoming a Heroine (1982), Tragic Muse: Rachel of the Comedie-Francaise (1993), and Why Jane Austen? (2011). Films, feminism, and popular fetishes are among the subjects of her new work, an engaging treasure-filled meditation on Jane Austen as writer, woman, social commentator, and 21st-century icon. But most of all it is about reading, which Brownstein has been encouraging people to do, at Brooklyn College and the Graduate School of CUNY, for several decades.
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Please Join Us!
*********************************
~ Upcoming in 2012 and beyond ~
Sept. 23: Burlington Book Festival: ‘An Afternoon with Jane Austen’: authors Elsa Solender on Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment, Stuart Bennett on The Perfect Visit, and more!
Dec. 2: Annual Birthday Tea with Paul Monod of Middlebury College on
“The Royal Navy in the Age of Nelson, 1775-1815”
Mar. 2013 [TBA]: “’Fifty Miles of Good Road’: Travelling in Jane Austen” with Deb Barnum
You are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s April Meeting
~ How to Love ‘Sanditon’ ~
with
Eric Lindstrom*
A celebration of Jane Austen’s last unfinished work: Many readers find it difficult to “love” Sanditon. Critics and readers alike can find it alternately boring, bitter and uproariously wild, either likening it to her juvenilia or seeing only the morose shadow of her impending death. Join us as UVM Professor Eric Lindstrom helps us relate to and learn to love this text, even though it does not offer the typical Austen marriage plot.
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Sunday, 15 April 2012, 2 – 4 p.m.
Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center, 375 Maple St Burlington VT
Free & Open to the Public
Light refreshments served
*We are honored to welcome Eric Lindstrom, an Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont where he teaches courses primarily on Romantic Literature and Critical Theory. He is the author of Romantic Fiat(2011), and is currently working on a study of Austen’s canny relation to philosophical developments since her time, tentatively titled “Jane Austen and Other Minds.”
Eric Lindstrom
Please Join Us!
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**Upcoming in 2012 ~ see blog for details and mark your calendars!** June 3: Brooklyn College Professor Rachel Brownstein on her book Why Jane Austen? Sept. 23: Author Elsa Solender on her book Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment Dec. 2: Annual Birthday Tea with Paul Monod of Middlebury College on
“The Royal Navy in the Age of Nelson, 1775-1815”
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I will be shortly posting more information on Sanditon – its publishing history and criticism, and the continuations, and various links. But please try to read this short fragment for the meeting – we promise lively discussion, but thankfully no quizzes! – think about how Austen might have completed this last work – who is the heroine, the hero? what was she trying to convey about the seaside? – many thoughts to consider, so bring your questions and ideas!
JASNA-Vermont celebrated in style this past Sunday at our annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea. As always, a delicious repast of afternoon tea goodies catered by Champlain Collegewith additional tasty holiday cookies by various JASNA members, made for a lovely afternoon of food and Austen conversation.
This year in celebration of the Bicentenary of Sense & Sensibility, we welcomed Rebecca McLaughlin, lecturer at the University of Vermont, as she shared her insights on “A Second Chance for Sense and Sensibility ~ Marianne as Heroine.”
Marianne Dashwood 1995 - Kate Winslet
As part of the course offered at UVM Austen: Page and Film**, McLaughlin presented an interesting and insightful look at Sense and Sensibility from the standpoint of Marianne as the Heroine [which then of course makes Colonel Brandon the true Romantic Hero!, with which I heartily concur!], backing up all her views with text examples, scholarly interpretation, and film clips from the various adaptations. This year we had the advantage of sitting at eight tables of eight with all engaged in lively discussion and much laughter as McLaughlin, in true college style, prompted us with questions and a quiz! *
those who dressed for the occasion!
I think all there would agree that it was one of our best teas to date, the table arrangement being a great hit and Rebecca’s presentation one to remember – I do know that she has certainly prompted many to re-read their S&S with renewed vigor and plan into the night movie marathons of all six film adaptations! *** and perhaps even sign up for her next class, sure proof that Jane Austen is alive and well in Vermont!
The CAKE!
A thank you to all who so generously helped with baking and at the event – I could not do it without you, and mostly to Janeite Marcia for her work as Hospitality Maven, Treasurer and Keeper of the Mailing List! – and a hearty THANK YOU to Champlain College for their generosity in providing the room for us, and their superb catering team. And finally, many thanks to Rebecca McLaughlin for sharing her love of Austen with us and making all feel like we were back in that ole’ college classroom, wondering whether to become English majors or not!
Alas! only a few pictures – with thanks to Janeite Margaret for adding to my very few taken – I need to remember to TAKE PICTURES at these things, especially of the Tea Table….
JASNA Members Hope and Marcia
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* Sense and Sensibility Quiz: [scroll to the end for answers, but no cheating!]
1. What was the original title of the story that would become Sense and Sensibility?
a. Reason and Emotion
b. First Impressions
c. Second Attachments
d. Elinor and Marianne
2. How old is the story that we now know of as Sense and Sensibility?
a. 200 years
b. 195 years
c. 216 years
d. 225 years
3. Originally, the story was written in letters; this style of novel is known as which of the following?
a. realist novel
b. epistolary novel
c. sensation novel
d. epic novel
4. Although revised from its original form, how many complete letters may be found within Sense and Sensibility?
a. none
b. three
c. six
d. ten
5. Which of the following is the narration style Austen uses in Sense and Sensibility?
a. first-person narration
b. third-person omniscient narration
c. stream-of-consciousness narration
d. all of the above
6. Which of the following characters notices that Edward is wearing a ring with a lock of hair in it when he visits Barton?
a. Mrs. Dashwood
b. Mrs. Jennings
c. Marianne
d. Elinor
7. How much is Colonel Brandon’s estate, Delaford, worth (in pounds)?
a. 2000
b. 1000
c. 600
d. 5000
8. Which of the following represents Marianne’s favorite maxim, or saying, within Sense and Sensibility?
a. always think of oneself first
b. you can only love once
c. money is everything
d. nature is man’s place of worship
[S&S Quiz, @2011 Rebecca McLaughlin and printed with permission]
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**The course at UVM: Austen: Page and Film will be offered online in the Summer 2012 semester. Course description:
Women’s & Gender Studies: Austen: Page and Film [WGST 095 OL1 : 3 Credit Hours ]
After nearly two centuries in print, Jane Austen’s works continue to enthrall us, whether in their original form or in the numerous television and film adaptations created since 1938. This course examines the role Austen played during her own time as well as the role she continues to play within our contemporary cultural imagination by analyzing four of Austen’s novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, MansfieldPark, and Emma) and by viewing faithful adaptations, reinterpretations and modernizations of each novel. We begin by placing each novel within its social and historical context, by defining themes that may help explain Austen’s modern appeal, and by creating our own vision of the action and characters. We then turn to the adaptations and investigate the historical moment of production, analyze changes to script and character, and think about how prose fiction differs from film in an attempt to understand the screenwriter’s choices and our current love of anything Austen. Course requirements include lively participation via blogs, reading quizzes, and a final written assignment.
Instructor: Rebecca McLaughlin, Lecturer, UVM Dept of English.
May 21, 2012 to June 29, 2012. Location: Online Course
You are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s December Meeting
~ The Annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea! ~
In celebration of the Bicentenary of Sense & Sensibility (1811)
Rebecca McLaughlin*
A Second Chance for ‘Sense & Sensibility’: Marianne as Heroine
Is S & S not your favorite Austen novel? ~
Using the composition history of Sense & Sensibility, Austen’s biography, S&S film adaptations, and the novel text, McLaughlin argues that Marianne is the true Heroine of Austen’s first novel!
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~ Traditional English Afternoon Tea ~
Sunday, 4 December 2011, 2 – 5 p.m.
Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center,
375 Maple St Burlington VT
$20. / person ~ $5. / student RSVPs required! ~ Register by 25 Nov 2011
~ Regency Period or Afternoon Tea finery encouraged! ~
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*We are honored to welcome Rebecca McLaughlin, a life member of JASNA [she wrote her MA thesis on Jane Austen in 2000], and now a Lecturer in the Department of English at UVM, where she frequently teaches an online ‘Austen: Page & Film’ course.
~ Upcoming in 2012 ~ March 25: UVM Professor Eric Lindstrom on “How to Love Sanditon” June 3: Brooklyn College Professor Rachel Brownstein on her new book Why Jane Austen?
Hope to see some of you there!
Copyright @2011 Deb Barnum of Jane Austen in Vermont
Jane Austen in Vermont 