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.
OOPS! – I got this news as a ‘google alert’, and now thanks to Raquel see that it came out in 2008! I had checked the Penguin site and saw nothing of this “news” and now see that it did indeed come out in May 2008! – Sorry for the error – in a rush – thought it was great news! Still might be for those who don’t already know this! [like me! – I don’t use my ebook reader a whole lot as you can tell!]
So here is the very interesting but old news!: _____________________________________________
Penguin launches ‘enhanced’ e-book classics:
Penguin Group (USA) is to launch an e-book of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice with multiple added features as the first title in its Penguin enhanced e-books classics list. The e-book, coming in May, will feature:
Filmography
Nineteenth-Century Reviews
Chronology
Further Reading
What Austen Ate
How to Prepare Tea
Austen Sites to Visit in England
Map of Sites from the Novel
Behaving Yourself: Etiquette and Dancing in Austen’s Day
Illustrations of Fashion, Home Décor, Architecture, and Transportation
Enriched eBook Notes
The publisher says it will offer “a wonderful e-book reading experience”. Nine further classics titles, including Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein and Great Expectations, will follow in the autumn, with plans “underway” to launch the list in the UK.
John Makinson, chair and c.e.o. of the Penguin Group, said: “The e-book is gaining acceptance as an alternative to the printed text and we are keen to test the possibilities of the electronic format. Penguin Classics is a great place to start. We shall invite readers beyond the pages of these much-loved books, offering additional background, context and insight into the work.”
Novelist Sarah Burney’s Copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
[Jane Austen].Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the Author of “Sense and Sensibility.” London: Printed for T. Egerton, 1813.
First edition. Three twelvemo volumes (7 3/8 x 4 1/2 inches). [4], 307, [1, blank]; [4], 239, [1, blank]; [4], 323, [1, blank] pp. Half-titles present but that for the first volume is in facsimile. Most sheets watermarked 1808.
Contemporary half green roan over marbled boards, smooth spines with gilt rules and lettering, edges sprinkled red. Some rubbing to joints and extremities. Scattered foxing. A very good copy with a fine association.
Sarah Harriet Burney’s copy, with her signature on the title of all three volumes. English novelist Sarah Harriet Burney (1772-1884), half-sister of Fanny Burney, published five novels during her lifetime. Among her more famous works are Tales of Fancy and Geraldine Fauconberg. Her work was admired by Jane Austen who, in one of her letters, remarks that she is reading one of Sarah Burney’s novels for the third time. In turn, Sarah Harriet Burney received Jane Austen’s novels from her publisher, and was one of the earliest readers to publicly recognize her genius. Sarah Burney’s life has strong echoes of Jane Austen’s fiction, but with scandalous overtones. In 1798, she eloped with her half-brother Captain James Burney, 22 years her senior, settling eventually in lodgings in Tottenham Court Road, “living in the most groveling mean style.” In 1803 James went back to live with his wife. Sarah then took a job as a governess, wrote novels as a means of earning money to support herself, and eventually left England for Florence, where she mixed with a circle or artists and authors including Henry Crabb Robinson. She received great sympathy from her three remaining half-sisters, Esther, Fanny, and Charlotte, on the death of James Burney in 1821. In 1822 she gained the post of governess to the grandchildren of Lord Crewe, with her own house and a salary of 300 pounds a year. She spent the last years of her life in ill health at a boarding house in Bath. In 1840, on the death of Fanny D’Arblay, Henry Crabb Robinson wrote that she bequeathed Sarah “1,200 per annum for her life.” She continued to socialize with Robinson and his friends until her death at Cheltenham on February 8, 1844. Some of her property was left to her half-nephew, Martin Charles Burney, James Burney’s son.
I think there is a Reading Challenge afoot! – here are a few reminders of the various Jane Austen -related Reading Challenges, Contests, Giveaways, etc – There is work to be done!
There are more out there – I think we will need a longer winter [heaven help us!] to handle all this! So let your reading begin! [but first, please vote on the Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest...]
My own list for the year? classics reads and re-reads: Clarissa [on-going!]; Pamela; Joseph Andrews; Lover’s Vows; Camilla; Bleak house; Portrait of a Lady; The Governess; The Excursion; Belinda; Howard’s End… and more… [do I dare attempt Sir Charles Grandison?!]
Copyright @2011, by Deb Barnum at Jane Austen in Vermont
I made a promise to myself back in August 2010 to finally read Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, this promise made after reading Laurel Ann’s Austenprose interview with Lynn Shepherd. Shepherd is the author of the Austen-inspired mystery Murder at Mansfield Park, but also a Samuel Richardson scholar and author of Clarissa’s Painter: Portraiture, Illustration, and Representation in the Novels of Samuel Richardson (Oxford University Press, 2009].
I have had Clarissa sitting on my bedside table for years – a friend gave it to me as a joke, daring me to read the thing – I was tempted to tear it into nine parts [an easy thing to do!] and have each of my book group buddies read their piece of the book and report on it – an easy way to lessen the pain of reading this rather large tome – my copy [the Penguin edition of 1985 with introduction and notes by Angus Ross] measures 9 x 6 x 2.75″ with a total of 1534 pages, a heady feast of endless words in very small print! But alas! I could not go the book destruction route, it’s not in my genetic makeup, and so have just stared at this thing for years, dusting it occasionally, contemplating its use as a doorstop or such [it weighs 2 lbs, 11oz!], but somewhat guilty all the while… an English major who cleverly avoided this book or any Richardson for that matter because everything is just so long and not to mention depressing! And despite Richardson being Jane Austen’s favorite author, and that she read and re-read his works and was greatly influenced by him, I just haven’t done it… until now…
So when I read Lynn Shepherd’s post and saw the brilliant suggestion to read Clarissa in ‘real time’, starting on January 10th, and finishing on December 18th, I thought this was a perfect solution, nearly a whole year to finish the thing, not much time to be spent on a daily basis – how bad can it possibly be? So, Dear Readers, I have begun – January 10th, with already a welcome reprieve as the next letter is not until January 13th…
When I told my gifting friend that I was finally going to read the thing – she wondered how I would be able to put it down and not read ahead – I told her I did not think that would be a problem in this case – and indeed it seems not to be so far!
I welcome anyone else who would like to join me in this – there have been group reads of Clarissa on other listservs – I am not going to post about the book, just periodic updates of my reading progress. My only concern is I am already looking forlornly at Richardson’s other book on my shelf, Pamela, a much shorter and happier exercise in reading what Jane Austen read… – so wish me luck and join me if you can!
Article on Richardson and Austen: “The Source of “dramatized consciousness”: Richardson, Austen, and Stylistic Influence ” by Joe Bray, Style, Spring, 2001.
Sense and Sensibility was first published in October 1811, hence all manner of this 200 year anniversary celebration will be literally taking over the world, or at least the blog-sphere world, for this entire year! [See the JASNA site for information on the next AGM in October in Fort Worth]
There are already a number of blog events in place [I will be posting on these shortly], but I hope this year at Jane Austen in Vermont to do a number of posts on S&S, starting with its very interesting publishing history. So today, Part I – a compilation of what Jane Austen wrote in her letters about her first published work – there is not as much as on Pride & Prejudice or Mansfield Park and Emma, but she did make a number of comments that are worth noting. The upcoming Part II will outline the details of its publication and how it was received by her contemporaries. [You can also re-visit my previous posts on “Travel in S&S” – Part I, Part II, and Part III, and more to come regarding the types of carriages in use during Austen’s time.]
Note that all references in the letters are to: Deirdre Le Faye, ed. Jane Austen’s Letters. 3rd Edition. NY: Oxford, 1997, c1995.
Jane Austen on Sense & Sensibility:
Ltr. 71. 25 April 1811, to Cassandra, from Sloane St, London
No indeed, I am never too busy to think of S&S. I can no more forget it, than a mother can forget her suckling child; & I am much obliged to you for your enquiries. I have had two sheets to correct, but the last only brings us to W.s [Willoughby] first appearance. Mrs. K [Mrs. Knight, Edward’s adoptive aunt] regrets in the most flattering manner that she must wait till May, but I have scarcely a hope of its being out in June. – Henry does not neglect it; he has hurried the Printer, & says he will see him again today. – It will not stand still during his absence, it will be sent to Eliza. – The Incomes remain as they were, but I will get them altered if I can. – I am very much gratified by Mrs. K.s interest in it; & whatever may be the event of it as to my credit with her, sincerely wish her curiosity could be satisfied sooner than is now probable. I think she will like my Elinor, but cannot build on anything else.
[Note: S&S was actually not published until 23 October 1811]
Ltr. 79. 29 Jan 1813, to Cassandra, from Chawton
[Talking about P&P after its publication] – I have lopt & cropt so successfully however that I imagine it must be rather shorter than S&S altogether. – Now I will try to write of something else…
Ltr. 86. 3-6 July 1813, to Francis Austen, from Chawton
You will be glad to hear that every Copy of S&S is sold & that is has brought me £140 – besides the Copyright, if that should ever be of any value.* – I have now therefore written myself into £250. – which only makes me long for more. – I have something in hand – which I hope on the credit of P&P will sell well, tho’ not half so entertaining. [i.e. Mansfield Park]
*My note: this is the world’s most perfect example of understatement!
Ltr. 87. 15-16 Sept 1813, to Cassandra, from Henrietta St, London
Nothing has been done as to S&S. The Books came to hand too late for him to have time for it, before he went. [i.e send the books to Warren Hastings]
Ltr. 90. 25 Sept 1813, to Francis Austen, from Godmersham Park
[On the secret of her authorship]
I was previously aware of what I should be laying myself open to – but the truth is that the Secret has spread so far as to be scarcely the Shadow of a secret now – & that I believe whenever the 3rd appears, I shall not even attempt to tell Lies about it. – I shall rather try to make all the Money than all the Mystery I can of it. – People shall pay for their Knowledge if I can make them. – Henry heard P&P warmly praised in Scotland, by Lady Robt Kerr & another Lady; – and what does he do in the warmth of his Brotherly vanity & Love, but immediately tell them who wrote it! – A Thing once set going in that way – one knows how it spreads! – and he, dear Creature, has set it going so much more than once. I know if is all done from affection & partiality – but at the same time, let me here again express to you & Mary my sense of the superior kindness which you have shewn on the occasion, in doing what I wished. – I am trying to harden myself. – After all, what a trifle it is in all its Bearings, to the really important points of one’s existence even in this World!
[postscript] There is to be a 2d Edition of S&S. Egerton advises it.
[Note: the 2nd edition was published 29 October1813]
Henry Austen
Ltr. 91. 11-12 Oct 1813, to Cassandra, from Godmerhsam Park
I dined upon Goose yesterday – which I hope will secure a good Sale of my 2d Edition.
[Note: Le Faye cites a poem from 1708: Old Michaelmas Day was October 11]
“That who eats Goose on Michael’s Day
Shan’t money lack, his Debts to pay.”
Ltr. 95. 3 Nov 1813, to Cassandra in London from Godmersham Park.
Your tidings of S&S give me pleasure. I have never seen it advertised. …
…I suppose in the meantime I shall owe dear Henry a great deal of Money for Printing, etc. – I hope Mrs. Fletcher will indulge herself with S&S.
[Note: Mrs. Fletcher was the wife of William Fletcher, of Trinity College Dublin – Austen notes that” Mrs. Fletcher, the wife of a Judge, an old Lady & very good & very clever, who is all curiosity to know about me…”. The 2nd edition of S&S, advertized on 29 October 1813, was published at the author’s expense, thus Henry likely paid for it]
Ltr. 96. 6-7 Nov 1813, to Cassandra in London, from Godmersham Park
Since I wrote last, my 2d Edit. has stared me in the face. – Mary tells me that Eliza [Mrs. Fowle] means to buy it. I wish she may. It can hardly depend upon any more Fyfield Estates [sale of Fowle property] – I cannot help hoping that many will feel themselves obliged to buy it. I shall not mind imagining it a disagreeable Duty to them, so as they do it. Mary heard before she left home, that it was very much admired at Cheltenham, & that it was given to Miss Hamilton [the writer Elizabeth Hamilton]. It is pleasant to have such a respectable Writer named. I cannot tire you I am sure on this subject, or I would apologise.
Elizabeth Hamilton - Wikipedia
Ltr. 100 21 Mar 1814, to Francis Austen, from London
Perhaps before the end of April, Mansfield Park by the author of S&S – P&P may be in the world. Keep the name to yourself. I should not like to have it known beforehand. [i.e. about MP]
Ltr. 121. 17-18 Oct 1815, to Cassandra, from Hans Place in London
Mr. Murray’s Letter is come; he is a Rogue of course, but a civil one. He offers £450 – but wants to have the Copyright of MP & S&S included. It will end in my publishing for myself I dare say. – He sends more praise however than I expected. It is an amusing Letter. You shall see it.
John Murray II
Ltr. 122(A)(D). 20-21 Oct 1815, draft of letter from Henry Austen to John Murray, in London
On the subject of the expence & profit of publishing, you must be better informed than I am; – but Documents in my possession appear to prove that the Sum offered by you for the Copyright of Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park & Emma, is not equal to the Money which my Sister has actually cleared by one very moderate Edition of Mansfield Park – (You Yourself expressed astonishment that so small an Edit. of such a work should have been sent into the World) & a still smaller one of Sense & Sensibility.- …
[Note: the 1st edition of S&S was 750 or 1000 copies; MP was probably 1,250, and Emma was 2,000 copies.]
Ltr. 154. 13 Mar 1817, to Caroline Austen, from Chawton
I have just recd nearly twenty pounds myself on the 2d Edit: of S&S* – which gives me this fine flow of Literary Ardour.
* Sense and Sensibility [footnoted by Austen in pencil]
*********************
Isn’t it such a delight to hear Austen’s very own words on her writing! Stay tuned for Part II on how it all came to be…
Anyone who reads Georgette Heyer or other Regency-era historical fiction is surely familiar with the phrase “outside of enough” – one of those “cant” phrases that is self-explanatory, doesn’t need a lexicon or such to figure out its meaning. It is a great turn of words, isn’t it? and so much more effective that “that’s enough” or “enough is enough” or “I’ve had enough” or “more than enough”, or “this is too much” or “enough already”!
But where did it come from? When was it first used? I don’t currently have access to the OED and it does not show up in the phrase reference sources I have or in online sources. Joanna Waugh on her website says it came into use around 1887. It now seems overly used – certainly in every historical romance novel, but also in political writings, general conversation [just ‘google’ it!]. I am reminded of the phrase “gone missing”- a term I first heard in England years ago and needed to have it explained to me! – I later heard it on Canadian news programs, but now I hear it everywhere, read it in the newspapers, definitely a British turn of phrase adopted here in the US.
But back to “outside of enough” – I have assumed this was a term that Heyer perhaps had made up – she did do that with some of her Regency cant phrases so prevalent in her dialogue. So I was quite surprised and delighted to discover this dialogue between Lucy Steele and Elinor in a recent re-read of Sense and Sensibility:
[Lucy Steele] : “And what a charming little family they have! I never saw such fine children in my life. I declare I quite doat upon them already, and indeed I am always distractedly fond of children.”
“I should guess so,” said Elinor with a smile, “from what I have witnessed this morning.”
“I have a notion,” said Lucy, “you think the little Middletons rather too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and quiet.”
“I confess,” replied Elinor, “that while I am at Barton Park, I never think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence.”
[S&S, Vol. 1, Ch. xxi ]
Two Brock illustrations of “sweet” Lucy…
Fig. 1 "We have been engaged these four years"
Fig. 2 "She could have no doubt of its being Edward's face"
So we might think that Austen was the first writer to use the phrase, albeit putting it into the mouth of one of her more vulgar characters. But a quick search of Google Books brings up the following sources:
1. Algernon Sidney. Of the Use and Abuse of Parliaments: In Two Historical Discourses. 1744 – a reference is made to “outside of enough” as somewhere expressed by Shakespeare. [I did search the Shakespeare Concordance and the term “outside” comes up 14 times in Shakespeare’s texts, but alas! all lacking the necessary “of enough”]
2. Colley Cibber. The Dramatic Works of Colley Cibber. 1777. “…I’ll have everything on the outside of enough today.”
3. Joseph Gwilt, et al. An Encyclopaedia of Architecture. 1842. re: “premising, that if the caution whereof we speak be taken, the thickness resulting from the following investigations will be much more than the outside of enough.” [p. 410]
4. Henry C. K. Wyld. A History of Modern Colloquial Idiom. 1920. Wyld cites the above Austen passage as “largely the way of speech of the better society of an earlier age, which has come down in the world, and survives among a pretentious provincial bourgeoisie.” [p. 376] [which seems to indicate the term was used in an earlier period and Austen would have been familiar with that…]
So, I must carry on and dig deeper and find a better reference – if anyone has any thoughts, please comment – but shan’t we at least credit Austen (via Heyer I would think) with what appears to be the source for the excessive use of the term today? – I do feel the need to nearly scream, “all right, all right, the constant use of this phrase is really the outside of enough”!
It is a rare date that Austen mentions in her works, but one of them is today, December 24: Christmas Eve, “(for it was a very great event that Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December)” [Emma Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
While we usually associate Mr. Woodhouse with often curmudgeonly weather-obsessed behavior, here he is most eager to get all wrapped up and head over to Randalls:
Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. [E, Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
Fig. 2
So it is not dear Mr. Woodhouse who is Scrooge this Christmas Eve, but Austen is adept at creating one, and long before Dickens ever did:
‘A man,” said he, ‘must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity — Actually snowing at this moment! The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home, and the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem it; — and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he can; — here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse; — four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.” [E, Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
Well, “Bah! Humbug!” to you too, John Knightley! – he is our Scrooge this Christmas Eve [indeed, I believe that Isabella has married her father!] and his ill humor continues throughout the evening – ending of course with his gloomy and overblown report of the worsening weather that sets off three full pages of discussion on the risks of setting out, on the possibility of being snowed-in, on the cold, on the danger to the horses and the servants – “‘What is to be done, my dear Emma? – what is to be done?’ was Mr. Woodhouse’s first exclamation…” and it all is finally “settled in a few brief sentences” by Mr. Knightley and Emma, certainly foreshadowing their success as a companionable couple.
Fig. 3 'Christmas Weather'
And this leads to one of Austen’s most comic scenes – the proposal of Mr. Elton, Emma trapped in the carriage alone with him believing that “he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense…” – which of course he does…
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, with much snow on the ground (but not enough to trouble your carriage), some song and wine (but not enough to induce unwanted and overbearing offers of love and marriage), and the pleasure of good company (with hopefully no Scrooge-like visitors to whom you must either “comply” or be “quarrelsome” or like Emma, have your “heroism reach only to silence.” )
P.S. – And tonight pull your Emma off the shelf and read through these chapters in volume I [ch, 13-15] for a good chuckle! – this of course before your annual reading of A Christmas Carol.
Will await this showing up in my mailbox [though see the publisher’s note about weather-induced delivery delays] – here is the latest table of contents from Jane Austen’s Regency Worldmagazine, the January/February 2011 issue No. 49:
Sense & Sensibility at 200 ~ Leading writers look at the history, relevance, importance and morality of Jane Austen’s first published novel
What price Paradise? ~ Life as a Jewish person in Regency England
Wives by Advertisement ~ The risks and rewards of Georgian lonely hearts’ adverts
Jane Austen and Robert Burns ~ What she really thought about the Scottish poet
Jane Austen edited by a man ~ One writer’s angry response to recent news reports
*Plus: All the latest news from the world of Jane Austen, as well as letters, book reviews, quiz, competition and news from JAS and JASNA
Wondering what to ask Santa for Christmas? Well if you have been “good” and “nice” and not “naughty” or “shouting” or “crying” the whole year through, then you deserve a subscription to JARW! For further information, and to subscribe, visit: http://www.janeaustenmagazine.co.uk/index.html
[PLEASE NOTE:
1. The March/April 2011 issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine will be the FIFTIETH issue!
2. Overseas subscribers, especially in the US and Canada: be advised that the January/February issue may be delayed by 7-10 days because of a backlog of cargo in the UK following recent bad weather, and sorting difficulties in both the US and Canadian postal services. We apologise for any delay or inconvenience this may cause. Jane Austen’s Regency World ~ well worth waiting for!
*****
Chawton House Library has published the latest issue of its newsletter The Female Spectator, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn 2010) [and thankfully, this has arrived in my mailbox!] :
“Chawton Chronicles” from CEO Steve Lawrence re: Edward Austen Knight’s silk suit
“Brian Charles Southam”, an obituary – by Gillian Dow
“Reading and Re-reading in Sarah Fielding’s The Countess of Dellwyn” – by Louise Curran
“Aspects of Household Management during the Long Eighteenth Century: The Invalid’s Dietary” – by Catherine Morley
“Stories behind the Paintings” by Jacqui Grainger – this essay on the portrait of Mary Robinson, actress and mistress of the Prince Regent, that hangs in the Great Hall of the Chawton House Library [with a heads-up re: the National Portrait Gallery [the UK NPG- sorry folks!] exhibition entitled “The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons” set for 20 Oct 2011 – 8 Jan 2012]
“The Shire Horses” – by Angie McLaren
“House and Estate News”: Conservation Projects – by Paul Dearn; The Park and Gardens – by Alan Bird
“Dates for Your Diary” – as always, lovely to see what is coming up, and, as always, quite depressed that I am on this side of the world…
You too can receive this quarterly newsletter in your mailbox [weather notwithstanding…] by becoming a member of the CHL – information is here: Chawton House Library membership [see link for North American members]. See also the several links to full-text [pdf] past newsletters here, and a contents listing of all issues here.
And please check out the latest news on the CHL website – there is a new short story competition in the offing – so start mending your pens and submit your creation by March 31, 2011 – guidelines are here.
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 