Category: News

Jane Austen Circle · News

Austenesque Vermont ~ & Other Austen Sightings…

BookLady Deb14 Comments

There are a few Austen-related happenings in Vermont coming up, so mark your calendars:

 1. Take a Class:

AUSTEN: PAGE & FILM
Wednesdays, 4:05-7:05pm, January 20, 2010 – May 4, 2010
University of Vermont Continuing Education: Spring 2010

 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, Mansfield Park, 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 read several essays that raise questions 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, a presentation, reading quizzes, various response assignments, and a final essay.

Register today at http://www.uvm.edu/~learn/ or contact UVM Continuing Education at:  800-639-3210 or 802-656-2085
[NOTE: Vermont residents 65+ call and ask how you can enroll in this course for FREE!]

This would be great to take – but alas!  who has the time OR the money! [maybe next year…?] 

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2.  Learn to Dance:

 English Country Dance Classes in Richmond, VT
Learn about and enjoy Jane Austen’s favorite social pastime!

What is English Country Dance? It’s a social dance form with roots in 15th century England and France, was extremely popular in Jane Austen’s time, and continues to be widely enjoyed today. Some of the dances are old, from the 17th and 18th centuries, and some are modern compositions, and are danced to a wide variety of beautiful music. The dance movements are easy to learn: if you can walk, you can do English Country Dancing! You get to dance with lots of people, but you don’t need to bring a partner. ECD is a great way to get mild exercise, meet friendly people, enjoy beautiful dance forms, and express your inner joy (and get out on a cold winter evening)!

4 Tuesday Night Classes in 2010:  7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
January 12 & 19 ~ Teaching by Val Medve
January 26 & February 2 ~ Teaching by Judy Chaves

Richmond Free Library, 201 Bridge Street, Richmond, VT
Voluntary donation to defray cost of heat & electricity ($2 per class suggested)

For adults & teens. Come with or without a partner; we’ll change partners throughout the evening. Dress comfortably and bring clean, flat-heeled shoes with smooth soles (avoid sneakers & mules). Recorded music. All dances taught and walked through.
No sign-up or registration required. Just show up and join us for some fun evenings!

Visit the website for contact information: Burlington Country Dancers 

[I’ve done these classes – they are fabulous! – so dust off your dancing shoes and just show up – you will glad you did – a perfect antidote to winter!]

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 3.  A Weekend retreat: 

 

[just use your imagination and add a little snow!]

Jane Austen Weekend: Pride and Prejudice
The Governor’s House in Hyde Park
Friday to Sunday, January 8 – 10, 2010
http://www.OneHundredMain.com/jane_austen.html
802-888-6888, tollfree 866-800-6888 or info@OneHundredMain.com

A leisurely weekend of literary-inspired diversions has something for every Jane Austen devoteé. Slip quietly back into Regency England in a beautiful old mansion. Take afternoon tea. Listen to Mozart. Bring your needlework. Share your thoughts at a discussion of Pride and Prejudice and how the movies stand up to the book. Attend the talk entitled The World of Jane Austen, where JASNA-Vermont’s very own Kelly McDonald will be speaking on “The Naive Art of Georgiana Darcy.”  Test your knowledge of Pride and Prejudice and the Regency period and possibly take home a prize. Take a carriage ride or sleigh ride. For the gentleman there are riding and fly fishing as well as lots of more modern diversions if a whole weekend of Jane is not his cup of tea. Join every activity or simply indulge yourself quietly all weekend watching the movies. Dress in whichever century suits you. It’s not Bath, but it is Hyde Park and you’ll love Vermont circa 1800.    

Jane Austen Tea at Governor’s House in Hyde Park
Saturday, January 9, 2010  – 3:00 p.m  $14.00
http://www.OneHundredMain.com/jane_austen.html
802-888-6888 [Advance reservations required]

Part of the Jane Austen weekend at The Governor’s House, the afternoon tea is open to the public. Although this is English afternoon tea made popular in the Victorian Era with scones and clotted cream, finger sandwiches and tea cakes, there will be readings and discussion of the tea that Jane Austen would have enjoyed during the Regency.

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4.  Austen sightings: 

A Podcast

This has been making its way about the blogsphere, the news, listservs, etc – but there are only a few days left to hear this Jane Austen podcast on BB4 Radio: – catch it before it is too late…

 

Jane Austen collected songs all her life but many of them have only just come to light, in manuscripts inherited by one of her descendants. Jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert performs Austen’s favourite songs, with new piano and clarinet accompaniment by David Owen Norris. At Austen’s house in Chawton, Hampshire, scholars and biographers discuss how they cast a new light on one of our best-loved writers. 

[Image and text from BBC Radio website  ]- the scholars are Deirdre LeFaye and Richard Jenkyns.  Visit soon as it is only available for a few more days; or you can download the podcast to your ipod until January 15th…]

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A Talking Jane

 Another item clogging the airwaves of late, Janeite Bonnie alerting me to this several weeks ago [and I confess it fell through the holiday cracks… there have been many such fallings by the wayside..] – is a YouTube video of Jane Austen reading aloud her own letter to the Revd. James Stanier Clarke, the Prince Regent’s Librarian, who notoriously wrote to Austen suggesting a topic for her next book [“…to delineate in some future Work the Habits of Life and Character and enthusiasm of a Clergyman – who should pass his time between the metropolis & the Country…” – did he not perhaps like Mr. Collins??] –  her response? – listen [though another confession – I hate these things with movable lips, like the babies in commercials who talk like adults – they give me the creeps – but it is Austen, after all, or at least the bonneted, bug-eyed, full-lipped Victorianized version of Dear Jane, babbling away – so enjoy [I also think she sounds like she is a priggish 85 years old, rather than a mere 40…but I am getting a tad snarky now… so just listen for yourself and I will shut-up.]  The letter, if you want to follow along is in the LeFaye edition, No. 138(D), dated April 1, 1816.  I think this cured him of wanting to be her editor – she never heard from him again… or at least there is nothing extant…

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Austen Blogs abuzz

There is a new Austen blog [since October!], Austenonly, penned by the author of the lovely My English Country Garden blog – she adds much to the Austen blogging community with almost daily postings about Austen’s world, filled with luscious illustrations and insightful commentary.  Plan to visit every day – you will be glad you did!

 And speaking of Austen blogs, Laurel Ann at Austenprose has posted a list of her favorite books of 2009 [those she has read of course!] – many titles to add to your TBR pile, along with her wonderful reviews!

Vic at Jane Austen’s World Blog has done what I have so far failed to do [another tumbling into the now pot-hole sized cracks…] – pen her take on the Austen exhibit at the Morgan she was fortunate enough to visit.  She has some wonderful thoughts and pictures, so follow her along as she treks through the letters on display.  I promise to post my thoughts soon – if I can remember them.

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The Movies

This in from Janeite Marti:  [she was watching a holiday show on Lifetime and has this to say:]

Around Christmas I was watching a made for TV movie because it had Kristin Chenoweth in it. It was called the ‘12 Men of Christmas’ or something like that and took place in Montana.

 Partway through the movie I started yelling at my husband that it was starting to look like P&P!   Our heroine thought she had met her dream man (Wickham) who blamed the hardware tycoon (Darcy) for his troubles.  Dreamy disappears for a while and later it is found out that he was away with a Rich New Yorker. In the end our heroine ended up with the Darcy character and the truth’s behind the lies are revealed. 

Believe me it was the last place I would have guessed to find a nod to our favorite author!

 Marti

 [thanks Marti for the alert – anyone else see this? – the reviews seemed to be universally horrific, excepting the hero’s apparently often bare chest…]

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 Stay tuned – I have some thoughts to post on the BBC Sense & Sensibility 1981 movie I am currently watching – for those of you who have seen this, I welcome your comments…

[Posted by Deb]

Jane Austen · News

All Things Austen ~ a Web Round-up!

BookLady Deb1 Comment

I have been out-of-town, visiting the Big Apple and the Austen exhibit at the Morgan Library – this was fabulous! –  I will report on it in a later post, but for now, there is much to make note of in the ever-busy world of Jane Austen, so will summarize as best I can – you will see that we all have our reading cut out for us!

JASNA has published its new edition of Persuasions On-Line  [Volume 30, No. 1 Winter 2009] – and note that JASNA-Vermont’s own Kelly McDonald has a published article – see this highlighted below!

 Table of Contents: from the 2009 AGM on Jane Austen’s Brothers and Sisters 

Miscellany:

 And remember to renew your JASNA membership if you have not already done so.  JASNA is now accepting membership registrations and donations via PayPal, so this is a fine time to give a gift membership to any of your Austen-loving friends!

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News from Tim Bullamore, the editor Jane Austen’s Regency World:  the January/February 2010 (No 43) edition of is published today and features the following:

  •  Sex and the city: Dan Cruickshank explains how London was built on the wages of sin
  • Comparing Jane Austen with Iris Murdoch. Dr Gillian Dooley examines similar traits in Austen’s Mansfield Park and Murdoch’s A Fairly Honourable Defeat
  • Jane’s civil rogue. Maggie Lane, consultant editor of JARW, discusses John Murray, Jane’s publisher
  • When the bubble burst: the devastation caused by the South Sea Bubble, by Joanna Brown
  • Three Creole Ladies. Paul Bethel on Empress Josephon, Fanny Nisbet and Jane Leigh Perrot
  • Prince of Prints. Inside Ackermann’s Repository of the Arts, by Sue Wilkes
  • Queen of Science, The tale of Mary Somerville, by Nelly Morrison

NEW for this issue is our Austen Quiz: test your knowledge of Jane Austen 

Plus: book reviews, My Jane Austen (Sandy Welch, who adapted Emma for the BBC) and news from JAS and JASNA [note that Elaine Bander, President of JASNA-Canada, has written an article on the Jane Austen House Tour of 2009] 

There is also the chance to win a Jane Austen audiobook set from Naxos (worth £199) 

Coming up in March/April 2010: a music special: what was on Jane Austen’s iPod, PLUS a FREE CD with every copy, featuring music from Bath in Jane Austen’s time. 

For more information or to subscribe [which you must do!], please visit:  http://www.janeaustenmagazine.co.uk/

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The Chawton House Library‘s latest issue of The Female Spectator just showed up in my mailbox [Vol. 13, No. 4, Autumn 2009] with three fine articles:

  • “Charlotte Lennox’s ‘Spirited and Natural’ Marketing Strategy” by Susan Carlisle, about Lennox’s novel Henrietta (1758) and her adaptation of it into her play The Sister (1769)
  • “The History of the Novel as Glimpsed through Chawton’s Manuscripts,” by Emily C. Friedman
  • “Making Our Literary Mothers: The Case of Delarivier Manley,” by Victoria Joule

You too can receive this newsletter by becoming a Friend of the Library – for more information, visit the website here.

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The Jane Austen Centre in Bath has just published its December newsletter, and it too is filled with Austen and holiday goodies:  go to this link to sign up for this free monthly e-newsletter; appended below are links to some of the December issue contents:

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In celebration of Jane Austen’s 234th birthday, Cambridge University Press is pleased to offer a 20% discount* on their most recent Austen scholarship.  Search the site for the following titles:

1. Letters of Jane Austen 2 Volume Set from the Cambridge Library Collection – Literary Studies
2. Jane Austen and the Enlightenment, by Peter Knox-Shaw
3. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen 9 volume HB set [just in case you have an extra $900. lying around…]

Enter Discount Code MW09AUSTEN to receive your discount!
*Offer expires January 1st 2010

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Masterpiece Theater: the new three-part Emma will be broadcast FINALLY in the US on January 24 – February 7.  Click here for the latest information and to view the trailer.  Masterpiece also offers the Austen addict a fun piece of selecting which of the PBS “Men of Austen” you would select for a mate – each has a full description of their best qualities and their “turnoffs” – take a look and choose – I will not tell the results, but you can rest assured that John Thorpe has come in last in this selection process! 

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/austen/menofausten.html

[oh goodness! – who to choose, who to choose…]

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I’ll have more on the Morgan exhibit, but here is a short video of “Fran Lebowitz: Reflections on Austen,” part of the 16 minute “Divine Jane” video presentation that accompanies the exhibit.  The Harriet Walter [a.k.a. Fanny Dashwood] piece is also now available online.

 Stay tuned ~ more to come on the Morgan exhibit…

[Posted by Deb]

Books · Jane Austen · News

Marvel-Mania yet again! ~ the ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Comic Book

BookLady Deb1 Comment

I have posted in the past on the Marvel Comics five issue series of Pride & Prejudice [you can see these posts here: issues one, two, three, four, and five] ~ but now the hardcover issue is available for purchase at your local comic book store.  It is a lovely book, with a dust jacket [picturing the cover of the first issue] and including a title page [of Elizabeth sitting on a stone wall reading Mr. Darcy’s letter], an introduction by the adapter Nancy Butler, and illustrations of all five covers appended at the end.  A must-have addition to your Austen collection… or a special gift for your Austen-fanatic friends…

 

See Marvel Comics for more information.

[Posted by Deb]

Books · Jane Austen · News

Starring in ‘Pride & Prejudice’ …. YOU!

BookLady Deb2 Comments

Have you always wanted to actually BE Elizabeth Bennet? – sitting at the  pianoforte [playing just passably] with Mr. Darcy staring at you from across the room? or having the gumption to turn down his first marriage proposal, despite those £10,000? or how about putting your mother-in-law in the shoes of Lady Catherine? or your snobbiest acquaintance in those of Miss Bingley?

Well, you can!  and like in P&P and Zombies, where it seems that just about anyone can take Austen’s text and fiddle with it at will, bending it to their own means, now you can have the complete book but with the main characters names changed to those of your own choosing, all bound up nicely in a paperback edition that you can send out to all your friends, and all this for only $22.99!  

 

Here is the list of  “Characters to Customize” ~

  • Elizabeth Bennet smart, strong woman, not afraid to state her opinion
  • Jane Bennet beautiful, timid, and beloved by her sister, Elizabeth
  • Charles Bingley friendly, handsome, rich, young aristocrat, and good friend of F. Darcy
  • Fitzwilliam Darcy wealthy, reserved, and intelligent friend of Charles Bingley, brother of Georgiana, and nephew of Lady Catherine
  • George Wickham attractive, suave, self-interested soldier
  • Lydia Bennet immature, outgoing younger sister of Jane and Elizabeth
  • Catherine Bennet follower of her older sister Lydia in action and personality
  • Mary Bennet dry, pedantic, and socially awkward Bennet sister
  • Georgiana Darcy sweet, kind, and perhaps naive sister to F. Darcy
  • Catherine de Bourgh archetypical dowager, aunt to Georgiana and F. Darcy, stern, opinionated and used to getting her way
  • Caroline Bingley snooty sister of Charles Bingley

For more information visit MyCustomNovel.com, where you can add in your own dedication, choose your own covers and turn your best friend into Jane Bennet…

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There are also several other titles for making personalized copies, classics all:

  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
  • Anne of Green Gables
  • Alice in Wonderland
  • Black Beauty
  • The Call of the Wild
  • A Christmas Carol
  • Peter Pan
  • Treasure Island

 

[Sorry, “Deb in Wonderland” just doesn’t cut it…] – but I do know a few people I could substitute for Scrooge…

What character(s) name would you choose to edit as someone you know and why?

[Posted by Deb]  

Jane Austen · Literature · News · Rare Books

Austen on the Block ~ Mansfield Park at Auction

BookLady Deb1 Comment

Another auction with one Jane Austen title:  a first edition of Mansfield Park sold today at Sotheby’s for $21,250 ~

Sotheby’s  Fine Books and Manuscripts, Sale N08602, 
11 Dec 09, New York.  Session 2

 Lot 75 ~ AUSTEN, JANE

10,000—15,000 USD
Lot Sold.  Hammer Price with Buyer’s Premium:  21,250 USD

 Description: 

Mansfield Park. London: Printed for T. Egerton, 1814    1st edition. 

3 volumes, 12mo (6⅞ x 10 in.; 750 x 553 mm). Half-titles, paper watermarked 1812; (1): tear to lower right corner of C1, loss of lower right corner of G7; (2): top of title-page cropped, closed tears on H6–7 touching 2 lines of text, loss to lower right margin of O3, lacks terminal blank O4; (3) loss to right margin of B5, loss of right upper corners of I7–8 costing one letter on I8v, lacks advertisement leaf R4 at end. Contemporary half polished calf over marbled boards, ruled in gilt, smooth spines gilt, endpapers and edges plain; joints cracked or starting, head of spines of vols. 1–2 chipped, waist and foot of spine of vol. 3 chipped. Red morocco backed folding case.

 

There were also a number of Shakespeare titles sold, a Dickens, a George Eliot, as well as an early illustrated Frankenstein by Mary Shelley:

 

LOT 246  SHELLEY, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

5,000—7,000 USD
Lot Sold.  Hammer Price with Buyer’s Premium:  7,500 USD

Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus. Revised, Corrected, and Illustrated with a New Introduction by the Author. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831 

Bound with:  Charles Brockden Brown. Edgar Huntly; or The Sleep Walker, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bently, 1831

 2 works in one volume, 8vo (6¼ x 4 in.; 159 x 102 mm). Engraved frontispiece and title-page vignette in Frankenstein by T. Von Holst; lacks final blank in vol. I, paper adhesion on II:B3r costing one word on A8v. Nineteenth-century full polished calf, central frame tooled in blind, gilt foliate border, the spine gilt in 5 compartments (2 reserved for red and green morocco lettering pieces), marbled endpapers and edges; minor rubbing at spine ends. Quarter brown morocco folding case.

First illustrated edition and third edition overall of Frankenstein, from “Bentley’s Standard Novels Series” (Vol. IX, first series), with Brown’s novel being Vol. X. In her introduction, Mary Shelley states that the alterations she has made to the novel are “principally those of style. I have changed no portion of the story, nor introduced any new ideas or circumstances. I have mended the language where it was so bald as to interfere with the interest of the narrative; and these changes occur almost exclusively in the beginning of the first volume [the 1818 first edition was issued in three volumes]. Throughout they are entirely confined to such parts as mere adjuncts to the story, leaving the core and substance of it untouched” (p. xii).

[All images from the Sotheby’s catalogue] –  for the catalogue and complete sale results, see the Sotheby’s website.

[Posted by Deb]

Jane Austen · JASNA-Vermont events · News

Annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea! ~ December 6, 2009

BookLady Deb2 Comments

If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad….  

 [Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey] 

You are cordially invited to 
  JASNA-Vermont’s  Annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea !! 

 Sunday, 6 December 2009: 2-5 pm 

featuring 

Prof. Philip Baruth * (University of Vermont)
“Badly Done Indeed: In Which Austen’s Mr. Knightley is Revealed to be a Whimsical and Emotional Teen Basket-Case”

&

~ Classical Harpist Rebecca Kauffman **~

 ~ English Afternoon Tea ~
~ Gift Emporium with Local Artisan Crafts & Austen related Books ~

Place: Champlain College, Hauke Family Campus Center (375 Maple St.), Burlington 
$15./ person / $5. / student
Please register by sending in the JASNA December 2009 dec tea reserve form or leave a comment below 

JASNA December 2009 flyer 

* Philip Baruth is a Professor of English at the University of Vermont specializing in eighteenth-century British literature.  He is also a novelist and an award-winning commentator for Vermont Public Radio.  His most recent novel, The Brothers Boswell (Soho, 2009), is a literary thriller set in eighteenth-century London.  It follows James Boswell and Samuel Johnson as they are stalked about the city by Boswell’s jealous and mad younger brother, John.  And just recently, Philip stopped writing commentary in order to run for the State Senate from Chittenden County.  His campaign website is Baruth2010.com; his blog is Vermont Daily Briefing.

**We are honored to have Rebecca Kauffman join us for this year’s Tea! She is currently principal harpist for the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg, PA, a position she has held for 29 years. She is also the second harpist with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, Reading, PA, and the former principal harpist with the Lancaster and York Symphony Orchestras, both in Pennsylvania. Rebecca has appeared as the featured soloist on numerous occasions with the Harrisburg and York Symphonies, the Millersville University-Community Orchestra, the Hershey Symphony, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, NY, and the Lancaster Chamber Ensemble. She has also performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Kennett Square Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton NY Philharmonic. She has appeared in concert with a wide variety of concert artists.   For more information, please visit her website at RebeccaKauffman.com

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Please Join Us!

[Posted by Deb]

Books · Jane Austen · Literature · News

Tweeting the Classics ~ Austen in 20 Tweets

BookLady Deb6 Comments

Ok, I confess, I am NOT on Twitter, and I hope to stay that way [I figure that with Austenprose and Jane Austen’s World  regularly twittering on Austen out there, that might be just about all that cyberspace can handle…]   Since Facebook, which I am on, mostly as friends of my children’s friends, seems to now have been taken over by us BabyBoomers, Twitter has become the premier communication tool, at least until something else comes along, next week perhaps.  My problem, as all my friends and cohorts will happily tell you, is that I have never been one to keep my sentences short, i.e. I babble endlessly on [often about Jane Austen] and though annoying, most of my friends seem to accept me as I am.  Hence, the whole concept of Twitter leaves me, what can I say? –DUMBSTRUCK!  Sort of like Haiku – I just don’t get it!  Why say something in 20 words or less when you can go on and on so as not to risk being misunderstood?!

A number of years ago, a book called ShrinkLits, by Maurice Sagoff [Workman Publishing, 1980 rev. edition, originally c1970, and STILL in print] offered to the reading masses “seventy of the world’s towering classics cut down to size,” with cartoon-like illustrations by Roslyn Schwartz.  Jane Austen does not appear [whatever was Sagoff thinking??!] – but he did reduce Bronte’s Jane Eyre to a few waxing poetic lines:

 

 

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte

My Love behaved
   A bit erratic;
Our nuptial day
   Brought truth dramatic:
He had a wife,
   Mad, in an attic.

I fled! I roamed
   O’er moor and ditch
When life had struck
   Its lower pitch
An uncle died
   And left me rich.

I sought my love
   Again, to find
An awful fire
   His home had mined,
Kippered his wife
   And left him blind.

Reader, guess what?
   I married him.
My cup is filled
   Up to the brim
Now we are one,
   We play, we swim.

The power we share
   Defied all pain;
We soar above
   Life’s tangled plain –
He Mr. Rochester,
   Me Jane!

[ShrinkLits, pp 44-45]

Ok, so this is funny, as are the other sixty-nine…

Instant Lives by Howard Moss, wonderfully illustrated by Edward Gorey, published in 1974 [Saturday Review Press], is another such book, in which Moss “spins out elegant, erudite, irreverent descants on the lives of the great composers-painters-authors-poets-performers,” [from the jacket] – all lives summarized in no more than two pages.  Moss had the good sense to include Austen [the Brontes are all lumped together] – but I have always found this little write-up quite sad, though Gorey’s illustration of Cassandra toasting a marshmallow over the fireplace grate and Jane wandering about the room with the galleys of Sense & Sensibility alone makes the book worth having ~ here is an excerpt:

            ‘You’re so wordy, Jane,” said her sister. ‘No wonder you have trouble with men.’
            Smugness aside, the derogation the remark conveyed was not lost, of course, on Jane.
            ‘My dear Cassandra,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you polish off these mephitic sweetmeats – it would only make your figure the more bizarre.  I have a deadline to meet, you know.’  And with that, Jane swept out of the room, the galleys trailing behind her like a bridal train devised by a couturier impaled upon typography,
            But , in Life, there would be no bridal train for Jane Austen.

[Instant Lives, p 4-5]

This seems a tad nasty, don’t you think? And certainly irrelevant to the value of those galleys… but Cassandra does seem to be encouraging less wordiness – the mother of Twitter perhaps…

But I do bring this all up for a reason – there is a new book out called Twitterature  [the title = Twitter + Literature]  [Penguin, 2009] authored by two University of Chicago students, Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin, who obviously have way too much time on their hands – or perhaps not enough time to actually READ the classics they reduce to twenty tweets or fewer [though they do say that it helps to get the humor in the tweet if you have actually read the book, so hopefully they have done so].  They recently set up a Twitter page for the book, so you can follow their continuing adventure in literature reduction. 

You can find it in one of two covers:

Penguin UK cover
Penguin US cover

I’ve not yet seen the book but understand from reviews that Austen makes the grade –  I am curious to know how the authors reduce Jane Austen in the tweeting universe – here is one example:

Elizabeth Bennet muses: It’s as if the less he seems to care about me, the more drawn to him I am. This seems the opposite of how it should be? Oh well.

And a few others to give you the idea:

Sherlock Holmes says: Continuing investigation. Made brilliant deductions on many snorts and very little evidence. Notice salt deposits on factory owner’s shoes?

On the Road has just the one: “For TWITTERATURE of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, please see On the Road by Jack Kerouac.” [Now I would say that for Pride & Prejudice, but I am “prejudiced” you might say…]

[comments from Guardian article]

So I will likely get this book, just for the fun of it and to add it to my collection of literature in short-takes, but I more likely agree with this reviewer from The Wall Street Journal who said:  

“Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Shakespeare, rolling over in his grave.”

[as is Jane…] 

Further reading: 

[Posted by Deb]

Jane Austen · News · Schedule of Events

Some Austen Adventures befitting a Heroine ~

BookLady Deb2 Comments

If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad….  

 [Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey]

The holidays and Jane Austen’s birthday! – lots going on – so I offer you a sampling of what’s happening in the New England area [to include New York and New Jersey!], starting with JASNA-Vermont’s very own Annual Birthday Tea next Sunday:

6 December 2009: 2-5 pm

Annual Jane Austen Birthday Tea!

Prof. Philip Baruth * (University of Vermont)
“Badly Done Indeed: In Which Austen’s Mr. Knightley is Revealed to be a Whimsical and Emotional Teen Basket-Case”

Featuring ~

~ English Afternoon Tea ~
~ Classical Harpist Rebecca Kauffman **~
~ Gift Emporium with Local Artisan Crafts & Austen related Books ~

Place: Champlain College, Hauke Family Campus Center (375 Maple St.), Burlington 
$15./ person / $5. / student
Please register by sending in the JASNA December 2009 dec tea reserve form or leave a comment below

JASNA December 2009 flyer– please let your friends know / post this in your place of work or anywhere else to encourage attendance!

Philip Baruth

* Philip Baruth is a Professor of English at the University of Vermont specializing in eighteenth-century British literature.  He is also a novelist and an award-winning commentator for Vermont Public Radio.  His most recent novel, The Brothers Boswell (Soho, 2009), is a literary thriller set in eighteenth-century London.  It follows James Boswell and Samuel Johnson as they are stalked about the city by Boswell’s jealous and mad younger brother, John.  And just recently, Philip stopped writing commentary in order to run for the State Senate from Chittenden County.  His campaign website is Baruth2010.com; his blog is Vermont Daily Briefing.

**We are honored to have Rebecca Kauffman join us for this year’s Tea! She is currently principal harpist for the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Harrisburg, PA, a position she has held for 29 years. She is also the second harpist with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, Reading, PA, and the former principal harpist with the Lancaster and York Symphony Orchestras, both in Pennsylvania. Rebecca has appeared as the featured soloist on numerous occasions with the Harrisburg and York Symphonies, the Millersville University-Community Orchestra, the Hershey Symphony, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, NY, and the Lancaster Chamber Ensemble. She has also performed with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Kennett Square Orchestra, Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Binghamton NY Philharmonic. She has appeared in concert with a wide variety of concert artists.   For more information, please visit her website at RebeccaKauffman.com

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Coming in January to Hyde Park, Vermont:

Jane Austen Weekends
The Governor’s House in Hyde Park
100 Main Street
Hyde Park, Vermont 

Friday – Sunday, January 8 – 10, 2010 
Pride and Prejudice
Friday evening talk: The Naive Art of Georgiana Darcy
with Kelly McDonald

Friday – Sunday, January 29 – 31, 2010
Sense and Sensibility
Friday evening talk: Making Sense of the Regency World
with Suzanne Boden & Deb Barnum

Visit the wesbite for more information at One Hundred Main.com

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Now for goings-on everywhere else:

MASSACHUSETTS:

Jane Austen Society of North America- Massachusetts Region
Sunday, Dec. 13th, 3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Wheelock College, Brookline Campus
43 Hawes Street, Brookline, Mass.

 Celebrating Jane Austen’s Birthday 
Join us as we celebrate the birthday of “our Jane”!
We will enjoy light refreshments, including a birthday toast, and entertainment by the JASNA Massachusetts Players.  

Cost is $20 per person ($15 for JASNA Massachusetts members*). Please R.S.V.P. by Tuesday, December 8th  

Wheelock College’s Brookline campus is easily accessible. By subway, take the Green “C” line to Hawes Street or Green “D” line to Longwood. See reverse for driving directions. Additional driving and subway info: http://www.wheelock.edu/about/abodirections_brookline.asp

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Gore Place, in Waltham, MA, announces its Annual Holiday Tea and Tour with a special theme The Art of Romance in the Austen Era on Dec. 4, 5, 11, 12 and 19. Seatings are at 1 and 3pm. Admission is $40/pp tour included. For details, please visit their website at:   GorePlace.org

December 4, 5, 11, 12 & 19Seatings at 1 & 3pm$40 per person, $35 Gore Place members.
Advanced tickets required, call: (781) 894-2798includes special themed tour
The Art of Romance in the Austen Era  Join us for our annual
Holiday Tea
a wonderful way to ring in the season! Enjoy a traditional English tea of scones, savory tea sandwiches and assorted sweets all served in the Great Hall and Withdrawing Room of the beautiful 1806 Governor Gore Mansion. After your tea, enjoy a special tour entitled:
The Art of Romance in the Austen EraLed by a guide in period dress, you will view sumptuous rooms and hear tales of romance in Austen’s time. The tour is included in your Holiday Tea & Tour admission.Tickets must be purchased at least one week in advance.
To purchase tickets, please call (781) 894-2798. Group rates available.
GORE PLACE
52 Gore Street
Waltham Massachusetts 02453-6866
voice: (781) 894-2798 • fax: (781) 894-5745 • E-mail: goreplace@goreplace.org
copyright 1999-2009 Gore Place Society
Gore Place is an historic house of the Federal period.

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NEW YORK:  JASNA-New York Metropolitan Region 

[Please note that this event is sold out – to be put on a waiting list, please go to their website at JASNANY.org for information]

Birthday Regional Meeting Saturday December 5, 2009  2:00 p.m.
At the Midtown Executive Club
40 West 45th Street, NYC 

Dr. Cheryl Kinney will explore the treatment of women’s illnesses in Regency England, including childbirth, infectious disease, and venereal disease.  We will learn who provided health care in the early 1800s in England and the treatments available.  Dr. Kinney will also discuss sickness and health in Austen’s novels.

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JASNA-NY is fortunate to have The Morgan Library & Museum right in their midst! 

The JASNA-NY Metro Region has a number of special events coming up in conjunction with the Jane Austen exhibit at the Morgan. The Region has been working with the Morgan education department to develop some of these programs (see below for details). [In case you have been living in a bubble for the past few months, visit the Morgan Library & Museum website for information on this exhibit!] 

In addition, JASNA-NY is co-sponsoring two events: A preview of the new Masterpiece Classic’s Emma and a panel discussion “From Gothic to Graphic”  [see below]

All programs will be held at The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, NYC 

For tickets to the public programs: visit http://www.themorgan.org  for online ticketing.

And if you are unable to trek to NYC, you can see portions of the exhibit online here!

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At the Morgan:  A Woman’s Wit:  Jane Austen’s Life & Legacy
November 6, 2009 – March 14, 2010

Public Programs: you must register with The Morgan directly

Gallery Talks: 

Friday, February 26, 7 pm
A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy
Clara Drummond, Assistant Curator, Literary and Historical Manuscripts, The Morgan Library & Museum 

Lectures and Discussions:

 1.  A preview of MASTERPIECE Classic’s Emma with Rebecca Eaton

January 20, 2010 [Wednesday]  6:30 PM* 

Join MASTERPIECE executive producer Rebecca Eaton for a sneak preview of scenes from the new four-hour adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, starring Romola Garai, Jonny Lee Miller, and Michael Gambon. Emma will be broadcast on three Sundays beginning January 24, 2010 on PBS/Thirteen (www.pbs.org/masterpiece). This event is cosponsored by the Jane Austen Society of North America, New York (JASNA-NY). 

Tickets: Tickets are free. For advance reservations call 212.685.0008, ext. 560, or email tickets@themorgan.org.

2.  From Gothic to Graphic: Adapting Jane Austen Novels

January 26, 2010 [Tuesday] 6:30 PM* 

Jane Austen’s works continue to inspire new generations of writers working in popular literary genres. In a lively presentation, authors of recently published books discuss their unique twist on Austen with Juliette Wells, Manhattanville College. Participants include Ben Winters and Jason Rekulak (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters), Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway (Lady Vernon and Her Daughter), and Nancy Butler (Pride and Prejudice graphic novel).  This program is cosponsored by the Jane Austen Society of North America, New York ( JASNA-NY).

Tickets: $15 for Non-Members; $10 for Morgan and JASNA-NY Members

 *The exhibition A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy will be open at 5:30 pm especially for program attendees.

 3.  Reading Jane Austen, with Patrice Hannon 

Wednesday, January 27, 3-4:30 pm: Pride and Prejudice
Wednesday, February 10, 3-4:30 pm: Emma
Wednesday, February 24, 3-4:30 pm: Persuasion 

Patrice Hannon, author of Dear Jane Austen: A Heroine’s Guide to Life and Love and 101 Things You Didn’t Know About Jane Austen, leads a reading group on three of Austen’s most beloved novels. The group will closely examine the texts of Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Persuasion, paying particular attention to matters of style.  Sessions will take place in the historic family rooms of the nineteenth-century Morgan House. The group will be reading from the Penguin Classics edition of the novels. Light refreshments will be provided. Advance tickets are recommended as space is limited.  Patrice is also a JASNA-NY member. 

Tickets (3 sessions): $45 for Non-Members; $35 for Members

Films: 

1.  Jane Austen on Screen:

To coincide with the exhibition A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy, the Morgan is screening two acclaimed cinematic adaptations of Austen’s literary masterpieces. 

Sunday, January 24, 2 pm  Pride and Prejudice  
(1940, 118 minutes)
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
All the wit and wisdom of Jane Austen’s popular comedy of manners is vibrantly brought to life in this classic film adaptation starring Greer Garson as the spirited Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as the arrogant and dashing Mr. Darcy.

 Friday, February 12, 7 pm  Sense and Sensibility
(1995, 135 minutes)
Director: Ang Lee
Emma Thompson received an Academy Award for the screenplay of Ang Lee’s feature adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel about two sisters-pragmatic, ironic, Elinor (Thompson) and passionate, willful Marianne (Kate Winslet)-and their struggle to find romantic happiness in a society obsessed with financial and social stature.  Hugh Grant (Edward Ferrars), Alan Rickman (Col. Christopher Brandon), and Greg Wise (John Willoughby) round out the superb cast. 

Films are free with museum admission. Tickets are available at the Admission Desk on the day of the screening. Advance reservations for Morgan Members only: 212.685.0008, ext. 560, or tickets@themorgan.org.

 Music and Dance: 

Friday, March 12, 7-8:30 pm   Dancing with Darcy

To celebrate the final weekend of A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy travel back to Regency England for an evening of period music and dancing in the Morgan’s elegant Gilbert Court. Join Beverly Francis and Country Dance * New York for an English country dance demonstration, audience participation, and live music.  Free.

Family Programs: 

1.  Sunday, December 6, 2-5 pm   Winter Family Day Celebration
Join us for our annual family day celebrating the exhibitions A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacyand Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol. Travel back to the days of the English Regency with art workshops that will bring Jane Austen’s fashion sense to life. Then move on to Victorian London to meet Charles Dickens and his famous characters through the original play Goblins, Ghosts, and Geezers: The Making of Scrooge*, improvisational skits, and other activities.  Marianna Loosemore will be reading “My Beautiful Cassandra” while Nili and Jerry will be talking to children about life in J.A.’s time.

For a complete schedule, visit http://www.themorgan.org. All events are included with admission to the Morgan.

*There will be two performances of Goblins, Ghosts, and Geezers: The Making of Scrooge at 2:30 pm and 4 pm. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the program.

 2.  Saturday, February 6, 2-4 pm  Paper Dolls at the Ball: Jane’s Fashion for Kids 

To coincide with A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy educator Deborah Lutz leads a workshop that begins with a short tour of the exhibition that features a series of humoristic prints illustrating the extravagances of fashionable ladies and gentlemen of Austen’s time. Children will design evening costumes for women or men using paper doll templates, a wide variety of quality decorative papers, and colorful trimmings. Appropriate for ages 6-12. 

Tickets: Adults: $6 for Non-Members; $4 for Members; children: $2

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And finally, also note that the Morgan currently has the following noteworthy exhibits that will be closing in early January:  

1.  William Blake’s World: “A New Heaven Is Begun”
September 11, 2009, through January 3, 2010
Drawn from the Morgan’s extensive holdings of works by William Blake (1757–1827), this exhibition is the museum’s first more than twenty years devoted to the breadth of his literary accomplishments and artistic influence.  See online exhibition

 2.  Rococo and Revolution: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings
October 2, 2009, through January 3, 2010
Rococo and Revolution: Eighteenth-Century French Drawings features more than eighty exceptional drawings almost exclusively from the Morgan’s renowned holdings. Artists represented in the exhibition include Antoine Watteau, Jacques-Louis David, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, among others.  See selected images from the exhibition  

3.  Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
November 20, 2009, through January 10, 2010
Dickens’s original manuscript of A Christmas Carol, on view in Mr. Morgan’s Library, serves as the centerpiece of the Morgan’s holiday programs. 

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CONNECTICUT:   there are a few interesting exhibits at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven of interest to fans of Jane Austen: [see the Center’s website for more information] 

Mrs. Delany and her Circle
24 SEPTEMBER, 2009 — 3 JANUARY, 2010  

This exhibition will explore the life, world and work of Mary Delany, née Mary Granville (1700 – 1788). Though best known for her almost one thousand botanical “paper mosaics” now housed in the British Museum, which she began at the age of 72, Mrs. Delany used her craft activities to cement bonds of friendship and negotiate complex, interlinked social networks throughout a long life passed in artistic, aristocratic, and court circles in Georgian England and Ireland. 

Through landscape drawings, paper cuts and collages, textiles, and manuscript materials, the exhibition will show the range and variety of Mrs. Delany’s art. Among her most extraordinary efforts was a court dress embroidered with a cascade of naturalistic flowers, which united her interests in floriculture and fashion. Parts of this dress have recently been rediscovered and will form the center of a reconstruction of Mrs. Delany’s world. Her art work will be shown in the context of natural history, which informed and underpinned her productions. Shells, corals, botanical drawings, and publications related to the collections of the 2nd Duchess of Portland, with whom Mrs. Delany lived and worked alongside, will also form part of the exhibition, allowing viewers to reattach the vital threads connecting female accomplishment and the pursuit of science in the eighteenth century. 

Mrs. Delany and Her Circle has been co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane’s Museum. It will be accompanied by a major publication that will serve as an exhibition catalogue, and will contain essays addressing many aspects of Mrs. Delany’s life, craftwork, and letters in the wider context of eighteenth-century culture.  [The Center is the only U.S. venue for this exhibition.]

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill
15 OCTOBER, 2009 — 3 JANUARY, 2010  

Horace Walpole (1717 – 1797) was the youngest son of Robert Walpole, first earl of Orford and prime minister under both George I and George II. Horace’s birthright placed him at the center of society and politics, and of literary, aesthetic, and intellectual circles. His brilliant letters and other writings have made him the best-known commentator on social, political, and cultural life in eighteenth-century England. In his own day, he was most famous for his personal collections, which were displayed at Strawberry Hill, his pioneering Gothic-revival house on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham, outside London, and through which he constructed narratives of English art and history. 

This groundbreaking exhibition seeks to evoke the breadth and importance of Walpole’s collections at Strawberry Hill by reassembling an astonishing variety of his objects, including rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armor, and curiosities. These will be drawn from international public and private collections as well as those of the Center and Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut. 

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill has been organized by the Center, The Lewis Walpole Library, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with contributions by an array of distinguished international scholars.   [The Center is the only U.S. venue. The exhibition has been generously supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. ]

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NEW JERSEY:  JASNA-Central NJ Chapter 

Please join JASNA Central New Jersey for a birthday toast to Jane Austen at the Cranbury Inn, 21 South Main Street, Cranbury, New Jersey on Saturday, December 5, 2009 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  Celebrate Austen’s 234th birthday, plan and discuss the year’s upcoming programs, and share our love of all things Austen. Should you be so inclined, please feel free to bring a short reading selection of your choice to get us all in the spirit.  [ See their website for more information.] 

[For events in your area, visit the JASNA.org website for other regional news] 

Happy adventures one and all!

[Posted by Deb]

Jane Austen · News

“All I want for Christmas is … ” [anything Austen please!]

BookLady Deb8 Comments

So here are a few random thoughts for holiday gift giving ~ either for yourself [forward this blog post as a subtle hint to your family and friends] or for your favorite Austen fan:

1.   Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine ~  

Every issue is a lovely gift in my mailbox!  One can get all sorts of Regency / Austen data on the internet nowadays – but there is still nothing like a journal such as this, filled with glorious pictures, well-written articles, book reviews, etc. that you can HOLD and keep and shelve along-side all your other Austen titles…

 

A quick summary of the latest issue [Nov/Dec 2009, Issue 42] which sports Jonny Lee Miller and Romola Garai on the cover ~ stars of the new BBC Emma that we in the States are anxiously awaiting to be broadcast in January [sigh!].  Inside, there are many pictures of the show to keep us satiated until then, and a fine story by editor Tim Bullamore on various behind the scenes goings-on.

And lots of other goodies: 

  • A guest essay by Sue Wilkes on “why we must not forget the real Regency” with our focus on the “glittering lifestyles of the elites of Bath and London” we too often lose sight of the majority lower classes and the very real issues of hunger and poverty  [Ms. Wilkes is the author of Regency Cheshire, another item for your gift-giving -.]
  • Sheryl Craig, on “An Austen Christmas” – a picture-packed [all from The Lewis Walpole Library of Yale University] article on the festivities in Austen’s pre-Victorian England, complete with allusions to the holiday as mentioned in the novels and her letters
  • Maggie Lane, also a regular contributor, never disappoints and here is another thought-provoking article on widows in Austen, “Not the Only Widow in Bath.”  Lane points out that the new book Jane Austen and Marriage by Hazel Jones [excellent book, and yet another gift idea!] has chapters on all aspects of female existence in the Regency period – all that is except widowhood – think Mrs. Norris, Lady Catherine, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Clay, Lady Russell, Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Jennings, and others – all widows with a unique status in their world.  Fabulous article…
  • A special in this holiday issue ~ author Carrie Bebris with “A Midwinter Night’s Dream, a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery” – “On the stillest eve of January, Pemberley was alive with merriment.  So, too, was its master…” – and so it begins – I can tell no more…(!)
  • This month, the column “My Jane Austen” is by Eileen O’Higgins, the actress who plays Miss Martin [Robert Martin’s sister] in the new Emma – this is always fun to read – how someone started on the road to reading and loving Austen – we each of us has a great tale to tell!
  • The JASNA contribution by Elaine Bander [President of JASNA Canada] is about the tour “Houses of Jane Austen” she was fortunate to take when in England this year for the Chawton Conference.   And Marilyn Joice of the JAS highlights the events of their annual conference in “Dancing in Kent”
  • Photographs and round-up of September’s annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath
  • The always insightful “Book Reviews” by Joceline Bury
  • And the usual pack of news on “all things Austen”, letters to the editor, “what made the news in 1801,” – even the ads are lovely!

Upcoming issue:  Sex in the City; Bursting the Bubble; Figures of good in a difficult world; Meet Jane’s publisher, etc. – intrigued?

See the Jane Austen’s Regency World website, where you can subscribe [UK 33.  / everywhere else 38.70, though there are discounts for JASNA members]

2.  Oxford University Press has again put its 6-volume Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen on sale for $61.25. [regularly $175.] This is the 3rd edition based on collation of early editions by R.W. Chapman – all six hardcover volumes have dust jackets and feature early 19th-century illustrations and Chapman’s detailed explanatory notes.  This set is still the definitive edition used for citation – [though likely to change at some point to the new Cambridge texts] – but this is a must-have for everyone’s Austen shelf.

Oxford University Press website and the site for the Holiday Sale / Austen – if you “add to cart”  it will register at $61.25.

 

 3.  Lady Susan

 

There has of late been more interest in this early “novel” of Austen’s [helped perhaps by Laurel Ann at Austenprose and her efforts to get the entire Austen world reading / re-reading Lady Susan this past year! – if you haven’t followed this on her blog, you can do so at your leisure …]  – why it has not made it into BBC’s bonnet brigade I don’t know – just playing Lady Susan would I think be every actress’s dream role!  But as for a gift – a lovely and interesting “copy” of Austen’s seventh “novel” has appeared on the scene – a tad pricey at $139.99 [see the website for discount code], but you can certainly put it out there and beg for everyone you know to chip in together! ~ and a “novel” idea to create a box of actual letters for those works written in the epistolary format.  See the website of  London Publishing House for details.

4.  The illusive BBC Sense & Sensibility from 1971 starring Sheila Ballantine, Joanna David, Robin Ellis, Clive Francis, Michael Aldridge and Patricia Routledge is now available at Collectables Direct [there are other Austen items here – mostly videos, but also a bookend, necklace and music]

5.  Jane Austen, the Complete Novels from Naxos Audiobooks [also includes The Watsons and Sanditon ]– 69 cds and more than 80 hours of listening enjoyment – certainly enough for a long cold winter:  [$270. / set; or $170. for the download – yikes!]

  • Sense and Sensibility (11 CDs), read by Juliet Stevenson
  • Pride and Prejudice (11 CDs), read by Emilia Fox
  • Mansfield Park (14 CDs), read by Juliet Stevenson
  • Emma (13 CDs), read by Juliet Stevenson
  • Northanger Abbey (7 CDs), read by Juliet Stevenson
  • Persuasion (7 CDs), read by Juliet Stevenson
  • Lady Susan (2 CDs), read by Harriet Walter, Kim Hicks, Carole Boyd and cast [how perfect does this sound?!]
  • The Watsons and Sanditon (4 CDs), read by Anna Bentinck

It comes in a handsome, durable 69-CD box-set (accompanied by a full set of notes)

-Go to the NAXOS Audiobooks website; and scroll down for a link to an 8 minute podcast of actress/reader Juliet Stevenson on Jane Austen

[as an aside:  Naxos has announced the April release of Richard Armitage reading Georgette Heyer’s Venetia.  You can pre-order this now.  It is, sadly, like his reading of Sylvester, abridged, which usually makes me just cringe; but as one blogger so eloquently put, who, with Mr.Armitage reading, is really listening to the words anyway? – I loved hearing him read Sylvester – I just had to go out and buy the book to fill in the blanks…]

[available for pre-order on Amazon – or show a little patience, give a gift certificate and download it from NAXOS when it becomes available in April]

6.  Merchandise from JASNA Regional Chapters:  see the JASNA website for a listing of available Austen-themed gifts, from 2010 calendars with Brock prints, to puzzles, chocolate, and prints! And support a JASNA region at the same time!

2010 Calendar - Wisconsin Region

 

7.  a Jane Austen Jigsaw Puzzle at Bas Bleu for $14.95 and quite the challenge with 500 pieces!

 

Ok, done shopping for one evening – my budget is sorely depleted and this is just a start on all the possibilities to fill your gift-lists ~ more to come!

[Posted by Deb]

Austen Literary History & Criticism · Collecting Jane Austen · Jane Austen · News · Social Life & Customs · Women Writers

Janeites at the Morgan

Janeite Kelly1 Comment

A triple series of Janeite interest in the Pierport Morgan Library & Museum’s Austen Exhibit —

From Janeite Hope:

From now until March 14th the Morgan Library and Museum is exhibiting “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy.” According to the website, the exhibition “explores the life, work, and legacy of Jane Austen (1775–1817), regarded as one of the greatest English novelists. Offering a close-up portrait of the iconic British author, whose popularity has surged over the last two decades with numerous motion picture and television adaptations of her work, the show provides tangible intimacy with Austen through the presentation of more than 100 works, including her manuscripts, personal letters, and related materials, many of which the Morgan has not exhibited in over a quarter century.”

There is an online exhibition that includes images of pages from the manuscript of “Lady Susan” along with a short documentary film commissioned for the exhibit. The film contains brief interviews with several writers, scholars, and actors (you’ll recognize Harriet Walker – Fanny Dashwood in the Thompson Sense and Sensibility). Though the interviews are interesting, what I like best about the documentary is watching the participants handle Austen’s letters and manuscripts. Bit of a vicarious thrill, there.

More at: www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?id=22

 

From Janeite Suzanne:

I’d never been to the Morgan, so I’m glad to have discovered it. There was a little film showing downstairs in the theater to introduce the JA exhibit. It had a variety of people giving their thoughts about the letters. It was ok, but seemed like rather a stretch to pad the exhibit and not particularly valuable. And it bothered me a bit to see someone actually handling the letters. They were also playing the movie, none too quietly, in the actual exhibit room which I found annoying because at that point I wanted to enjoy looking at the letters undisturbed.

They were hard to read, of course, but one could read much of it, even with cross writing and that was nice. Seeing the actual “JA” was a thrill. I was surprised that one letter had the JA squished right down to the edge of the paper and the “a” was a large lowercase a, not the one we think of as her signature and which was on everything else.

 There were period copies of the books she would have read and some delightful period satirical illustrations, but what I liked best was a letter she’d written to a youthful Cassy. It would have been better if the presenters hadn’t “translated” it for us because that was the fun. I felt that I gained some insight into J’s character from seeing how she wrote this to a child and also that she was able to form the words as smoothly as if they had been familiar letters sequences. I shall have to make up my own text, but it will give you the idea of her “code”.

Read Yssac,

Ew Era ta emoh yadot dna ti si gniniar. Spahrep ew lliw eb elba ot og rof  a egairrac edir siht noonretfa. I ylniatrec epoh os esuaceb ereht era ynam sgniht ew dluohs tisiv erofeb ew evael Thab.

Rouy gnivol tnua, Enaj

Now, wasn’t that fun! It’s much harder than simply writing backwards, especially the capitalization. Now I have to wonder if she thought it up herself.

 

from Janeite Bonnie:

JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW:

Last night, I went to the Morgan Library and Museum’s exhibition “A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy”, and, oh, what I saw!! I didn’t know that the Morgan holds the world’s largest collection of Austen’s letters, 51 of the 160 known ones. The curators trotted out many of the more well-known letters, and it was thrilling to see them in the original hand. Among the Austenalia I got to examine:

–cross-hatched letters and letters with lines excised by Cassandra
–the backwards letter to her niece Cassy
–the letter in which she writes of the gentleman on which she “once doated”
–the letter in which she writes of having a shaking hand from having drunk so much wine, and mentions the woman with the diamond bandeau, pink husband, and fat neck, and James Digweed having made a gallant remark about the two elms falling down in grief over the absence of Cassandra (a particularly enjoyable letter, and dated November 20–serendipitously read by me 209 years to the day later)
–the letter in which she drew the pattern of the lace for her new cloak
–the letter in which she asks Cassandra to tell Fanny that she has found a portrait that looks “excessively like” how she pictures Mrs. Bingley
–the page on which she sums up her expenditures for a year
–her satirical “Plan of a Novel” (very difficult to read)
–Cassandra’s letter to Fanny describing Austen’s last days and her death
–some pages of the manuscript of “The Watsons” with much editing
–some pages of the manuscript of “Lady Susan” (of which the Morgan holds the entire manuscript)
–James Stanier Clarke’s letter to Austen, in which he tells her that it is not *incumbent* on her to dedicate her next novel to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, but…
–first editions of all six novels, including the spines of a three-volume set of “Emma” with the price on the original labels
–one of the books that Austen owned, “The Spectator”, with her signature and “Steventon” inscribed inside

There was other material on display related to Jane Austen, such as books by Richardson and Cowper, a copy of “Camilla” open to the page of subscribers where “Miss J. Austen, Steventon” is listed (believed to be the only time her name was in print before her death), Walter Scott’s original journal open to the page of his comment about Austen’s “exquisite touch” versus his “Big Bow-wow strain”, material by Yeats, Nabokov, and Kipling, an edition of Pride and Prejudice with a preface by George Saintsbury (he who coined the term “Janite”, now “Janeite”), and, to top it off, original prints by James Gillray interspersed among Austen’s letters to punctuate some of the trenchant comments she made in them.

As a little bonus, on the way out I stopped by Mr. Morgan’s library and took a peep at the original 1843 manuscript of “A Christmas Carol” and one of the three Gutenberg Bibles (1455) in the Morgan collection.

All I can say is, I’m so thankful for the Morgans’ use of their money in this manner.

in a second email, the following wonderful & exciting tidbit was added:

I have one more thing to tell. It happened during the question-taking portion of the gallery talk. One of the enthusiasts in the crowd questioned Declan Kiely, the curator of the exhibition, about the attribution of one of the documents — a scrap attributed to Jane Austen, with the titles of all her novels. The woman questioned whether it was actually Jane Austen who had written it, as the title “Persuasion” was listed, and she thought that that was the title Henry had given it after Jane’s death, and that she had always called it “The Elliots”. I had read that too, but I wasn’t sure that it had not been settled on before her death, as there are other theories out there.

Afterwards, a few of us compared it with the note that she wrote summing up some profits from her books, which was in the same frame, and we saw that the capital P’s didn’t match. However, now that I see the “Profits” scrap close up on the Morgan website, I do see two different ways that Austen wrote capital P on the same scrap

(See the P in “Mansfield Park”, then compare it to the P in “Profits from Emma” quite near the blot of ink.)

If it is the case that Jane Austen habitually wrote her capital P two ways, then the scrap with all the titles of her novels that is attributed to her would confirm that she intended the title of her last novel to be “Persuasion”, and all the speculation should be laid to rest.

I think it will require another trip to take a closer look and see if there are similarities of script in Cassandra’s letter to Fanny, and look for capital P’s in all of Jane Austen’s other letters…

I don’t know if people are aware of this, but the Morgan has no entrance fee from 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Fridays.