Lady Helga at the Jane Austen Podnovel has announced that each week shall be dedicated to one of Austen’s “golden couples” with new videos posted everyday. She starts with Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy…
And Laurel Ann at Austenprose wants to know which of the film adaptations has captured best the Mr. Darcy of YOUR imagination (as Dear Jane leaves it up to each of her readers to decide!) See her post and vote!
But enough of Mr. Darcy …. who do YOU see as the next Mr. Knightley? Mags at Austenblog is rooting for Richard Armitage (and all the comments seem to concur!)…and I must indeed follow suit- I believe he was born for the role!
Which leads me to the PBS schedule for the upcoming Masterpiece Classics…a perfect winter adventure! and Dickens wins by a long shot! [please note that this is the full schedule from PBS; check your local listings for times]
January 4 and 11th: Tess of the D’Urbervilles [Thomas Hardy]
January 18 and 25th: Wuthering Heights [Emily Bronte]
Feb 1 and 8th: Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen] – repeat from last season
February 15 and 22nd: Oliver Twist [Charles Dickens]
March 15 and 22nd: David Copperfield [Charles Dickens]
March 29 to April 26: Little Dorrit [Charles Dickens] ~ with Matthew MacFadyen!
May 3: The Old Curiosity Shop [Charles Dickens]
May 10: Persuasion [Jane Austen] – repeat from last season
May 17: My Boy Jack [about Kipling]- repeat from last season
In case any of you are to be in London next week, there are spaces still available at the Jane Austen Society Conference on “The Cult and Commerce of Jane Austen”, November 22, at the University of London. Click here for information.
So it continues…the question if Jane Austen really invented baseball [ see my previous post here as well as Janeite Kelly’s comment that indeed the OED cites Austen in Northanger Abbey as first using the term “baseball” in literature.] So all this banter can only take the usual cultural turn of appearing on Comedy Central where all things are given their just due. Thanks to David at Random Curiosity for this link to Stephen Colbert on Jane Austen Baseball.
This is the time of year for the many Austen Birthday Teas and events, so here is a round-up of happenings in a wide-sweep of the Northeast, starting with our very own Vermont.
JASNA ~ Vermont:
Annual Birthday Tea with the Burlington Country Dancers
Sunday, December 7, 2008 2-5 pm
Champlain College Burlington VT, Hauke Center
click here for the full post for information and to RSVP
The Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Vermont is offering several “Persuasion” related Jane Austen Weekends. Please click here for all the information. You can sign up for the whole weekend or just take part in one or more of the activities:
Informal Talk with Coffee and Dessert, Friday, 8:00 p.m.,
Afternoon Tea, Saturday, 3:00 p.m.
Book Discussion and Dinner, Saturday, 7:00 p.m.
Jane Austen Quiz and Sunday Brunch, Sunday, 11:30 a.m.
Friday, November 21, 2008 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Music by Lar Duggan (piano) & Dominique Gagne (flute) of Impropriety
Teaching by Wendy Gilchrist, Martha Kent, Val Medve
Elley-Long Music Center
223 Ethan Allen Ave., Colchester, VT
(in Fort Ethan Allen complex, off Route 15)
$8 ($5 student)
Friday, December 5, 2008
DIFFERENT TIME: 8pm to 10pm
Music by Impropriety
(Lar Duggan on piano, Dominique Gagne on flute, Laura Markowitz on violin, Ana Ruesink on viola)
Teaching by Val Medve DIFFERENT LOCATION: Vermont International Festival
Champlain Valley Expo (Fairgrounds)
Route 15, Essex Junction, VT Enjoy supper (extra charge), concerts, and great shopping at the festival from 5pm to 8pm.
Combo ticket is $12 ($9 student) & includes all-weekend festival pass PLUS this Friday night dance.
Combo ticket is $5 for our dance series subscribers & includes all-weekend festival pass PLUS this Friday night dance.
Otherwise, dance only is $8 ($5 student) and all-weekend festival pass is $6 — available at door.
Combo ticket is available in advance (at our Nov. 7 & 21 dances or from Val Medve) OR at door.
Friday, December 19, 2008 7:30pm to 9:30pm
Music by Impropriety
(Lar Duggan on piano, Dominique Gagne on flute, Laura Markowitz on violin, Ana Ruesink on viola)
Teaching by Wendy Gilchrist, Martha Kent, Val Medve
Elley-Long Music Center
223 Ethan Allen Ave., Colchester, VT
(in Fort Ethan Allen complex, off Route 15)
$8 ($5 student)
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JASNA ~ Massachusetts:
Sunday, Nov. 16th, 2 p.m. Marcia Folsom
Wheelock College, Brookline Campus, 43 Hawes St.
Topic: The Privilege of My Profession
Sunday, Dec. 14th, 2 p.m.Jane Austen’s Birthday Celebration
With TheNewton Country Players Wheelock College, Brookline Campus, 43 Hawes Street.
JASNA ~ Montreal-Quebec:
November 17: regular meeting [Report on the Chicago AGM; discussion of Kipling’s short story “The Janeites”]
December 16 (Tuesday): Annual Birthday Tea
Contact: Elaine Bander ( ebander [at] dawson college [dot] qc [dot] ca )
A Frivolous Distinction, Dress in the Regency Period
BIRTHDAY MEETING – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14 at 2:00 p.m. General Society Library, 20 West 44th Street (between Fifth & Sixth)
The well known designer and fashion historian, Daniel Cole will present an illustrated talk on Regency clothing explaining many of the intriguing mysteries of both women’s and men’s clothing. What, for example, are half-boots? Were women’s dresses actually wetted down to make them cling? Why were knee britches for formal attire and pantaloons for daytime? These and many other fascinating facts about clothing in Jane Austen’s time will be explored.
Join Carolyn Epstein (member of JASNA) for a discussion of how the characters in Jane Austen’s books amused themselves during their social gatherings, the importance of music, word games, and cards, and “an Emma Christmas Eve”
Price: Free, registration required
Phone: (201) 529-7323
Age Suitability: All Ages
Carolyn Epstein teaches at St. Thomas Aquinas College in the English/Writing Department. She is a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America.
Registration necessary beginning November 10th Event Website
Winter Program to celebrate the 233rd anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth by making merry with fellow Janeites, good company and good cooks. What devilish and challenging game awaits us this year? Please join us to delight in each other’s company as we cavort merrily and behave in ways “most profligate and shocking.”
Location: Ellerslie at Crosslands, Kennett Square, PA 19348
Date: Sunday, December 7, 2008
Time: 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM
Directions: Follow Route 1, north or south depending upon one’s starting point, to Route 52 north. Turn onto Route 52 north, then follow Route 52 north, until turning onto Route 926 east. OR follow Route 3, east or west depending on one’s starting point, then turn onto Rout 926 west. Turn into Crosslands parking lot from Route 926.
Please bring a sweet or savory to share. Coffee and tea will be provided. Another Birthday Basket will be offered. Take a chance!
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If there are more events out there in the east, please email me to let me know ~ and Kelly and I send wishes for all to have grand celebrations!
The season is upon us! ~ I append a few thoughts for Austen-related gifts for the upcoming gift-giving holidays, and what better than to shower your friends and family with all things Austen!
I have chosen sample items from various sources ~ follow the links for prices and ordering information; you will also find other products for sale. Have fun!
To begin, see the JASNA website for Austen-themed gifts for the holidays available from several chapters [remember that your purchase supports the chapter] ~ here are a few of the many items:
At the Metropolitan New York Chapter, you can purchase Gene Gill’s new book:
Jest for Janeites, by Gene C. Gill
This gently priced collection of hilarious cartoons by JASNA-NY’s Gene Gill sends up the sequels, the prequels, the films, and even ourselves. Grab copies of this book for yourself and as a stocking stuffer for friends! [$11.00 each (includes shipping costs)]
After you have perused all the JASNA Chapter offerings, you can meander to these sites … there is a feast out there!
If you have any friends who do NOT have this, now is the time to give them the Jane Austen action figure ~ at Amazon.com: there is a full shop here of Austen-related products, but as always, I advise you to shop at your local bookshop first!
There are several Austen images at CartoonStock.comand theCartoon Bank at The New Yorker [at the former you can purchase an image to put on any number of items: tee-shirts, mugs.] I am not attaching any images as a license was required, but please visit the sites to see some of their very funny cartoons, including a wet-shirted Darcy!
“Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley—why are all your heroines so glamorous?”
[this is one of Gene Gill’s cartoons, and Ted Adams of San Francisco won the caption contest at the Chicago AGM ~ see above for a copy of Gill’s book, Jest for Janeites.]
An Advent calendar of Westminster Abbey from Bas Bleu
Jane Austen Notable card at Shakespeare’s Den, where there are other Austen gifts (including the action figure noted above), and a feast of Shakespeare gifts… such as:
Books will be given a post of their own, but for movies visit the PBS Shop for the many BBC productions of Austen’s works … like this latest Sense & Sensibility (where ITV at least gave it enough time to be meaningful!…and really, who can resist David Morrissey as Colonel Brandon?!)
And while you are watching your movie, a glass of wine is in order ~ corked with your new Jane Austen Novelstops wine stopper from Bas Bleu!
“I will drink the wine myself”
and finally, I ked [sic] you not ~ the Jane Austen Rose Sneaker by Keds at Zazzle.com[lots of other products!]
[please note: these are on MY Holiday wish-list, in case anyone is in need of an idea!….]
Happy Shopping!
Cheerio, Deb [who hates to shop, but one can never have enough Austen! ~ stay tuned for some book thoughts ~]
Jane Odiwe tells of her new book: a sequel to S&S, Mr. Willoughby Returns: (see her blog for more info)
When Marianne Dashwood weds Colonel Brandon both are aware of the other’s past attachments; Marianne’s grand passion for the charming but ruthless John Willoughby and Brandon’s tragic amour for his lost love Eliza. Three years on Marianne is living with her husband and child at Delaford Park, deeply in love and contented for the most part, although Marianne’s passionate, impulsive and sometimes jealous behaviour is an impediment to her true happiness. News that John Willoughby and his wife have returned to the West Country brings back painful memories for Marianne and with the demise of Mrs Smith of Allenham Court comes the possibility of Mr Willoughby and his wife returning to live near Barton and the surrounding area of Devon and Dorset, a circumstance which triggers a set of increasingly challenging, yet often amusing perplexities for Marianne and the families who live round about.
Alert Janeite Nancy M. has posted about The Lost Years of Jane Austen, by Barbara Ker Wilson [Ulysses Press, Nov. 2008]
“Thanks to her meticulous diaries and frequent letters, Jane Austen’s life is well documented. Except for a mysterious period in her early 20s , when, for unknown reasons, her sister Cassandra burned all of Jane’s personal writings.”
A fantasy of what could have happened in the lost years.
Australia and Wentworth are mentioned [but as Laurel Ann proposes, is the a book written in 1984 titled Jane in Australia ?]
Peter Ackroyd, author of many a British literary tome – novels and all manner of non-fiction, has a new book, The Thames: A Biography [Nan Talese, 2008] to follow his London: A Biography of 2000. Published last year in the U.K. under the title Thames: Sacred River, and now available in the US, this is a must for my London collection! Here is a review from Publisher’s Weekly:
For a river with such a famous history, England’s Thames measures only 215 miles. Acclaimed novelist and biographer Ackroyd (Hawksmoor; Shakespeare) invites readers on an eclectic, sprawling and delightful cruise of this important waterway. The Thames has been a highway, a frontier and an attack route; it has been a playground and a sewer, a source of water and a source of power, writes Ackroyd. Historians believe the river may have been important for transport and commerce as early as the Neolithic Age. The ancient Egyptian goddess Isis has a long association with the Thames, which was used for baptisms, both pagan and Christian, during the Roman Empire. The British tribes tried to use the Thames as a defense against Julius Caesar’s invasion, and the Normans built the Tower of London and Windsor Castle on the Thames as symbols of military preeminence. The royal waterway carried Anne Boleyn to both her coronation and her beheading, and famously served as inspiration for paintings by Turner and Monet and for Handel’s Water Music, commissioned to associate the German-born George I with a potent source of English power. Elegant and erudite, Ackroyd’s gathering of rich treats does the famed tributary proud. Illus., maps. (Nov. 4) See this LA Times review
The Lady’s Stratagem: A Repository of 1820s Directions for the Toilet, Mantua-Making, Stay-Making, Millinery & Etiquette
Edited, translated, and with additional material by Frances Grimble
Publication date: November 3, 2008
755 pages; 98 line drawings, 36 halftones
Glossary, bibliography, and index
ISBN: 978-0-9636517-7-8
Cover price: $75.00
Lavolta Press
20 Meadowbrook Drive
San Francisco, California 94132
415/566-6259 www.lavoltapress.com
The Books Please blog reviews Georgette Heyer’s Friday’s Child. [Margeret has created a very thoughtful reading blog and is one you should visit often…] for this, her first Heyer read, she links to the Georgette Heyer Reading Challenge Blog. I confess to just starting MY first Heyer, Faro’s Daughter, and will post a review soon.
And finally a visit to Austenprose for her November booklist… [some duplicates I fear, but we are always looking for the same thing!]
For those of you interested in textiles, visit R. John Howe’s blog on Textiles and Text where he reports on the recent textile symposium in Washington DC… many lovely photographs to view!
And for those of you who are hungry, Regency Reader Blogwrites about the typical Regency breakfast; and while you are there, look at the other recent posts on Bath, Tattersall’s, and various historical Regency novels that have been reviewed.
And finally for a bit of end-of- the-week humor (or maybe not…), take a quick look at the results of the Guardian.co.uk contest on redesigning covers of literary classics for a “dumbed-down” age. Dickens had the most entries it seems, but as you can see, Jane made the list!
This cannot wait for the weekly round-up! See this article in today’s CNN.com edition :
According to author Julian Norridge baseball originated in Britain, and part of his proof comes from a reference in Jane Austen’s novel “Northanger Abbey.”
Norridge, whose book “Can we Have our Balls Back, Please?” focuses on Britain’s role in writing the rulebooks for a long list of sports, says Austen mentioned baseball in the opening pages of “Northanger Abbey,” which was written in 1797-98.
Norridge says that Austen referenced the sport while introducing her tomboy heroine Catherine Morland, writing: “It was not very wonderful that Catherine, who had nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket, baseball, riding on horseback, and running about the country at the age of 14, to books.”
He argues in his book that the reference indicates British people were familiar with the sport prior to its supposed invention much later in the United States.
Can I have read this book so many times without that word jumping off the page?? Baseball is spelled “base ball” in my text …. but as a die-hard Yankees fan [OMG, what an admission!], I should have certainly at least noticed this! …. so I put this out to you, Kind Readers, and ask for your thoughts … and has anyone written about this before??
Before you go to the polls today to VOTE, head over to theJane Austen Addict website of author Laurie Viera Rigler for a look at 3 videos on Jane for President!
[and a thank you to Ms. Place at JA’s World for the heads-up!]
Austenprose celebrated its first anniversary this week… so we offer hearty congratulations to Laurel Ann for her consistently insightful “musings” with hopes that she shall continue to enlighten us every day with her “celebration of the brilliance of Jane Austen’s writing.” It has been an especially fine month of Gothic doings delving into the hidden crannies of Northanger Abbey…
Jane Austen’s World was selected for two blog awards… 1) Elizabeth fromScandalous Women, and
2) Alyssa Miller from The Love Coach, (who also selected Austenprose)…these are both great literary blogs to add to your favorites; and then link to Jane Austen’s World to see her choices for best blogs (hint: Ms. Place most kindly chose JAIV … so thank you Vic! I now need to select my own 15 favorites…so stand-by for that!)
AustenBlog has posted information on Sue Forgue’s online Regency Encyclopedia, a first-stop resource for all things Regency, geared toward fan-fiction writers. The site is searchable and browse-able by subject and includes interactive maps, book lists and links to online resources. Go to Austenblog for the information and user password that Mags provides. Expect to be visiting the site for at least the entire weekend… ! I have just taken a fabulous tour through Regency London….and am now perhaps off to Bath…
Jane Odiwe shares one of her watercolors of Austen based on the Cassandra sketch, as well as a few words on the Chawton Cottage and gardens.
Here’s a new one…a horse named Jane Austen won big in the the latest Irish racing event. Read all about it here at the independent.ie
Ellen Moody’s blog on her latest readings on Austen life and works, along with some lovely pictures of Steventon and Chawton.
Two patterns for cross-stich samplers with Jane Austen quotes can be found at Pattern Mart; click here for the second pattern.
Sunday, November 2, 2008, a lecture at the Princeton Branch of the English Speaking Union on “The Facts and Fictions of Jane Austen”by Elizabeth Steele, the regional coordinator of the Eastern PA JASNA Chapter. See the article and website for more information.
Paul Johnson at the Spectator.uk writes on “Jane knew All about a Banking Crisis”, giving some history of Jane’s knowledge of banking issues through her brother Henry’s mostly disastrous banking experiences. But see Jezebelwhere she sounds off on just being plain exhausted with seeing Jane Austen’s name linked to EVERYTHING going on in the world! (I heartily concur!)
See the Regency World of author Lesley Anne McLeod blog for information on a new contest offering the out-of-print book “Everybody’s Historic England” : the contest begins October 31…. there are also several new additions to her website.
See this Architect Design blog post about the 2006 BBC movie about Beau Brummell, the Regency dandy…starring the always fabulous James Purefoy (Vanity Fair, Rome, he also played Tom Bertram in the newest Mansfield Park); however did I miss this one??
Lady Helga at her Jane Austen PodNovel blog has hit the 50 mark, i.e. her 50th show…stay tuned for her next podcast! [she has been reading P&P]
This of interest to those in New England: an interactive touring map linking you to the websites of stores specializing in children’s books in the New England area [the map is at the site of the the New England Children’s Bookselling Advisory (NECBA)] My favorite shop here in Vermont is the Flying Pig Bookstorein Shelburne.
For you lovers of Patrick O’Brian, click on the following link for POB’s Riches, a listing of (nearly) all the literary (and non-literary) quotations and allusions in O’Brian’s books. [with thanks to an alert Janeite who posted this on the Janeites discussion group]…. in a very cursory browse, I find only one direct quote to Jane Austen, though we know he loved her dearly. And speaking of Mr. O’Brian, I have recently added to my bookshelf “Lobscouse & Spotted Dog” a gastronomic companion to the Aubrey/Maturin novels, by Anne C. Grossman and Lisa G. Thomas [Norton, 1997], and will be brushing up on my Whipt Syllabub [page 26], as Jane would be pleased…
For a little much needed humor, here are the rules for “The Jane Austen Drinking Game” created by Mostly Water Theater. Click on the YouTube link for their rendition of the game while viewing Sense & Sensibility.
Book reviews: I link you to only one this week…(more to come I promise): Ms. Place on Mansfield Revisited.
And I end this post, it being Halloween, I give you a fine post by Ms. Place on some Halloween happenings at Jane Austen Today… see also her link to the History of Halloween.
Jane Austen in Vermont 