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Books · Jane Austen · News

Adventures Befalling a Janeite in Chicago…

BookLady Deb2 Comments

Back from the AGM! and it was, as expected, fabulous!  I had decided to carry nothing electronic with me (except, I confess, the necessary cell phone) and take a break from this computer-driven world and really retreat into the early nineteenth-century.  So now I will retrace my four days in Austen’s world and fill you in on “all things Jane”; and only lament that it shall be days before I can return to Letter No. 3, and a terrible confession that the first day found me scouting the Emporium…

Day One Diary:

Arrived surprisingly on time midday Thursday and immediately perused the Emporium.  Expected a quick run-through to see the display of books and merchandise, but, of course was captivated by all the shopping opportunities, and for one who can browse among just books for hours, this was a happy intro to the whole weekend.

Jane Austen Books, with the torch recently passed from Pat Latkin to Jennifer Weinbrecht and her two daughters Amy and Beth [click here for their website, soon to be updated], had the usual feast of old and new, and after semi-guiltily adding to my luggage weight moved on to the Ontario-based Traveler’s Tales, a bookstore often at the AGMs that never fails with its offering of used and rare literary, history, and domestic arts titles [am now in trouble with my luggage weight concerns and will need to ship any further purchases…]

A quick stop at Figaro, and antiques shop of “Parisian Interiors”  whose lovely display of decorative arts (think tea cups and Burleigh China in shades of pink and blue,) scarves for self-adornment, french soaps, and fashion  illustrations –  all a tempting treat and a perfect addition to the Emporium atmosphere.

Back to more books with a visit with Jones Books  [publisher of Kim Wilson’s Jane Austen and Tea and her new book on In the Garden with Jane Austen  as well as other Austen-related titles], and then onto the locally owned Barbara’s Bookstore, also with a nice selection of titles, including the new Vintage Classics series of all of Austen’s novels with EXCELLENT covers depicting regency fashion illustrations (see the blog Adventures in Reading for a look at all the covers and here at Amazon.com to purchase, and also at RandomHouse.ca for another set of new covers for Austen with contemporary and simple designs)

 

 

     Then on to several booths of fashion…bonnets, dresses, laces, reticules; there is so much talent out there, that I am tempted to dust off my last-used-twenty-years-ago sewing machine (but alas! can one sew AND blog?? doubtful…), and finally a jewelry designer who turns antique buttons, cuff-links, tie-clasps into any number of gorgeous wearable creations (and who I am sorry to say has no website)..

For this Lizzie-like bonnet, visit Bee in Your Bonnet, for custom-made regency style millinery

The Regional Chapter tables never fail to please and delight with numerous cards, calendars, t-shirts, bookmarks, paper-dolls, etc…all perfect gifts for the Janeite on your list (go to the JASNA site’s merchandise page for a sampling)…  and don’t forget to order your 2009 calendar(s) from the Wisconsin Chapter (there is no picture here, so just trust me that they are the best yet and will be a pleasure to look at throughout the whole year!)

So for someone who really hates to shop (excepting for books…heck, we all need at least ONE vice!), my bag is now indeed overweight and I must ready myself for the evening festivities…

Jeff Nigro of the Art Institute of Chicago (currently the Director of Adult Programs), who says that his relationship with Austen was “love at first read”  (I love this!), spoke on “Visualizing Jane Austen & Jane Austen Visualizing.”  With references to the 1995 P&P (Ehle / Firth) showing the scene with Lydia tossing her recently-purchased bonnet, he stressed that in the novel there is no description of the bonnet, leaving the reader to imagine its ugliness, while in the movie it has to be visualized and so indeed the movie creator struggles to get this just right (and why it may not be the bonnet YOU have been imagining all these years!)

Mr. Nigro then shifted to visualizing Austen herself, i.e. the two drawings of Austen by her sister Cassandra, the 1804 watercolor and the 1810-11 sketch, and how the illusive nature of both has resulted in varying and disparate interpretations, as well as outright editing to fit contemporary views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally Nigro reviewed the various illustrators of Austen’s novels, from Thomson and the Brocks to 20th-century artists, and ending and coming full-circle with the visualizing aspect of movie adaptations.  He asked aloud how Jane Austen might feel about these various adaptations and concluded that she would likely approve, as he referenced her letters voicing her various opinions on how her characters looked by comparing them to portraits she viewed (though never finding one satisfactory for her own vision of Mrs. Darcy.)

A fabulous talk!…and a terrific preface to the next three days!  [stay-tuned tomorrow for Day 2…there is a Darcy treat in the offing….ah! but what a tease…he does not show up until Day 4!]

Book reviews · News

Chicago Beckons … and a Mini Round-up

BookLady DebLeave a comment

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

                                        –Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

  Off to the AGM in Chicago…will post on the many adventures upon my return…!

But before I depart, here are a few items worth sharing:

*JASNA has posted online the book reviews in its Summer News issue; there are reviews for the following books (this is great resource for book reviews:  scroll down for other issues)

*Want to go back in time?  here is an article with some sobering insights on real life in the past we so hanker for:   “Back in the Good Old Days”at WalesOnline.

*JASNA is looking for someone to draw a map of Bath in Austen’s time for their online collection of maps… for more information see the Central New Jersey JASNA Chapter blog.

*On the Janeites discussion group, there was a post with the following quizzes, all Austen-related:

http://www.ylcf.org/you/personality-janeausten.htm

http://www.visitbath.co.uk/lovebath/quirky-romance/jane-austen-quiz

http://www.quizilla.com/quizzes/3788704/which-male-jane-austen-
character-will-you-marry

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/FkX0U4/What-Jane-Austen-woman-are-you-most-
like?view_quiz=1

http://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/literature/authors_a-c/jane_austen.html

*See this travel blog that treks in search of Darcy, with many pictures of Chatsworth and other sites relating to P&P.

*The Independent reports of the “re-invention” of High Tea and Afternoon Tea in London and environs as a way to fill up at less the cost….and in grand style!

Jane Austen · News

Round-up week of Sept. 21…All Things Austen

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Austenprose posts week 3 and week 4 of Virginia Claire Tharrington’s journal of her adventures as an intern at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.

JASNA has Persuasions No. 9 (December 1987) now online; the 9th annual meeting featured Lady Susan and the Juvenilia.

JASNA has also announced its annual essay contest:  [see link for details]

Siblings abound in Jane Austen’s novels. Some siblings act as foils to each other; others are in competition; still others are mutually supportive and encouraging. Examine the importance of siblings in one or two Austen novels. Discuss how they function in the novel and how they embody larger themes. You may focus on one sibling relationship or you may compare relationships, either within a novel or between two novels.

Is Jane Austen Sophia Sentiment?  see this recapped post on the Becoming Jane website.

Elizabeth Inchbald’s play “Wives as they were, Maids as they are” is on stage at the Theater Royal Bury St. Edmonds (the only working Regency playhouse in the country)… click here for a review of the play, “a fabulous combination of Jane Austen, the Regency romance novels of Georgette Heyer and the best in BBC costume drama.” 

And if you are by chance off to Brighton for a few days, the New York Times travel section offers up  36 hours in Brighton

If, however, you find yourself instead in New York City, the NY JASNA Chapter is sponsoring an event with the Royal Oak Foundation on October 15, a lecture on ” ‘I Ask Only a Comfortable Home’: Jane Austen and Regency Domestic Interiors,” by Lisa White, Director, Attingham Summer School for the Study of Historic Houses, England.

Is Chawton or Bath Austen’s “true home”?  See this Telegraph article on the two towns and their fight over their right to the title… and see also Janeite Kelly’s comments right here.

There is so much “out there” on Lost in Austen, that I have decided to keep mum about it all until I have actually seen it…!

 And finally, I think that there is always so much delightful information on all the other well-known Austen blogs,  that I will just tell you to go to them each week and scroll down for the Austen feast on each of them:

 Book Reviews:

  • Austenprose on Carrie Bebris’s Matters at Mansfield

Sites & Blogs of note:

That’s all folks!  Happy reading all week… and prepare for the Northanger Abbey / Going Gothic event at Austenprose starting October 1st!

Books · Jane Austen · News

Essential Austen: Kirstin Olsen’s “All Things Austen”

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Kirstin Olsen’s 2-volume work titled “All Things Austen” was published in 2005 and sells for $157.95 at Greenwood Publishing and at Amazon for the same, and not much less on any of the used book sites [but please note that Greenwood is at present having a sale on this 2-vol. set for $110. + shipping and taxes, so this is worth a look]

…so it is a with pleasure that I see that the paperback concise edition is in pre-release at Greenwood for $29.95 (available 10/30/08)…it was released in the UK on 8/30/08 and can be ordered on Amazon.uk [see Amazon.uk to order]; it is available on Amazon.com for pre-order, and also already available on several of the used book sites.  

 

Here is the product description of the softcover edition from Greenwood Publishing (see the listing for the hardcover edition for that description, as well as numerous reviews).  

 Willoughby (Sense and Sensibility) drives a curricle not a gig – what does this say about him? Captain Wentworth (Persuasion) and Fanny’s brother William (Mansfield Park) follow the ‘King’s Service’ at sea – what sort of life did they find there? Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Pride and Prejudice) is called Lady Catherine, not Lady de Bourgh – what does this very important distinction signify? Abridged from the critically acclaimed All Things Austen (Greenwood, 2005), this similarly formatted encyclopedia takes readers from the works of Jane Austen into her universe. More than 70 alphabetically arranged entries provide rich and fascinating historical details on the form and function of everyday and obscure objects that are mentioned in her novels. A selection of illustrations accompany the lively and often humorous entries that bring her fiction to life. Jane Austen’s first readers would have needed no help in understanding references to their everyday lives. But early nineteenth-century card games, dining habits, social etiquette, occupations and dozens of other topics are not immediately clear to her readers nearly two hundred years later. In this encyclopedia, students and devotees of Jane Austen will become familiar with what her characters ate, wore and did for recreation. Impeccably researched information is presented about domestic items, the social scene, the workplace, the church, special events and rituals, and everyday customs that constituted life in Jane Austen’s England. Included are entries on:          

  • Bath                                                                                                                   
  • Cards
  • Carriages and Coaches
  • Clergy
  • Entertainment
  • Food
  • Hats
  • Navy
  • Music
  • Servants
  • Tea
  • Teeth
  • West Indies
  • And Many More

Readers can find citations of specific works by Austen, or they can look up terms or concepts. A bibliography arranged according to broad subjects lists major works for further reading.

 I have not seen this new concise edition to compare the books and see what was left on the cutting room floor, but will let you know as soon as I get a copy and can review the book for you … but what I do know that this is an “essential Austen” title, without any doubt…

Further Reading:  see the review by Carrie Bebris of the 2-volume edition in the Spring 2006 JASNA News.

Jane Austen · News

Tempests Brewing?

Janeite Kelly3 Comments

Kate in Norfolk today mentioned news hitting the Daily Telegraph: two battles just brewing, one over which place – Chawton or Bath? – can be said to deserve the title of Jane Austen’s ‘true home’; and the other being a tearoom propriator who wants to patent a ‘Jane Austen’ line of teas and coffees. Read the stories here – and check back periodically to see what more is happening, as these stories undoubtedly continue to unfold.

Books · Jane Austen · News

“Jezebel” on 75 Books Every Woman Should Read…

BookLady Deb1 Comment

Another reading list!  “75 books every woman should read,” Jezebel’s response to Esquire’s list of the same, but for men (and filled with “old white dudes” as Jezebel so aptly says.)  The initial list of twenty titles, posted at Jezebel.com on September 18th, generated 388 comments that add another 55 books to the list….and nice to know that Austen’s Pride & Prejudice made the original 20 list! [and see the Esquire slide show… it is a wonderful compilation that includes Faulkner, Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Raymond Carver, Kerouac, etc, but I find only ONE woman in the mix:  Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find.]

Jane Austen · News

Austen Short Story Competition

BookLady Deb1 Comment

News flash for all Austenesque writers!  check this link at the Chawton House Library about a Jane Austen short story competition in celebration of Austen’s move to Chawton in 1809.  Closing date for submitting entries is March 31, 2009. First prize: £1000 and two runners-up: £200; all three win a week’s writers’ retreat at Chawton House and publication! Fifteen short-listed authors will also see prize money and publication. Entry fee is £10 per story. Open to ALL ‘who have not had a full-length work of fiction published.’

Books · Jane Austen · News

Round-up…all things Austen, week of Sept. 14…

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Lots out there this week, much about Lost in Austen (which I have not yet watched…oh woe is me!), and a few other tidbits of interest…

Fashion on Main, an exhibit at the University of Texas; see the site for a search-able database of the collection (though the “search” feature is under construction; you can browse the site), and references to other fashion resources.

 And more on fashion in the time of Marie Antoinette, read this post on the Queen’s modist (clothing creator) at the Paper Crown Queen Blog, where there is a host of information and pictorials on crowns.

And the ongoing saga of “Lost in Austen” and the many reviews and opinions thereof:  see Austenblog for its usual candid round-up of comments, and also today for Episode 3, and Jane Austen’s World Blog for a nice review of Episode 2, and another review at Austenprose.

See the Times-Picayune (LA) write-up of a Jane Austen Festival in Mandeville, LA on September 13 (alas! I missed it!….but there is another in March, so put it on your calendar if you happen to be in Louisiana): an Austen “Regency Revisited” Day at the Mandeville Trailhead Pavilion.  Organizers of the Jane Austen Festival host a morning of music, dancing, a fashion show and workshop, 10 a.m.-1. Period dancing with free lessons begins, at 10 a.m. The public is invited to bring costumes/outfits/accessories and experts will demonstrate how to convert them into Regency style apparel, appropriate for the festival in March. Free. For details, visit http://www.janeaustenfestival.org/. or call 985.624.5683.

And here is a journalist from the Herald.ie  who has had it with adaptations of classic literature, especially Austen “who has colonised television in a way that no other dead author has managed.”  But alas!  she informs the reader that the gorgeous Rupert Penry-Jones of Spooks (MI-5 in the U.S.) and the ITV Persuasion, will play in a new television version of John Buchan’s oft-filmed The Thirty-Nine Steps.  Can’t wait!

Austenprose continues to offer us the journaling of Virginia Claire Tharrington, the intern at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath:  see her first post and this week’s.  We are all SO envious!

Jane Odiwe tells of her newest book being published by Sourcebooks next year:  Mrs. Brandon’s Invitation, a sequel to Sense & Sensibility.

Several reviews of Marsha Altman’s The Darcys and the Bingleys, are sited at Austenprose; see Jane Austen Today for an interview with the author.

An article in Piecework Magazine is mentioned on Austenblog; also see the comment from the current President of JASNA, Marsha Huff, referencing a Persuasions article on the coverlet that Jane Austen, Cassandra and their mother made (the quilt now hangs in Chawton), so you, too, can make a replica of this quilt.  [See also my previous reference to the JASA article on this topic.]

Ms. Place at JA’s World continues the column with Marjorie Gilbert and her creation of a regency gown… this week is about the necessary regency undergarments.

Excellent sleuthing by Laurel Ann at Austenprose who writes “The Legend of the Lost Sequel“, about the publishing history of D.A. Bonavia-Hunt’s Pemberely Shades.  

See the article in the Western Daily Press about the Crazy for Jane movie premiere at the Bath JA Festival. The documentary tells the tale of contemporary publishers rejection of Jane Austen novels…shame on them!

Books · Jane Austen · News

Another Austen sequel

BookLady Deb5 Comments

In some random searching today I discovered that come December, there will be yet another Austen sequel in the mix.   Titled The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet: a Novel, the book is by Colleen McCullough of Thorn Birds fame and will be published by Simon & Schuster.  You can pre-order it at Amazon.  [note that it will be published in Australia in early October by HarperCollins…read their synopsis and pre-order here.]

Lizzy Bennet married Mr Darcy, Jane Bennet married Mr Bingley – but what became of the middle daughter, Mary? Discover what came next in the lives and loves of Jane Austen’s much loved Bennet family in this Pride and Prejudice spin-off from an international bestselling author Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that there were five Bennet sisters. Now, twenty years on, Jane has a happy marriage and large family; Lizzy and Mr Darcy now have a formidable social reputation; Lydia has a reputation of quite another kind; Kitty is much in demand in London’s parlours and ballrooms; but what of Mary? Mary is quietly celebrating her independence, having nursed her ailing mother for many years. She decides to write a book to bring the plight of the poor to everyone’s attention. But with more resolve than experience, as she sets out to travel around the country, it’s not only her family who are concerned about her. Marriage may be far from her mind, but what if she were to meet the one man whose own fiery articles infuriate the politicians and industrialists? And if when she starts to ask similar questions, she unwittingly places herself in great danger?
[quote from Fantastic Fiction]
Jane Austen · News · Regency England

Just hafta share

Janeite Kelly1 Comment

In a comment sent to my research blog on Mary Gosling and Emma Smith, Dinah at the Priaulx Library on the island of Guernsey sent a link for the library’s delightfully informative article on the Le Marchants. Denis Le Marchant married Emma’s sister Eliza, but his father was a famed Peninsular war hero (and a founder of Sandhurst! I never realized…). Major-General Gaspard Le Marchant wrote to his daughter (Denis’ sister) Katherine during these years – and one has such a ring of something Jane Austen would have included in a novel (or even a letter!) that I just had to copy and share it here:

The Priaulx Library has some of the letters that Gaspard wrote from Spain to his daughter, Katherine (1796-1881). Her grandaughter says of her in a letter that she was like a mother to the younger children.  She went on to marry a parson, Basil Fanshawe, and lived in Essex.  Gaspard took great care over her education at Mrs de Minibus’ establishment, especially her musical education, and the end of his last letter to her, written on 5 July 1812, about two weeks before his death at Salamanca, reads thus:

 

Beauty, education and money, are separately capable of obtaining an advantageous marriage.  As you have not the money, nor the beauty, your whole reliance is on an excellent education.

 

Father sometimes knows best…