Category: Regency England

Book Group · Books · Georgian England · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

A Jane Austen Reading Group Reads Georgette Heyer

BookLady Deb18 Comments

Guest post by JASNA-Vermont member Lynne H.

Our JASNA Vermont reading group recently discussed Georgette Heyer’s Frederica.  A skeptical member asked the question: why should we read Heyer?  Georgette Heyer is a prolific 20th century novelist known for writing Historical Fiction, Regency Romances, and Mysteries.  Frederica is one of the Regency Romances. (Think Harlequin not Hawthorne….)   So, why should a thoughtful group of Austen devotees choose a Heyer Romance?    Below are some of the answers from our group’s discussion.

Layout 1

Reason # 7: It’s summer.  Let’s face it, we don’t have to read Tolstoy, Dickens, or even Austen all year.  Go to the beach and relax!

Reason #6: Heyer, as mentioned above, is prolific.  If you like one of her Regency Romances, you have 33 more to choose from.

Reason #5: Heyer researched and included wonderful Regency detail.  She described the carriages, dress, and food, for example, in specific detail.   You can read about phaetons and curricles, neck-cloths and laces, and jellies and sauces.  If you have any interest in the Regency period, it is both fun and informative to have such specifics included in the novels.

Reason #4: Ditto for Regency language, cant, lingo, etc.  Heyer used Regency cant in all of her Romances.  What does it mean if someone is a “nodcock”  or a “ninnyhammer”?  What about if someone is trying to “gammon” another person?  Usually the meanings of the expressions are clear from the context; however, members of our group also mentioned further Regency reading to fill in more information about the period.  Two of the books were Jennifer Kloester’s Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, and Carolly Erickson’s Our Tempestuous Day. 

Reason #3: Heyer’s dialogue.  She used dialogue extensively. Her dialogue is witty, but it is also artfully constructed to expose and develop character.

Reason #2: Heyer’s characterization.  While her main characters are usually from the aristocracy (these are Romances after all!), they are not two dimensional ladies and gentlemen.  Within the structure of the Romance, Heyer adeptly fills in the motivations, foibles, and flaws, of her main characters.  Her writing usually depends on the characters to move the books forward.  In the following excerpt, you can see both the characterization and dialogue at work.  This is from an early episode of Frederica in which Frederica and Lord Alverstoke have their first meeting.  Frederica begins by responding to him:

            “I see. You don’t wish to recognize us, do you?  Then there isn’t the least occasion for me to explain our situation to you.  I beg your pardon for having put you to the trouble of visiting me.”

            At these words, the Marquis, who had every intention of bringing the interview to a summary end, irrationally chose to prolong it.  Whether he relented because Miss Merriville amused him, or because the novelty of having one of his rebuffs accepted without demur intrigued him remained undecided, even in his own mind.  But however it may have been he laughed suddenly, and said, quizzing her: “Oh, so high!  No, no, don’t hold up your nose at me: it don’t become you!”

Reason #1: Her books provide both escape and solace.  One of our members mentioned that she read Heyer while she was undergoing chemotherapy.  She said that during this difficult time in her life, Heyer made her laugh and gave her a place to retreat to for comfort and solace.  For Janeites this is very familiar ground!

So…if your interest has been piqued by our reasons to read Heyer, we’d suggest that you start with Frederica.  Just about all of our group members enjoyed it.    And remember, unlike Austen, there are many, many more novels to choose from for those lazy summer days or for times when you just need to escape.  Don’t be a ninnyhammer, try one.

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Frederica
Georgette Heyer
Sourcebooks Casablanca, 2008
ISBN:  1402214766
[originally published 1965]


Further reading:

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book cover-Frederica1st

[Image: 1st edition cover, Bodley Head, 1965 – Wikipedia] – I love this cover!

What is your favorite Georgette Heyer? – i.e, after starting with Frederica, which Heyer would you recommend to our book group to read next?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Author Interviews · Books · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Jane Austen Sequels · Regency England · Women Writers

On My Bookshelf ~ Jane Austen Scholar Janet Todd Turns to Fiction and Takes on Lady Susan!

BookLady Deb5 Comments

Well, not sure if an ebook can be termed “on my bookshelf” but no matter – this new book out today by Austen scholar Janet Todd has already made its way to my kindle, so a virtual bookshelf it is … and I shall drop all my other reading and begin this immediately!

cover-ladysusan

Professor Todd has taken on Jane Austen‘s Lady Susan in her fictional account Lady Susan Plays the Game – this is from the Bloomsbury website:

A must-read for any devotee of Jane Austen, Janet Todd’s bodice-ripping reimagining of Austen’s epistolary novel Lady Susan will capture your literary imagination and get your heart racing.

Austen’s only anti-heroine, Lady Susan, is a beautiful, charming widow who has found herself, after the death of her husband, in a position of financial instability and saddled with an unmarried, clumsy and over-sensitive daughter. Faced with the unpalatable prospect of having to spend her widowed life in the countryside, Lady Susan embarks on a serious of manipulative games to ensure she can stay in town with her first passion — the card tables. Scandal inevitably ensues as she negotiates the politics of her late husband’s family, the identity of a mysterious benefactor and a passionate affair with a married man.

Accurate and true to Jane Austen’s style, as befits Todd’s position as a leading Austen scholar, this second coming of Lady Susan is as shocking, manipulative and hilarious as when Jane Austen first imagined her.

Published: 15-07-2013
Format: EPUB eBook
ISBN: 9781448213450
Imprint: Bloomsbury Reader 
RRP: £6.99  [ in the US, the kindle price is $7.19 :  Amazon.com

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You can read a post by Janet Todd here at the Bloomsbury Reader blog –  where she “tells us her thoughts on writing, language, and the pressure of re-imagining Jane Austen:”

Anne Elliot, virtuous heroine of Persuasion, was ‘almost too good’ for Jane Austen. ‘Pictures of perfection… make me sick and wicked,’ she remarked towards the end of her life. All Austen’s novel heroines are indeed ‘good’: two of them initially hazard improper or injudicious remarks—Elizabeth Bennet and Emma—but later they learn to repress such high spirits.

Now look at Jane Austen’s own letters. Recollect that most of them address her beloved Cassandra who, after Jane’s death, guarded her sister’s image by burning anything she deemed unsuitable—not so much for the public, since Jane was not yet famous enough to have her private correspondence of general interest, but for the younger members of the extended family now living in high Victorian rather than racy Regency times.  Yet even the unburnt letters show a woman very different from the fictional heroines, a woman with a naughty propensity sometimes to laugh at the virtuous, the vulnerable or the just plain unfortunate—a wife with an uncomely husband experiencing a still birth or young girls lacking beauty and unable to compensate for it.  This Jane Austen emerges very fully in a little work she wrote just as she was entering adulthood and long before she’d published any of her masterly novels: ‘Lady Susan’….

Continue reading…

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About the Author:

janet_toddJanet Todd is an internationally renowned scholar of early women writers. She has edited the complete works of England’s first professional woman writer, Aphra Behn, and the Enlightenment feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as novels by Charlotte Smith, Mary Shelley and Eliza Fenwick and memoirs of the confidence trickster Mary Carleton. She is also the general editor of the 9-volume Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen and editor of Jane Austen in Context and the Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice. Among her critical works are Women’s Friendship in Literature, The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction 1660-1800 and the Cambridge Introduction to Jane Austen. She has written four biographies: of Aphra Behn and three linked women, Mary Wollstonecraft, her daughter, and her aristocratic Irish pupils.

In the 1970s Janet Todd taught in the USA, during which time she began the first journal devoted to women’s writing. Back in the UK in the 1990s she co-founded the journal Women’s Writing. Janet has had a peripatetic and busy life, working at universities in Ghana, the US, and Puerto Rico, as well as England and Scotland. She is now an emeritus professor at the University of Aberdeen and lives in Cambridge.

 

Further reading:

book cover-LadySusanpenguin

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

 

Auctions · Decorative Arts · Georgian England · Jane Austen · JASNA-Vermont events · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

Tea Anyone? ~ Georgian Period Tea Caddies at Auction at Sworders

BookLady DebLeave a comment

I have Tea on the brain because our JASNA-Vermont group is planning a Regency-style Afternoon Tea at The Governor’s House in Hyde Park on July 24th, 2013  [$25. / person, reservations required]

And so, Tea being on my radar [where it always is really…], I find there are a number of tea caddies up for auction at Sworders, Fine Art Auctioneers.

These are particularly lovely: [Lot 69]

teacaddies-sworders

A pair of George III oval papier mâché tea caddies

Birmingham, c.1780, by Henry Clay, the first with a hinged lid decorated with bands of berried leaves and anthemia centred by a hallmarked silver loop handle stamped with the initials ‘HC’, the body with transfer decorated scenes of Demeter in the House of Kelos together with other classical figures, instruments and a painted chevron band, the second similarly decorated, but with palmette borders, 11cm high  Provenance:  By repute the Earls of Jersey, Osterley Park Middlesex, sold 1949.  Literature:  For a similar single caddy, ‘The Robert Harman Collection’, Sotheby’s, 12 November 1999, lot 6.  The silver loop handle carries the hallmark of Henry Clay, ‘Japanner in Ordinary to His Majesty and His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales’.  Clay specialised in Etruscan-style decoration of this kind.  A visitor to his workshop in Covent Garden in 1775 reported that he made boxes, tea caddies, panels for coaches and sedan chairs, coffee trays and ‘…all kinds of other vessels, black with orange figures in the style of Etruscan vases’ (‘George Christoph Lichtenberg’s Visits to England as described in his Letters and Diaries’, translated and annotated by M L Mare and W H Quarrell, Oxford, 1938).

Estimate: £5000 – £8000

Or this: [Lot 60]

teacaddy2-sworders

A George III tea caddy

of rectangular form with canted corners, the lid in harewood (?) with an inlaid oval patera within strung borders, the front panel in mahogany similarly decorated, the canted corners inlaid with plain shaded columns on a stained ground, 11.5cm high.

Estimate:  £500 – £800

You can view these here, and see the other 25 or so other tea caddies for sale here.

[Image and text from Sworders – Fine Art Auctioneers – Summer House Country Sale, 16 July 2013]

And on the subject of Tea, here are some offers from Twinings: [with thanks to Tony Grant for sending the link!]

twiningstea

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Fashion & Costume · Georgian England · Great Britain - History · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

Can you forbear laughing

BookLady Deb6 Comments

lewiswalpolelibrary's avatarRecent Antiquarian Acquisitions

Click for larger image

“A lady stands at her dressing-table (right), her hair in an enormous pyramid decorated with feathers torn from a peacock, an ostrich and a cock. A young girl wearing a hat holds the peacock by a wing; another wearing a cap tugs hard at one of its tail feathers (which are very unlike peacock’s feathers). An ostrich (left), which has lost most of its tail feathers, is about to pluck out those which ornament the lady’s hair. A cock stands in the foreground (right), having lost almost all its tail feathers, many of which lie on the floor. A black servant wearing a turban stands on his mistress’s right, handing feathers from a number which he holds in his left hand. The lady, who faces three-quarter to the right, is elaborately dressed in the fashion of the day. Her pyramid of hair is decorated with lappets of lace and festoons…

View original post 71 more words

Austen Literary History & Criticism · Books · Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Regency England

Hot off the Press! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine, No.64

BookLady Deb3 Comments

JARW64_Cover_small

The July/August 2013 (No 64) edition of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine is now out – watch out for it in your mailbox over the next few weeks. In the new issue you can read about:

  • Austenland: we speak to Jerusha Hess about her new film depicting one woman’s amazing hunt for her Mr Darcy
  • Read our exclusive preview of this year’s Jane Austen Festival in Bath
  • The Countess of Jersey, serial adulteress and debauchee is this issue’s Regency Rogue
  • Letters from Jane: a look at Austen’s correspondence
  • Plump cheeks and thick ankles: Jane Austen used appearance to size up her characters
  • A social reformer and a place called Harmony: the tale of Robert Owen

Subscribe today to Jane Austen’s Regency World, the full-colour, must-read, glossy magazine for fans of the world’s favourite author – delivered to your doorstep every two months direct from Bath, England. Plus reports from Austen societies in the UK, US and Australia; news, letters, book reviews, quiz and much, much more!

[Text and image from JARW Magazine]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Fashion & Costume · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Literature · Regency England

Summering With Jane Austen ~ Part IV ~ in Vermont!

BookLady Deb6 Comments

There are Jane Austen events all over the place this summer, as a number of previous posts have shown, and thankfully I can post on a few that are right here in Vermont! – so mark your calendars!

The Inn Victoria in Chester Vermont is hosting a  Jane Austen Garden Party on Saturday, July 20, 2013

Tea at the Inn Victoria
Tea at the Inn Victoria

Enjoy the company of like-minded enthusiasts on Saturday July 20 for a Garden Party at Inn Victoria’s Secret Garden: 

  • If you wish you may dress in period costume
  • Enjoy book readings
  • High Tea in an elegant & peaceful garden setting
  • Evening movie [a Jane Austen of course!] on the 8′ x 12′ screen 

You can reserve for the day [events begin about 1pm and go through the evening movie and will cost $35. / person], or you can call to Reserve for the day and a room to spend the night….802-875-4288

Inn Victoria Chester Vermont
Inn Victoria Chester Vermont

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The Governor’s House in Hyde Park Vermont continues its series of Jane Austen weekends with two events this August:

 

Governor's House - The English Room
Governor’s House – The English Room

 

Pride and Prejudice Weekend on August 2 – 4, 2013  [and if you cannot make this weekend, you can also try September 13 – 15, 2013 or January 10 – 12, 2014!]:

A leisurely weekend of literary-inspired diversions has something for every Jane Austen devoteé. Imagine a literary retreat that will slip you quietly back into Regency England in a beautiful old mansion where Jane herself would feel at home. Take afternoon tea. Listen to Mozart. Bring your needlework. Share your thoughts at a book discussion of Pride and Prejudice and how the movies stand up to the books. Attend the talk about the time of Jane Austen. Test your knowledge of Jane Austen, her books, and the Regency period and possibly take home a prize. Take a carriage 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. Just imagine the interesting conversation with a whole houseful of Jane’s readers under one roof. Weekend guests have commented that they wish there had been a tape recorder under the dinner table so they could replay the evening again and again. It won’t just be good company; it will be the “company of clever well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation”. It will be the best! It’s not Bath, but it is Hyde Park and you’ll love Vermont circa 1800.

 

Governors House walkers

And also this:  Special Jane Austen Weekend in Character, August 9 – 11, 2013

Another Jane Austen “in character” weekend is scheduled for August 2013. Each guest will choose to be a character from any one of Austen’s novels. Period dress is optional, but guests will interact in character throughout the weekend. The activities will depend somewhat on the weather and participant interest, but may include a Regency dinner party, an evening of games, letter writing, fencing, English Country dancing, crewel embroidery, tatting, rolled paper decoration, a game of croquet, a very long walk, riding, carriage driving, archery, shooting, and a picnic with or without Colonel Brandon. Rates are the same as regular Jane Austen weekends, but there is an additional charge to participate in some activities. Now’s your chance to be Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot or Lady Catherine, but only one of each character may sign up so make haste to confirm your reservation. Bring your own Darcy or maybe meet him on the croquet lawn. Perhaps the door to the romance of Jane’s world isn’t in Hammersmith after all.

You can view the video of last year’s character weekend here:

 

You can also participate in the Inn’s periodic Afternoon Teas: [see website for costs]

  • Afternoon Tea and Tea Etiquette Talk – June 30, 2013 3:00 pm
  • Jane Austen Tea – August 3, 2013 3:00 pm
  • Jane Austen Tea – September 14, 2013 3:00 pm

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And a small digression here: Innkeeper Suzanne began her series of Downton Abbey discussion dinners this past winter and these will continue once the new season is broadcast, so watch the website for dates and times.  And if this isn’t enough to fill up your schedule, Suzanne is also embarking on a new literary adventure called the Vermont Apple Pie Literary and Travel Society:

cover-The-Guernsey-Literary-and-Potato-Peel-Pie-SocietyThe fictional Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society began as a spur-of-the-moment inspiration to make it possible for the people of Guernsey to get together and enliven their existence during the time of the World War II German occupation of the islands. Although this is Vermont and our pie will be apple, we too want to enliven our evenings with stimulating conversation. Guernsey during the occupation and how that impacted the daily lives of its citizens will be the topic for our first series of dinners and talks.  We will organize a travel adventure to Guernsey and other Channel Islands in May.

It’s not your ordinary book club, more like a salon where discerning minds can share their intellectual curiosity, although books will be part of the backdrop of our discussions and we will suggest a list of possible titles to consider reading for each topic. The dinners will be held on Saturday evenings and for those who spend the weekend, there may be other activities to expand the general topic. We invite your thoughts and participation. So if you enjoy the society of people who read and think, want to learn something new, enjoy talking about ideas, yearn to visit new places and expand your circle of interesting friends, then please join us because we want to hear what you have to add to the conversation.

The dinners will be held at the Governor’s House in Hyde Park, 100 Main Street, Hyde Park, Vermont.  Cost is $45.00 plus tax per person and, of course, includes home-made apple pie. See the website for reservation information.

Schedule for Guernsey under German Occupation:

Dinners & Discussion:

  • October 19, 2013 – 6:00 pm
  • February 1, 2014
  • March 8, 2014

Travel to Guernsey:  May, 2014

For more information and how to sign up, as well as a suggested reading list, please visit the website here: http://www.onehundredmain.com/events/vermont-apple-pie-literary-and-travel-society/

 

Future topics include:

  • Newfoundland and its connections to the Channel Islands and other places
  • Rudyard Kipling in Vermont
  • Palladio, Vicenza and the legacy to English and American architecture
  • Spices: where they come from, how they got here, and what we do with them
Governor's House in Hyde Park
Governor’s House in Hyde Park

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Hope to see some of you at these various events – one wonders what we actually did before Jane Austen took over our lives?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Jane Austen Societies · JASNA · Regency England · Schedule of Events · Social Life & Customs

Part III ~ Summering with Jane Austen ~ in New York State!

BookLady Deb4 Comments

In my ongoing posts on the variety of summer events featuring Jane Austen, here are two upcoming events this June, both sponsored by JASNA regions in New York State.

Here are the details: please visit the websites for more information on how to register…

JASNA-Rochester's Jane Austen Weekend
JASNA-Rochester’s Jane Austen Weekend

War of 1812 Bicentennial and Jane Austen Weekend

Mumford, New York – June 22 & 23, 2013 – Both war and civility of the early 19th century come alive at Genesee Country Village & Museum June 22 & 23, from 10am to 4pm. Details are here: http://www.gcv.org/EventCalendar/EventDetails.aspx?eid=15

A verity of period activities have been planned to celebrate both the 200 anniversary of the War of 1812 and the publishing of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice:

The 23rd US Regiment of Infantry will read the Declaration of War and recruit men and women to fight for our young nation against the tyranny of King George III.  See target shooting, military uniform displays, and tactical demonstrations to better understand the way war was waged in upstate New York.

The Jane Austen Society of North America: Rochester Chapter  will attempt a marathon reading of Miss Austen’s most famous work, Pride and Prejudice.  There will also be lectures and demonstrations of Social Etiquette, the Secret Language of the Fan, and an 1812 Fashion show.

The Country Dancers of Rochester (CDR) will demonstrate English Country Dancing and encourage visitor to participate in a few easy dances on the village Square.  On Saturday, June 22nd from 6pm to 9pm, CDR will also play host at a Netherfield Ball.  Open to the public, this ball is a chance to be Miss Bennet or Mr. Darcy and dance an evening away as Miss Austen herself would have done.  Enjoy live music, lively dancing, and light refreshments.  Space is limited; purchase tickets by contacting events@gcv.org.

Walk through the village to see life in a small town on the brink of war.  Visit the merchants; maybe buy a bonnet or take a carriage ride.  Drop in on the Militia Camp, or try your hand at quill pen writing.  There is so much to do for all ages.  Find out more at www.gcv.org.

  • The Jane Austen Society of North America is dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing.
  • Country Dancers of Rochester sponsors traditional New England Contra Dances and English country dances.
  • The 23rd US Regiment of Infantry is dedicated to learning about history by recreating it.
  • The Genesee Country Village & Museum was founded with the goal of preserving prime examples of architecture from upstate New York to provide historical context for the telling of the history of New York State and America in the 19th century.
23rd US Regiment of Infantry
23rd US Regiment of Infantry

View flyer for the event here: War of 1812 Weekend Press Release 13-06-22

Contact: Lisa Brown
Co-Coordinator of the Rochester Region
Jane Austen Society of North America
Jasnaroc [at ] mail [dot] com

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JASNA-NY Capital Region’s 2nd Annual Retreat

Next up is the Jane Austen Society of North America-New York Capital Region’s 2nd Annual Retreat, this year on Jane Austen’s Persuasion

When: June 30-July 1, 2013

Where: Wiawaka Holiday House in Lake George, New York

Wiawaka Holiday House on Lake George
Wiawaka Holiday House on Lake George

Join the Jane Austen Society North America-New York Capital Region for the 2nd Annual Jane Austen Retreat at Wiawaka on Lake George. Participants of the weekend will join scholars and enthusiasts in exploring Austen’s world through facilitated discussions of Persuasion, viewing and discussion of filmed adaptations of the novel, display of period dress, and presentations from well-known Austen speaker Lisa Brown and local author Marilyn Rothstein. The retreat will conclude with a picnic tea on the grounds. (Bring a lawn chair!)

In addition to planned events, the retreat will allow time for you to enjoy the splendors of the beautiful Lake George setting by exploring the cottages and grounds, the gardens, the docks and the lakes.

Schedule of Retreat Events  

Sunday, June 30

  • Morning Registration
  • Afternoon Lunch
  • Introductions and opening discussion
  • Presentation: Introduction to the Regency Era (Marilyn Rothstein)
  • Presentation: Period Navy uniforms and regalia (Lisa Brown)
  • Evening Dinner
  • View Persuasion film and discuss

Monday, July 1

  • Morning Breakfast and discussion of novel
  • Presentation: “How Captain Wentworth Made His Fortune” (Lisa Brown)
  • Afternoon Picnic Tea

Registration and Costs  

  • Members of JASNA: $15
  • Non-members: $25* [If you join JASNA before the Retreat, you will pay the member price]

View flyer for the event here: Retreat Flyer New Draft

See The Wiawaka Holiday House website   for information about costs for lodging and meals and to make your reservation.

To learn more about the Retreat or the JASNA-New York Capital Region, contact:

Pat Friesen, Regional Coordinator at:  mcfriesen2 [at] gmail [dot] com

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Hurray, this one is not so very far from me and I am planning on going – who can resist 2 days of learning, viewing, and discussing Persuasion! Anyone want to join me?

Persuasion (1995) - The Cobb
Persuasion (1995) – The Cobb

Other events posted about:

Stay tuned – more to come!

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Jane Austen · JASNA-Vermont events · Regency England

A Sunday in Vermont with Jane Austen

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Just a reblog here of a piece written by one of the attendees at our JASNA-Vermont Sunday event with JASNA News editor Sheryl Craig on the economics in Pride and Prejudice – Joe Trenn of The Book Shed in Benson, VT wrote the following for the  blog of the Vermont Antiquarian Booksellers Association:

One of the more satisfying regular events on the calendar for northeastern literary seekers is the quarterly meeting of JASNA-Vermont, the Vermont region of the Jane Austen Society of North America. Organized and chaired by self-titled “Janeite” Deb the alter ego of Bygone Books owner Deborah Barnum and the Regional Coordinator of JASNA-Vermont, the meetings feature a talk on some aspect of Austen by an expert from academia or the wide, passionate world of Austen fandom. Before and after the talk there is a social gathering fueled by delicious scones and other delights prepared by Janeite Marcia Merrill and her volunteer bakers.

Continue reading….

800px-Microcosm_of_London_Plate_096_-_Workhouse,_St_James's_Parishthe Workhouse, St. James’s Parish, from The Microcosm of London (1810)
[image: Wikipedia Commons] 

Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · Jane Austen Societies · JASNA · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

Summering with Jane Austen II ~ Jane Austen Summer Camp in Connecticut

BookLady Deb3 Comments

In need of a summer Regency Ball or a quiet Tea or how about a whole weekend listening to various talks about Jane Austen and her Times? – well the summer of 2012 has much on offer!  A previous post outlined the summer program at the University of North Carolina.

JASNA-CT summercamp-logo

Today I write about the Jane Austen Summer Camp offered by the JASNA-Connecticut Region, July 26-28, 2013 (and see below for options to participate in some of the events if you cannot give up a whole weekend to Jane):

The historic Inn at Middletown, in Middletown, CT—built in 1810—is the setting for a weekend of learning about and practicing the activities that made up Jane Austen’s daily routine, and that of her contemporaries. During the weekend of July 26 – 28, 2013, you’ll experience balls, parties, and promenades in Regency style, and write letters with a quill and ink, as Jane would have written her daily letters and her novels. Ladies and gentlemen will learn how to draw silhouettes of family and friends, to dress their hair in true Regency fashion, and to sew pretty and useful accessories. Plus, we’ll visit the Middlesex County Historical Society in its headquarters, the General Mansfield House. Period dress is encouraged and appreciated, but not required.

Inn_at_Middletown-WP

Inn at Middletown [image: Wikipedia]

 Throughout the weekend, Jane Austen scholars and experts on Regency life will speak on various topics, and local dance expert Susan de Guardiola will teach an English contra dance workshop Saturday evening and will call the dances at the ball that night. Join fellow Austen fans for a weekend of fun and “Random Acts of Regency Naughtiness” (the retreat’s theme), whether it’s dancing more than two dances with the same partner, enjoying one of the beverages created in honor of Austen’s 6 heroes, or besting everyone else in Friday night’s “Who Wants to Be a Duchess?” game.
[from the flyer: http://www.jasnact.org/summercamp.pdf]

Dancers0001

Dance image from Vintage Dancers.org

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 A quick outline of the weekend:

1. Lectures on Austen’s cultural impact from Yale Professor Dr. Mark Schenker:

* “Sensibility and Sense: How the 18th Century Meets the 19th in Jane Austen’s Novels” (Friday night)

* “The Richness of ‘Ordinary Life’ in Jane Austen’s Novels” (Sunday)

2.  Hands-on workshops that will let you personally experience Jane Austen’s world

  • Regency Silhouettes
  • Reticules & Wallet making
  • Regency Hairstyles
  • Penmanship

1857reticule

Reticule: capacious hold-all blog

3.  Friday night reception, all meals Saturday including breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner, and Sunday brunch. 

4.  Saturday night Dance Workshop followed by a Regency Dinner & Ball 

5.  Sunday morning costume promenade and excursion to the Middlesex County Historical Society house and gardens 

6.  Regency Naughtiness! Play our ‘Who Wants to be a Duchess game?” Friday night or stay for our optional Ice Cream Sundays event and an Austen movie

artifacts mansfield house

 Artifacts at the General Mansfield House – from their website

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Can’t devote a whole weekend to Jane? – then beginning June 1, tickets will be available for Saturday’s events (rather than the complete weekend) until spaces are sold out. Ball-only tickets will be $30; tickets for the ball + dinner + afternoon dance lesson will be $70; and the Saturday-only tickets (breakfast not included) will be $165.

DAY PASSES REGISTRATION FEES

  • Saturday pass 9:30 a.m. to midnight (includes valet parking, workshops, lunch, tea, dance workshop, dinner, Regency food lecture, Regency ball): $165.
  • Saturday BALL PLUS pass 5:45 p.m. to midnight (includes valet parking, dance workshop, dinner, Regency food lecture, Regency ball): $70.
  • Saturday BALL ONLY pass 9 p.m. to midnight (includes valet parking, Regency ball, dessert) – Cash bar available. $30.
  • Sunday pass 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (includes visit to Middlesex County historical society, brunch, keynote lecture, Sunday ice cream social and Austen movie): $65.

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dance-JASNA-CTblog[from the JASNA-CT Summer Camp Blog]

For more information on the weekend and how to register: 

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Great Britain - History · Jane Austen · Museum Exhibitions · Regency England

“What Jane Saw” ~ Janine Barchas’s Tour of the 1813 Joshua Reynolds Exhibition …

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…has launched today! – visit the website What Jane Saw and you can follow Jane Austen as she tours the exhibit!

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The perfect time-travel adventure – it is May 24, 1813 –  what do you see?…

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From the website: [ http://www.whatjanesaw.org/index.php ]

On 24 May 1813, Jane Austen visited an important and  much-talked-about art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall, London. The show  was a retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), England’s  celebrated portrait painter.

No visual record of this show is known to have survived, although it  attracted hundreds of daily visitors during its much-publicized three-month run.  However, many details of the exhibit can be reconstructed from the original 1813  “Catalogue of Pictures,” a one-shilling pamphlet purchased by visitors as a guide  through the three large rooms where hung 141 paintings by Reynolds. Armed with  surviving copies of this pamphlet, narrative accounts in nineteenth-century newspapers  and books, and precise architectural measurements of the British Institution’s exhibit  space, this website reconstructs the Reynolds show as Jane Austen (as well as any Jane  Doe) saw it.

I. Why reconstruct this museum exhibit from 1813?

In truth, even if Jane Austen had not attended this public  exhibit, it would still be well worth reconstructing. The British Institution’s show  was a star-studded “first” of great magnitude for the art community and a turning point  in the history of modern exhibit practices. The 1813 show amounted to the first  commemorative exhibition devoted to a single artist ever staged by an institution.  Although Reynolds, who had died a mere twenty-one years earlier, did not yet qualify as  an Old Master, he was already hailed as the founder of the British School and  celebrated as a model for contemporary artists to emulate. The preface to the exhibit  catalogue, written by Richard Payne Knight, treats the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a  national treasure in order “to call attention generally to British, in preference to  Foreign Art” (Knight, 9). Knight allows that some of Reynolds’ paintings are better  than others, likening the show to a pedagogical tool for artists and connoisseurs. He  also insists upon the show’s modernity, hailing “the genuine excellence of modern”  artists over the work of their forbearers (Knight, 9). In light of the coverage it  received in the popular press and the London crowds that attended, the British  Institution’s Reynolds exhibit presaged the modern museum blockbuster.

In the age before the photograph, portraits of the rich and famous were  often reproduced by engravers as inexpensive prints. These black and white  reproductions circulated Reynolds’ images of contemporary celebrities widely,  providing pinups to the middling consumer. In this manner, Reynolds’ works  functioned as the modern photographs of Annie Leibovitz do today, making it  hard to say whether he recorded or created celebrity with his art. Wherever  possible, the light-boxes in the e-exhibit therefore show an early engraving  as well as the original canvas. Reynolds’ portraits of “abnormally interesting  people” whom we now term celebrities offer concrete examples of just how  someone like Austen, who did not personally circulate among the social elite,  was nonetheless immersed in England’s vibrant celebrity culture (Roach,  1).

More questions are answered under the About WJS page:

  • Is there a connection between this exhibit and Jane Austen’s fiction?
  • Who, other than the Austens, attended this 1813 exhibit?
  • How did visitors in 1813 experience the British Institution?
  • Did the Catalogue function as a museum guide in 1813?
  • How historically accurate is this website?
  • Room for interpretation and improvement
  • Works Cited / Site Credits

It is a rainy weekend here in Vermont – what better way to spend a few hours but at such an exhibition as this!

Further reading:

reynolds - self-portrait detail - britannica

Sir Joshua Reynolds

barchas-janine

Janine Barchas is Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin.  She is the author of  Matters of Fact in Jane Austen: History, Location, and Celebrity (Johns Hopkins University Press, August 2012).  Her  first book, Graphic Design, Print Culture, and the Eighteenth-Century Novel (Cambridge UP, 2003), won the SHARP book prize for best work in the field of book history.  Her newest project is the website What Jane Saw (www.whatjanesaw.org).

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c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont