I pull this Christmas Eve post from the archives, first posted on Dec 24, 2010
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas
from Everyone in JASNA-Vermont!
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It is a rare date that Austen mentions in her works, but one of them is today, December 24: Christmas Eve, “(for it was a very great event that Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December)” [Emma Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
While we usually associate Mr. Woodhouse with often curmudgeonly weather-obsessed behavior, here he is most eager to get all wrapped up and head over to Randalls:
Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. [E, Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
Fig. 2
So it is not dear Mr. Woodhouse who is Scrooge this Christmas Eve, but Austen is adept at creating one, and long before Dickens ever did:
‘A man,” said he, ‘must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest absurdity — Actually snowing at this moment! The folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home, and the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we should deem it; — and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter that he can; — here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse; — four horses and four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had at home.” [E, Vol. I, Ch. xiii]
Well, “Bah! Humbug!” to you too, John Knightley! – he is our Scrooge this Christmas Eve [indeed, I believe that Isabella has married her father!] and his ill humor continues throughout the evening – ending of course with his gloomy and overblown report of the worsening weather that sets off three full pages of discussion on the risks of setting out, on the possibility of being snowed-in, on the cold, on the danger to the horses and the servants – “‘What is to be done, my dear Emma? – what is to be done?’ was Mr. Woodhouse’s first exclamation…” and it all is finally “settled in a few brief sentences” by Mr. Knightley and Emma, certainly foreshadowing their success as a companionable couple.
Fig. 3 ‘Christmas Weather’
And this leads to one of Austen’s most comic scenes – the proposal of Mr. Elton, Emma trapped in the carriage alone with him believing that “he had been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he would want to be talking nonsense…” – which of course he does…
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, with much snow on the ground (but not enough to trouble your carriage), some song and wine (but not enough to induce unwanted and overbearing offers of love and marriage), and the pleasure of good company (with hopefully no Scrooge-like visitors to whom you must either “comply” or be “quarrelsome” or like Emma, have your “heroism reach only to silence.” )
P.S. – And tonight pull your Emma off the shelf and read through these chapters in volume I [ch, 13-15] for a good chuckle! – this of course before your annual reading of A Christmas Carol.
I shall post over the next several days some of my favorite Jane Austen-related books and gift items that every Janeite in the Land and far afield should add to their collection – if Santa is paying attention, maybe one or all shall show up in your stocking!
Jane’s Papers, Ltd.
“Literature, Art & Typography” Promoting a Love for Fine Paper Goods and Handwritten Correspondence
I discovered this paper company, Jane’s Papers, Ltd., at the JASNA AGM in Minneapolis – their Jane Austen Novel Notecards collection of four cards is too delightful for words…. Let’s take a peek…
the four notecards in the Jane Austen Novel Notecards (4 of each design)
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You will find on the website many other delights to add to your stationary drawer – they seem to singlehandedly wish to wed Literature to Writing, with hopes of returning us all to a Cursive world! Hurray! Have a look and see Charles Dickens, the Romantic Poets, and any number of other all-occasion cards with a literary bent…
including every Jane Austen fan’s favorite hand-written letter – “you pierce my soul…”
And if that is not enough, there is also a Jane Austen Novel Journal – you can find this at Chronicle Books or Amazon:
*The Yale Center for British Art begins its 2012 film tribute to Dickens with the first film in the series “Dickens’London”, a 1924 12-minute silent film:
*The DeGoyler Library at Southern Methodist University is hosting a Dickens exhibit:
Charles Dickens: The First Two Hundred Years. An Exhibition from the Stephen Weeks Collection. January 19-May 12, 2012 – a catalogue is available for purchase: http://smu.edu/cul/degolyer/exhibits.htm
* A bookseller’s list of some of his works that they have for sale [Tavistock Books]: http://tinyurl.com/7c2t2y3
* This one is very exciting as it combines my love of Dickens and my love of London and makes full use of my iphone capabilities: Dickens Dark London from The Museum of London:
*There is also the Dickens Exhibition at The Morgan Library. Here is the online component you can visit without leaving home: you can view 20 pages of A Christmas Carol and read a letter penned by Dickens…
February 26, 2012 at 9pm (Check local listings) The Old Curiosity Shop One 90-minute episode
A teenage girl and her grandfather lose everything to a maniacal moneylender and flee his relentless pursuit. Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius) stars as Grandfather, with Sophie Vavasseur (Northanger Abbey) as Nell and Toby Jones (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) as Quilp.
Gillian Anderson - Great Expectations
April 1 & 8, 2012 Great Expectations
Gillian Anderson, David Suchet and Ray Winstone star in this new adaptation of Great Expectations, widely considered one of the greatest novels by Charles Dickens. Great Expectationsfollows orphan boy Pip as he rises from an apprentice to a gentleman.
Masterpiece - Edwin Drood
April 15, 2012 The Mystery of Edwin Drood The Mystery Of Edwin Drood is a psychological thriller about a provincial choirmaster’s obsession with 17-year-old Rosa Bud and the lengths he will go to attain her. The cast includes Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters) and Julia MacKenzie (Miss Marple).
I am currently reading Bleak House, one of those books on my TBR pile literally for the past 40 years! I have signed up for a four-session class on “Dickens and the Law” and figure I should be at least somewhat up to speed on Jarndyce and Jarndyce! – What better gift to an author than this – reading and re-reading their works 200 years after they were born! Anyone else reading Dickens this year of his bicentennial? Please share!
Austen, Jane.The Novels.Oxford, 1923. Large Paper edition, #1/950 (1000). 10 volumes. 8vo, contemp. 3/4 crushed burgundy levant morocco, gilt, geometric-gilt spine compartments, t.e.g., marbled bds., by Baynton; very occasionally slightly scuffed. Color and other plates. Edited by R.W. Chapman. Presumably purchased by the last owner from Mabel Zahn at Sessler’s Bookshop, Phila. Estimate $800-1,200
Lot 319: Jane Austen
Novels & Letters - Lot 319
Austen, Jane. The Novels and Letters.New York: F.S. Holby, 1906. Stoneleigh Edition, #358/1250. 12 vols. 8vo, orig. 3/4 green morocco & marbled bds., t.e.g. gilt-lettered & floral spine; corners & edges occasionally slightly rubbed, a few spine heads scuffed or rubbed, 1 head band partly rubbed away, spines of 2 vols fading to brown. Color plates. Internally clean. Estimate $800-1,200
Other items of interest: a Shakespeare Head Bronte, 21 volumes of Thomas Hardy, and because we are all about Dickens all this year, there are several titles for sale, including this:
Lot 259: Charles Dickens
Dickens - Lot 259
Dickens, Charles. The Mystery of Edwin Drood. London: Chapman & Hall, 1870. 6 vols. (wrappers). First edition, 6 parts – all published 8vo, orig. printed blue green wrappers; minor wear. With 14 plates (incl. portrait). Scattered light foxing but internally generally clean and light. With all adverts. except the 4pp Wilcox & Gibbs concerning stitches adverts [ called for in part 6]. Includes the cork hats sheet in part 2. In custom gilt lettered brown cloth case & chemise. Hatton & Cleaver pp373-(384). Purchased by the last owner from Mabel Zahn at Sessler’s Bookshop, Phila. Estimate $300-500
And click here for offerings of Thomas Rowlandson: here are the details on one, published by R. Ackermann between 1809-[1811]: Jane Austen surely read these – she refers to Dr. Syntax in her letter of 2-3 March 1814 [Le Faye, Ltr. 97]. She writes to Cassandra from Henrietta St in London:
“I have seen nobody in London yet with such a long chin as Dr. Syntax…”
Lot 269: Thomas Rowlandson
Poetical Magazine - Lot 269
(Rowlandson, Thomas, et al. illustrators) Poetical Magazine. London: R. Ackermann, 1809-[1811]. 4 vols. 8vo, early 20th-century full triple gilt lettered paneled, mottled tan polished calf, spines gilt, turn ins gilt, a.e.g., green morocco spine labels by Root; very occasional minor scuffing. With 4 engraved titles & 52 plates (50 hand colored aquatints & engravings – 30 by Rowlandson of Doctor Syntax.) Complete with a leaf of rhymed adverts. Internally clean & bright. Book plates of Dr. Stoughton R Vogel, & Robert Alexander Montgomery. Bright bdgs. Contains original issue of Combe’s & Rowlandson’s Tour of Dr. Syntax under the title of “The School Master’s Tour.” Tooley 421. Purchased by the last owner from Mabel Zahn at Sessler’s Bookshop, Phila. Estimate $1,000-1,500
Rowlandson's Dr. Syntax - Lot 269
…with his very long chin!
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Happy bidding!
[All images and text from the Freeman’s Auction website]
This article and book is generating so much online chat that I had to link to it:
“The First Sexual Revolution: Lust and Liberty in the 18th Century.” Adulterers and prostitutes could be executed and women were agreed to be more libidinous than men – then in the 18th century attitudes to sex underwent an extraordinary change… by Faramerz Dabhoiwala in The Guardian:
-and perhaps this whole book on the subject: The Covent Garden Ladies: Pimp General Jack and The Extraordinary Story of Harris’s List by Hallie Rubenhold – Tempus Publishing, 2005:
Visit The Library as Incubator Project for an interview with Kristin Hammargren on her upcoming one woman show, Discovering Austen (running Thursday, January 26 – Saturday, January 28, 7:30 p.m. at the Hemsley Theatre,821 University Avenue in Madison,WI).
[this lovely image from the article : by Miles Cole]
*Behind Jane Austen’s Door by Jennifer Forest – an ebook, sort of a cross between Bill Bryson’s At Home and Amanda Vickery’s works on Georgian homelife, but lots shorter: – have just started it, will report when done…
After retiring from a lifetime of teaching literature, Patricia Meyer Spacks embarked on a year-long project of rereading dozens of novels: childhood favorites, fiction first encountered in young adulthood and never before revisited, books frequently reread, canonical works of literature she was supposed to have liked but didn’t, guilty pleasures (books she oughtn’t to have liked but did), and stories reread for fun vs. those read for the classroom. On Rereading records the sometimes surprising, always fascinating, results of her personal experiment.
Spacks addresses a number of intriguing questions raised by the purposeful act of rereading: Why do we reread novels when, in many instances, we can remember the plot? Why, for example, do some lovers of Jane Austen’s fiction reread her novels every year (or oftener)? Why do young children love to hear the same story read aloud every night at bedtime? And why, as adults, do we return to childhood favorites such as The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, and the Harry Potter novels? What pleasures does rereading bring? What psychological needs does it answer? What guilt does it induce when life is short and there are so many other things to do (and so many other books to read)? Rereading, Spacks discovers, helps us to make sense of ourselves. It brings us sharply in contact with how we, like the books we reread, have both changed and remained the same.
*The final book in Michael Thomas Ford’s trilogy of Jane as Vampire will be released on February 28, 2012:
Here is a review from Library Journal:
Ford, Michael Thomas. Jane Vows Vengeance. Ballantine. Feb. 2012.
c.288p. ISBN 9780345513670. pap. $15.
Author-turned-vampire Jane Austen wants to marry Walter, but fending off her soon-to-be mother-in-law and fear of revealing her Big Secret are sucking the fun out. Walter’s invitation to join colleagues on an architectural tour of Europe leads him to suggest a wedding-slash-honeymoon. The wedding party—including their friends Lucy and Ben and Walter’s mom, Miriam, and her dog—arrive in London anticipating the happy event, but it’s not to be. A guest from Jane’s far past arrives to object, and the remainder of the trip continues this inauspicious start, including the search for Crispin’s Needle, said to return a vampire’s soul. If the needle can be found, would it deliver a soul or kill the vampire trying?
Verdict: Ford’s final book in the trilogy (Jane Bites Back; Jane Goes Batty) is nicely connected with characters and ideas to the previous books, but it can also be read as a stand-alone. More architectural detail than literary asides, a fabulous back story for Miriam, and a sometimes overwhelming number of additional elements will surprise readers. Still, the key elements of a charmingly reluctant vampire, supportive friends, and flashes of brilliance offset by poor undead life-skills remain in full force. [Library marketing.]—Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH
*Coming in June 2012: London: A History in Verse, edited by Mark Ford (Belknap, 2012)
Called “the flour of Cities all,” London has long been understood through the poetry it has inspired. Now poet Mark Ford has assembled the most capacious and wide-ranging anthology of poems about London to date, from Chaucer to Wordsworth to the present day, providing a chronological tour of urban life and of English literature.
Nearly all of the major poets of British literature have left some poetic record of London: Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and T.S. Eliot. Ford goes well beyond these figures, however, to gather significant verse of all kinds, from Jacobean city comedies to nursery rhymes, from topical satire to anonymous ballads. The result is a cultural history of the city in verse, one that represents all classes of London’s population over some seven centuries, mingling the high and low, the elegant and the salacious, the courtly and the street smart. Many of the poems respond to large events in the city’s history—the beheading of Charles I, the Great Fire, the Blitz—but the majority reflect the quieter routines and anxieties of everyday life through the centuries.
Ford’s selections are arranged chronologically, thus preserving a sense of the strata of the capital’s history. An introductory essay by the poet explores in detail the cultural, political, and aesthetic significance of the verse inspired by this great city. The result is a volume as rich and vibrant and diverse as London itself.
*Shannon Hale has a new book coming out on January 31, 2012 – Midnight in Austenland – another story with a different heroine set in the fictional Austenland as in her first Austen book… I liked that book, thought it was great fun, so will give this a try as well… $9.99 on my kindle
*World Book Night is taking shape for April 23, 2012. You can see the 25 titles that will be distributed to people in participating countries: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is among them! – for the other titles [and a fabulous book list], go here: http://www.worldbooknight.org/about-world-book-night/wbn-2012/the-books
NEH Seminar for college and university teachers: “Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries” June 18-July 20, 2012 http://nehseminar.missouri.edu/
“We will read four Austen novels (Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, and Northanger Abbey) and several novels by her contemporaries, including Anna Maria Porter, Jane West, and Mary Brunton. We will have several speakers join us in person or via Skype, including Jay Jenkins of Valancourt Books, who will talk to us about selecting, editing, and getting published a scholarly edition of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century novel. We will also be taking a group day-trip to the Spencer Library at the Universityof Kansas.”
Museum Musings – Exhibition Trekking:
*The Cambridge University Library has just opened an exhibition Shelf Lives: Four Centuries of Collectors and their Books January 18 – June 16, 2012
the bookshelf of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, noted bibliographer of Jane Austen (1929) – if you look closely at this bookshelf, you may notice a familiar spine or two of Austen’s works!
A New & Correct Plan of London [London, 1760], folding silk fan engraved by Richard Bennett.. Travel, Atlases, Maps & Natural History [L11405] Estimate: 4,000 – 6,000 GBP – Sold for: 11,875 GBP
Women’s dress retains a great similarity from age to age, together with a great instability in details, and therefore does not afford so much subject for remark as does men’s dress.
[excuse me? – a great similarity? an instability in detail? ]
*The Yale Center for British Art begins its 2012 film tribute to Dickens with the first film in the series “Dickens’London”, a 1924 12-minute silent film:
*The DeGoyler Library at Southern Methodist University is hosting a Dickens exhibit:
Charles Dickens: The First Two Hundred Years. An Exhibition from the Stephen Weeks Collection. January 19-May 12, 2012 – a catalogue is available for purchase: http://smu.edu/cul/degolyer/exhibits.htm
*Another image of Jane! A cigarette card from the NYPL Digital Gallery, from a collection of 50 cards of “Celebrities of British History” – here is the Jane Austen card and the verso with a short biography of Austen. You can see her illustrious company on the 49 other cards at the link below:
Specific Material Type: Photomechanical prints
Source: [Cigarette cards.] / Celebrities of British history : a series of 50
Location: Stephen A. Schwarzman Building/ George Arents Collection
Sometimes, entries from 18th century newspapers read more like the introduction to a Jane Austen novel than a Jane Austen Novel. Take this entry from the Gloucester Journal of 17 April 1797:
“Glocester, April 17 – Tuesday last was married at North Nibley, in this county, Mr John Parradice, of Wick, to Miss Sarah Knight, ofNorth Nibley, an agreeable young lady, with a large fortune.”
A groom named Paradise (almost), and a pleasant, rich lady; this story has the potential to make a rather good novel.
Well, first a very Happy New Year to one and all!! – I have been away from my computer, and find some of my gathered “news” is no longer actually new, so I include here just some goodies discovered on the internet, a good number only peripherally related to Jane, but interesting nonetheless… [or so I believe…]
News /Gossip
* How about taking a Jane Austen Cruise?! This coming July, you can head from Southampton to Guernsey, Spain and France for an 8-day cruise filled with all manner of Jane Austen diversions – http://janeaustencruise.com/
* The Amanda Vickery broadcast of The Many Lovers of Jane Austen may have only aired in the UK, but we can view it here, with thanks to Diana Birchall for sending me the video link:
You might also like to check in at Jane Austen’s Regency World blog to see a review of the show by Tony Grant and the numerous (some indignant!) comments on his take on the Fort Worth JASNA AGM. You should watch the video and then read the review and comment if you can…!
The Circulating Library
* If you have enjoyed the Bitch in a Bonnet blog, you will be interested to know that Rodi’s writings on the first three Austen novels are available for your ereader! – all for 99c… read about it here:
* Dr. Maureen Mulvihill spoke at the Florida Bibliophile Society on “The Evolution and Education of a Collector (1980s-): The Mulvihill Collection of Rare and Special Books and Images.” http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org/mulvihill.html
* If you have an interest in bygone etiquette books, Abebooks compiled a list several months ago – here are some items for sale by various booksellers:
The Lady's Guide to Perfect Gentility - Emily Thornwell, 1856
Jane Austen’s six complete novels and her juvenilia are examined in the context of civil society and gender. Steiner’s study uses a variety of contexts to appraise Austen’s work: Scottish Enlightenment theories of societal development, early-Romantic discourses on gender roles, modern sociological theories on the civilizing process and postmodern feminist positions on moral development and interpersonal relations.
Austen is presented as a writer who not only participated in late eighteenth-century debates, but who is able to address twenty-first-century concerns of a theoretical and practical nature.
* Gentleman’s Magazine exhibit at University of Otago – not yet online:
Gentleman's Magazine - Monash University
Special Collections,University of Otago Library, is fortunate to have an entire run of the Gentleman’s Magazine from 1731 to 1866. Started by Edward Cavein January 1731, and printed form many years at St. John’s Gate in London, it was a ‘repository of all things worth mentioning’. It was the first ‘magazine’ in the modern sense. It was also the most important periodical in 18th century England, reflecting in its pages the diversity of Georgian life, politics and culture. It covered current affairs, political opinion, lead articles from other journals, miscellaneous information such as quack cures and social gossip, prices of stocks, science and technological discoveries, notices of births, deaths, and marriages, ecclesiastical preferments, travel, parliamentary debates, and poetry. Writers such as Dr Johnson, John Hawkesworth, Richard Savage, and Anna Seward were just a few of the thousands who contributed to it. At 6d per issue, it was an outstanding bargain. It remains an inexhaustible mine of information for scholars of eighteenth century life, and because of the wealth of genealogical information and records, it has become an important resource for family historians.
Our exhibition ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine. The 18th century Answer to Google ‘ begins on 21 December 2011 and runs through to 16 March 2012, just in time for the new student intake. Eventually it will be online.
But while we wait for that – you can visit their latest online exhibition “In Search of Scotland”
As we will are celebrating Charles Dickens 200th birthday throughout 2012, I will be posting a number of Dickens-related goings-on – I can only think that Austen would heartily approve of giving him his just due, and thus, he now has his own category in the PPWR:
1. A bookseller’s list of some of his works that they have for sale [Tavistock Books]: http://tinyurl.com/7c2t2y3
2. This one is very exciting as it combines my love of Dickens and my love of London and makes full use of my iphone capabilities: Dickens Dark London from The Museum of London:
* Thomas Jefferson’s Granddaughter in Queen Victoria’s England: The Travel Diary of Ellen Wayles Coolidge, 1838-1839. Edited by Ann Lucas Birle and Lisa A. Francavilla. Hardbound, 464 pages, 20 color and 10 black and white illustrations. Copublished by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. http://www.monticellocatalog.org/205632.html
Ellen Wayles Coolidge arrived in London in June 1838 at the advent of QueenVictoria’s reign – the citizens were still celebrating the coronation. During her nine-month stay, Coolidge kept a diary that reveals the uncommon education of her youth, when she lived and studied at Monticello with her grandfather Thomas Jefferson. This volume brings the full text of her diary to publication for the first time, opening up her text for today’s reader with carefully researched annotations that provide the historical context.
London’s clocks, theaters, parks, public buildings, and museums all come under Coolidge’s astute gaze as she and her husband, Joseph Coolidge, Jr., travel the city and gradually gain entry into some of the most coveted drawing rooms of the time. Coolidge records the details of her conversations with writers such as Samuel Rogers, Thomas Carlyle, and Anna Jameson and activists including Charles Sumner and Harriet Martineau. She gives firsthand accounts of the fashioning of the young queen’s image by the artists Charles Robert Leslie and Sir Francis Chantrey and takes notes as she watches the queen open Parliament and battle the first scandal of her reign. Her love of painting reawakened, Coolidge chronicles her opportunities to view over four hundred works of art held in both public and private collections, acknowledging a new appreciation for the modern art of J. M. W. Turner and a fondness for the Dutch masters.
As rich as her experience in England proves to be, Coolidge often reflects on her family in Boston andVirginia and her youth at Monticello. As she encounters her mother’s schoolgirl friends and recalls the songs her grandfather sang while working in his study, Coolidge’s thoughts return to Monticello and the lessons she learned there. Across the spectrum of her observations, Coolidge’s diary is always strikingly vivid and insightful – and frequently quite funny.
* Cambridge University Press has just published Samuel Johnson in Context, a collection of 47 short essays about the great lexicographer and his world. The book, which is aimed at a college and general audience, is edited by DSNA member Jack Lynch (also author of The Lexicographer’s Dilemma: The Evolution of English from Shakespeare to South Park [2009]).Lynda Mugglestone contributes an article on “Dictionaries” and Lisa Berglund, the introductory chapter on “Life.” Visit the Cambridge UP website for a complete Table of Contents: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6476720/?site_locale=en_GB
Few authors benefit from being set in their contemporary context more than Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson in Context is a guide to his world, offering readers a comprehensive account of eighteenth-century life and culture as it relates to his work. Short, lively and eminently readable chapters illuminate not only Johnson’s own life, writings and career, but the literary, critical, journalistic, social, political, scientific, artistic, medical and financial contexts in which his works came into being. Written by leading experts in Johnson and in eighteenth-century studies, these chapters offer both depth and range of information and suggestions for further study and research. Richly illustrated, with a chronology of Johnson’s life and works and an extensive bibliography, this book is a major new work of reference on eighteenth-century culture and the age of Johnson. [from CUP site]
* John Sutherland, Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives (Profile Books, 2011)
[ok. I have finished this – will post a short review and a compilation of other reviews – very mixed – but most Austen people seem to be universally disappointed … a shame really – it should have been better…]
Articles of Interest
* Rudd, Amanda. “The Spaces Between: Creating A Space for Female Sexuality in Frances Burney’s Evelina, Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.” Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.1 (2011): 82-91. Full text here: http://journals.tdl.org/plaza/article/viewFile/5934/pdf_415
Queens in Waiting: Charlotte & Victoria [26 November 2011 – 9 September 2012]
Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold
[by William Thomas Fry, after George Dawe, 1817]
In the early nineteenth century two young women would occupy the position of ‘heir to the throne’ in quick succession. One died tragically early, while the other, born to replace her, went on to reign for over sixty years as Queen Victoria. Telling a tale of romance, sorrow and renewed hope, this display focuses on the fateful linkage in the history of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Princess Victoria of Kent, and how both their lives pivoted around Prince Leopold – beloved husband to one, and trusted uncle to the other.
Featuring a range of portraits in wax, watercolour, and print, as well as commemorative images, it includes an engraving of Princess Charlotte’s last portrait from life by Sir Thomas Lawrence, completed posthumously. By bringing together these images, the display traces the idealised nature of the imagery used to represent a young woman in direct line to the throne at a time when the nation tired of the debauched Prince Regent’s rule. [from the NPG website]
* Exhibition at the Boston Public Library – Rare Books Exhibition Room, through March 30, 2012:
From Pen to Print: the Handwriting Behind the Book features handwritten letters, notes, postcards, and other manuscripts that reveal personal, private, and otherwise veiled aspects of the production of books. Putting authors’ manuscript materials on display alongside their print books, the exhibition reveals the passions, obsessions, lofty dreams, and gritty realizations triggered by the writing and publishing process. These materials capture the relationships between 19th- and 20th-century American authors, editors, and readers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Cary, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Frost, and more. Open in the Rare Books Lobby at the Central Library in Copley Square through Friday, March 30, 2012, 617-536-5400. Special hours: M, T, W, F: 9am-5pm; Th: 11am-7pm
* American Christmas Cards 1900-1960: by Kenneth Ames: the exhibit at the Bard Graduate Center is now over, but you can read about it here:
And you can follow the Museum’s Textile Tuesday, a weekly post of a piece from their extensive textile collection : http://charlestonmuseum.tumblr.com/
Shopping: [I’m done with shopping…]
For Fun:
Visit the blog of the Jane Austen House Museum [now penned by Julie Wakefield of Austenonly!] for a post on board games for the holidays – “Snakes and Ladders the Jane Austen Way” …
For those who did not go to the AGM [and for those who did because the sound was flawed] – here is the video previewing the upcoming AGM in New York City next October [via Kerri]: http://jasna.org/agms/newyork/video/
“The Making of a Homemaker” – a Smithsonian Institution online exhibition about the domestic guidebooks written for the 19th century American housewife: many images
Image: Mrs. Lydia Green Abell. The Skillful Housewife’s Book: or Complete Guide to Domestic Cookery, Taste, Comfort and Economy. New York: R. T. Young, 1853.
Articles of Interest
Gemmill, Katie. “Jane Austen as Editor: Letters on Fiction and the Cancelled Chapters of Persuasion.” ECF 24.1 (2011): 105-122
Persuasion, An Annotated Edition, edited by Robert Morrison [in the same series as the Annotated Pride and Prejudice edited by Patricia Myers Spacks] – http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?recid=31301
I think I might weigh in after reading it myself – I thoroughly enjoyed the Hodge biography…
If you have read Bill Bryson’s At Home and Amanda Vickery’s Behind Closed Doors [and etc. regarding her titles] – and need another fix for your domestic matters obsessions, here is a must-have: If Walls Could Talk by Lucy Worsley [image US and UK cover: note that it is not available in the US until 2/2012 and has a different cover] – Ms. Worsley recently aired her Elegance and Decadence, The Age of the Regency on BBC4, also not available here until when ?? [though it is available for streaming, on youtube, etc.] [makes one want to abandon the colonies for good and head to the mothership?]
“Britain leaves us awed by ancient castles, ruins and museums. History pours out a legacy of battles, a developing monarchy, a structured class system, court-inspired behaviors and fashions, artwork and writings that have created an international hoard of Anglophiles. From among them have come forth those who feel that they must fuel the fire. Welcome to the happy home of English Period Authors. We have come together to share, inspire and celebrate and to reach out to our cherished readers.”
“What links Jane Austen, John Nash, Humphry Repton and Blaise Hamlet?” at the Georgian Gentleman blog:
Thrifty Jane blog – interviews with various Austen characters, esp the “thrifty” sort! [i.e. Mrs. Norris, Lucy Steele, Lady C, etc…] http://thriftyjane.wordpress.com/
Any interest in English Handwriting?? – here is an amazing online course for free – makes me want to dig out my old calligraphy pens and settle in for a winter class!:
Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome: this exhibit was at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth, but I was unfortunately unable to go – Laurel Ann at Austenprose did see it on the Sunday as she was leaving later than me – she said I must buy the book, so here you go, another lovely art book to peruse: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300170726
DESCRIPTION: Have you ever read a mystery where the heroine sounds like
an oversexed gangster? Or a romance where the hero sounds more like a
girlfriend than a man? Chances are, the oversexed heroine was created by
a male author; the tender, emotional hero by a woman. Men and women
think, act, and talk differently – which causes problems for writers
who are trying to create characters of the opposite sex. Learn about the
most common gender differences, and use them to create believable
characters of the opposite sex. (And along the way, you may get some
great ideas about how to deal with your husband, boyfriend, boss, big
brother, or other assorted males — or for the first time, understand
what’s really going on inside the head of your wife, girlfriend, mom…)
Fee: $20 CRW Members; $25 Non-CRW Members. FMI about the workshops or
speakers, or to register: http://crw-rwa.ning.com
Sage and other variants were very fashionable during the Regency period as a green dye that did not fade or darken was invented. However, it was literaly the colour to die for – the pigment contained a poisonous copper arsenic compound!
Plum is a much nicer word than ‘Puce’, which was popular in the Regency period. The purplish pink shade was named after the French word for ‘Flea’ as it resembled the shade of the blood sucking insect after a meal. Yuck!
Teal and shades of blue were also in demand. In Jane Austen’s time dyes were expensive, pigments made of natural substances and the resulting hues rather muted compared to our modern artificial dyes, hence this lovely soft shade of teal would have been considered as being quite bright!
[from the Jane Austen Centre website]
[sage, plum and teal being my favorite colors – I knew I was born in the wrong century!]
For Fun
A joke on twitter – Victorian London:
“Why are a chimney sweep and a bugler good partners at cards?
One can follow soot, the other can trumpet.” joke, 1884
I pull this Christmas Eve post from the archives,
