Charles Dickens

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The Pemberley Post, No. 8 (Feb 18-24, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

Welcome to my weekly round-up: from amorous footmen to Dickens’s shoddy treatment of his wife, the upstanding Mr. Knightley, and dieting with Jane; with further thoughts on the taxation of dogs, the Mona Lisa, dust jackets and Austen’s Sanditon – can one have a life without knowing all this??

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A new journal to be launched in April: The Southampton Centre for Nineteenth-Century Research‘s enthusiastic PhD students have just launched a fabulous new online, Open Access peer reviewed journal called Romance, Revolution and Reform: https://www.rrrjournal.com/

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If you’ve been watching Victoria on Masterpiece (and you should be…), here’s a real-life tale along the lines of The Footman and the Duchess: “The Amorous Footman”: https://penandpension.com/2019/02/20/the-case-of-the-amorous-footman/

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Mrs. Dickens (image: TLS)

So, it’s common knowledge now that Dickens left his wife for another woman – Ellen Tiernan the actress (fabulous book on this by Claire Tomalin: The Invisible Woman – if you have not read this, go out and buy it right now) – but letters recently discovered and studied by Professor John Bowen reveal that Dickens tried, like so many other men who had strayed and wanted out, to have his wife Catherine declared insane and institutionalized…https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2019/research/dickens-letters-asylum/

  • and also this at the Smithsonian:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/newly-analyzed-trove-letters-charles-dickens-180971545/

Harvard University [Image: University of York]

And more on Dickens (he loved decorating his home, worked from home, had no musical talent, etc…): https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/facts-charles-dickens-writer-children-family-home/

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Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries (Image: Spitalfields Life)

Lovely images – Cries of London: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/02/22/aunt-busy-bees-new-london-cries-x/

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An archived Austenonly post on Mr. Knightley, Magistrate: https://austenonly.com/2010/01/25/austen-only-emma-season-mr-knightley-magistrate/

New book out on Jane Austen: The Jane Austen Diet: Austen’s Secrets to Food, Health, and Incandescent Happiness, by Bryan Kozlowski. See the Jane Austen VOGUE (of all places!) for an article on the author, the book, and Jane as a nutritionist! (lots of meat, lots of walking…)

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Ever wonder why the Mona Lisa is so famous?? (I wonder about this every day…) – here’s the answer: http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/how-the-mona-lisa-went-from-being-barely-known-to-suddenly-the-most-famous-painting-in-the-world-1911.html

For you Bard-Lovers out there (and who isn’t?), how about starting a Shakespeare Book Club? https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/02/19/shakespeare-book-clubs-austin-tichenor/

 

Into Dust Jackets? – here is an old essay in Publishers Weekly about a book on jackets from 1920-1970, published in 2017: (great covers here – even one by NC Wyeth): https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/75327-11-beautiful-vintage-book-covers.html

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A Cook Book we should all have, recently catalogued at the Lewis Walpole Library: https://lewiswalpole.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/the-complete-house-keeper-and-professed-cook/

Smith, Mary, of Newcastle. The complete house-keeper, and professed cook : calculated for the greater ease and assistance of ladies, house-keepers, cooks, &c. &c. : containing upwards of seven hundred practical and approved receipts … / by Mary Smith …Newcastle: Printed by T. Slack, for the author, 1772.

You can read it all here: https://archive.org/details/b21527404/page/n5

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Well, since we just got a dog (our 5th Springer Spaniel), I can’t resist passing this on from All Things Georgian – we all know of some of the ridiculous taxes imposed on the Georgians (think windows, candles, hair powder, and wallpaper, to name a few), but this one took forever to pass and was difficult to implement: Parliament going to the Dogs we could say:

https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/taxing-of-dogs-in-the-eighteenth-century/

Hayman, Francis; A Hound, a Spaniel and a Pug (A Portrait of a Mastiff); Norfolk Museums Service

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And because we always have to end with Jane: here are the wildly anticipated first photos of the filming of Andrew Davies’ Sanditon, Austen’s unfinished manuscript giving little direction with the plot and nearly no info on the possible Hero – so from what we DO know, who are these people??

https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/itv-jane-austen-drama-sanditon-filmed-brean-beach/

[Theo James here – do hope he is Sidney Parker, who I believe IS the Hero…] – your thoughts?? [image from Burnham-on-the-sea.com]

Have a good week all – send me your favorite finds on the internet!

c2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 7 (Feb 11-17, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

Various finds this past week on the ever-amazing internet, from Dickens to Tolkein, Marie Antoinette to The Devil in the White City, and Robert Louis Stevenson to Gretna Green …. enjoy the reading journey!

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A study of the largest private library of Anglophone women’s writing collected in the nineteenth century: https://stainforth.scu.edu/

-Francis John Stainforth (1797-1866), an Anglican clergyman, collected a unique private library during the mid-nineteenth century. His library catalog lists 7,726 editions (8,804 volumes) authored and edited by 3,721 writers, nearly all of whom are women – but alas! No Jane Austen!

An old article on Dickens and his London (my favorite topic): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-charles-dickens-saw-london-13198155/

Also not new – Devoney Looser writes on S&S: “Sense or Sensibility: What if Jane Austen Had to Choose.” This is an excerpt from her introduction to the 2018 Penguin Classics edition of S&S. https://lithub.com/sense-or-sensibility-what-if-jane-austen-had-to-choose/

The best of Edward Gorey’s book jackets:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cover-story-edward-goreys-best-book-jackets?ref=scroll

This is fascinating: Darwin’s children doodles on the manuscript of The Origin of Species: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/04/06/charles-darwin-children-doodles-origin-of-species/

  • Then again, maybe the doodles weren’t from Darwin’s children at all. A gentleman on one of the listservs I subscribe to suggests the drawings are those of the children of Joseph Dalton Hooker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Dalton_Hooker
  • an academic conundrum – and example perhaps of scholars trading assumptions for statements of fact and how that can muddle the truth…

You all know this already, but Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City is being made into a Hulu TV series with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese as executive producers – will DiCaprio star in one of the roles do you think?? The architect or the evil Doctor?? This book had completely freaked me out when I read it back in 2003 – the story is frightful enough, but Holmes, the serial killer, ended up in Burlington Vermont on the same street where I lived!’- thankfully 100 years before, but still…. I was reading it late at night, read that bit, screamed like a banshee, scared my sleeping husband half to death – neighbors surely thought another murder was taking place… We read this for my book group – one woman could only read the chapters about the fair, completely skipped over the nasty doings – and ok to do really – the story of the fair and its architect is fascinating in itself.

Speaking of nasty – I’ve never been able to take those Victorian hair works of art – totally creeps me out – here’s a great article on them: https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/01/24/the-lost-art-of-victorian-human-hair-shrines/

-Years ago a friend and I visited the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington CT – of course there was a framed Victorian hair art on the wall – it all struck us funny and we started giggling and could not stop – spent the entire tour of the house not so quietly making a scene – I do not think I am allowed back…and all because of that creepy hair…

Well, this just makes me sad: https://abc7chicago.com/rare-books-stolen-from-pennsylvania-bookstore/5137379/

  • Let’s hope they find fingerprints they can identify on that perfume bottle!
  • The hardest thing for me as a bookstore owner was the theft of books – always done by someone who knew the shop and certainly knew the value of what he/she was sneaking off with – I lost some very valuable titles over the years – in many ways, it finally did me in with having an open shop…

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Want to understand purchasing power for any given year, 1270 – 2017? Go to this currency converter at the National Archives [UK]: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency-converter/

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One of the few children’s books I collect is Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses: the Library of Congress has a write-up about the iconic 1895 edition illustrated by Charles Robinson: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2019/02/rare-books-a-childs-garden-of-verses/?loclr=earare

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Cast of the now-filming Sanditon series has been announced: https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/itv-and-red-planet-pictures-announce-cast-filming-commences-jane-austens-sanditon

A review of Kate Hamill’s Vanity Fair: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/theater/vanity-fair-broadway-review-kate-hamill-eric-tucker.html

Valentine’s Day brought out many posts on Romance, etc:

Learn about the Map of Matrimony from the University of St. Andrews Special Collections: https://standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com/2019/02/14/compass-of-the-heart-following-the-map-of-matrimony-on-st-valentines-day/

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The Art of Book Covers at the Public Domain Review:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-art-of-book-covers-1820-1914/

The first and last loves of J. M. W. Turner, courtesy of the “Untold Lives” blog:

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George Raper – Waratah, 1789

With thanks to Philobiblos, I link here to the National Library of New Zealand’s Alexander Turnbull Library now digitized drawings of George Raper’s (1769-1797) birds, animals and flowers: https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.58515

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Hobbit lovers, head to the Morgan for their grand exhibit on Tolkien, through May 2019: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/tolkien

And finally, Sotheby’s gives us “The Most Expensive Old Master Female Artist”: https://www.barnebys.com/blog/the-most-expensive-female-old-master-elisabeth-vigee-le-brun/

Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan, Elisabeth-Louise Vigee Le Brun. 1788

A painting by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the 18th / 19th century portrait artist mostly noted for her paintings of Marie Antoinette, has reached the highest auction sale price for a female artist – $7.2 million!

Marie Antoinette

[This painting caused quite a stir: Marie Antoinette in a Muslin Dress – alas! she was in muslin, not the proper regal attire suitable for a Queen…]

c2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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From the Archives ~ Jane Austen’s Very Own Scrooge

Emma - Christmas day paper doll3I 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.

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Illustrations:

1.  Emma’s Christmas Day Paper Doll at Fancy Ephemera.com
2.  Dinner at Randalls at Chrismologist.blogspot.com
3.  ‘Christmas Weather’ at Harlequin Historical Authors
4.  Vintage postcard in my collection

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From the Archives ~ Jane Austen’s Very Own Scrooge

Emma - Christmas day paper doll3I 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!

***************

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.

___________________
Illustrations:

1.  Emma’s Christmas Day Paper Doll at Fancy Ephemera.com
2.  Dinner at Randalls at Chrismologist.blogspot.com
3.  ‘Christmas Weather’ at Harlequin Historical Authors
4.  Vintage postcard in my collection

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The Gifts of Christmas ~ All Things Jane Austen! ~ Day 1

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

JanesPaperslogo

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…

cover-notecards

 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…

notecards-dickens

including every Jane Austen fan’s favorite hand-written letter – “you pierce my soul…”

notecards-piercemysoul

And if that is not enough, there is also a Jane Austen Novel Journal – you can find this at Chronicle Books or Amazon:

jane-austen-novel-jrnl

Further information: 

Website: http://janespapers.com
Published by Chronicle Books (August 13, 2013)
ISBN-13: 978-1452113531
Price of notecards: $14.95
available at the Chronicle Books website: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/jane-austen-novel-notecards.html

Happy Writing! 

2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
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Charles Dickens at 200 ! ~ February 7, 2012

Well, just in time! – Wishing Mr. Dickens a very Happy Birthday! – as his 200th is celebrated all the world over…

Here are several of the events going on, already posted in my Penny Post Weekly Review, and a few more besides:

First you must begin with the Dickens 2012 website.  

And then these various exhibits, etc…

*Dickens in pictures at the Telegraph :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/charles-dickens/8954312/Charles-Dickens-in-pictures.html

*A tour of Dickens birthplace:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8947295/A-tour-around-the-house-where-Charles-Dickens-was-born.html

*“Celebrating Mr. Dickens” a symposium at the University of Delaware, February 18, 2012: http://www.udconnection.com/saturdaysymposium

*“Dickens in Lowell”: an exhibit [opens March 30, 2012] ,and symposium celebrating Dickens’s historic visit to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1842 – http://www.uml.edu/conferences/dickens-in-lowell/

*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:

http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/ycba/week/20120123/All/CAL-2c9cb3cc-333ca412-0134-477237d9-00000988bedework@yale.edu/

– followed by The Pickwick Papers, from 1952: http://calendar.yale.edu/cal/ycba/week/20120123/All/CAL-2c9cb3cc-333ca412-0134-477bda0c-00000991bedework@yale.edu/

*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:

Dickens' Dark London

http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Resources/app/Dickens_webpage/index.html

*The Free Library of Philadelphia’s Dickens exhibit:  http://libwww.freel library.org/dickens/

*Dickens Christmas Tour at National Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/event-root/december-2011/a-dickens-christmas-tour.php

*Dickens at the British Library: A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural, British Library,London, until March 4 2012

at: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/cdickens/index.html

And here: http://www.culture24.org.uk/history%20&%20heritage/literature%20&%20music/art370174

* Dickens and London at the Museum of London:

http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/21973327-dickens-and-london-at-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…

Dickens at the Morgan Library

*Penelope Wilton [a.k.a. Mrs. Crawley in Downton Abbey!] reading Claire Tomalin’s Dickens biography at the BBC:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017v88v

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Dickens World

* Dickens World – March 7-8, 2012. and online event free for all: http://dickensworld.wordpress.com/ 

*The Dickens Dictionary – John Sutherland
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dickens-Dictionary-Z-Englands-Greatest/dp/1848313918

 * Dickens’ real life characters drawn from life? [with thanks to Tony G!]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/01/charles-dickens-real-character-names

* and see Tony’s post on Dickens on his blog London Calling, with a good number of photographs of Dickens’ homes and haunts…
http://general-southerner.blogspot.com/2012/02/charles-dickens-200years.html

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And as Masterpiece Theatre never disappoints, mark your calendars for these upcoming Dickens on Masterpiece Classic: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/greatexpectations/index.html 

  • 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).

*And these resources at the Masterpiece website from the 2009 series of movies:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/dickens/index.html

 Further Reading: [with endless links to biographies, works, criticism – and we think there is a lot on Jane Austen!]

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!

Copyright @2012 Jane Austen in Vermont
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Austen on the Block! ~ Affordable Jane and More…

Freeman’s Auctions [of Philadelphia] has two sets of Jane Austen’s novels up for auction this week: 

BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS & EPHEMERA, Sale no. 1421.  2 Feb 2012. You can view the full catalogue here.

Lot 308: Jane Austen

Novels - Lot 308

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

Click here for the Austen details.

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]

Copyright @2012 Jane Austen in Vermont