[Image: Vintage Postcard, illus. Marion Miller]
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I send you to a previous post on Jane Austen’s Very Own Scrooge!
[Dinner at Randalls at Chrismologist.blogspot.com]
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Wishing You All a Very Merry Christmas!!
With Love from Deb
at Jane Austen in Vermont
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c2012 David Price, Allport Editions
Cards available for $2.50 ea or $15.95 for a box of 15
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c2012 David Price, Allport Editions
Cards available for $2.50 ea or $14.95 for a box of 15
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[Image: Vintage Postcard]
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I send you to last year’s post on Jane Austen’s Very Own Scrooge!
[Dinner at Randalls at Chrismologist.blogspot.com]
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Wishing You All a Very Merry Christmas!!
With Love from Deb
at Jane Austen in Vermont
*************
Don’t forget to comment on the Jane Austen Birthday Soiree post below to be eligible to win the JASNA-Wisconsin 2012 Jane Austen Calendar!
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For the next seven days I will post a daily want of Austen-related items that I think everyone should ask for this Christmas – [some of these things I already have, some I really want, so I hope my family or Santa is paying close attention…] – great ideas for the Austen-lover in your life and / or add these to your own want-list and I promise you will not be disappointed on Christmas morning!
DAY I: 19 December 2011
A Membership in
North American Friends of Chawton House Library
A terrific cause supporting early women writers, housed at the home of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Austen Knight…
You also receive their lovely newsletter 4 times a year: The Female Spectator – herewith the latest to grace my mailbox: Volume 15, No. 4, received this past week:
Starting with the “Chawton Chronicles” the column from Stephen Lawrence, CEO, is always a great summary of happenings in JA’s world both in and out of the CHL doors: this issue Steve recounts his attendance at JASNA’s AGM in Fort Worth.
Other essays:
1. The Diverse Women of Chawton House Library” – by Gillian Dow
On the portrait of Mary Robinson which CHL has loaned to the National Portrait Gallery’s for the exhibition The First Actresses: Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons, along with Robinson’s 1801 Memoirs.
Mary Robinsion as Perdita - John Hoppner
[Image from The Guardian UK – image copyright CHL; exhibit runs through January 12, 2012]
Dow also references the several lectures offered at CHL, with links to the podcasts of two of them [scroll down for the links]: Dr. Mark Towsey on Elizabeth Rose of Kilravock; and Dr. Debbie Welham on the life of Penelope Aubin.
2. “The Contradictory Rhetoric of Needlework in Jane Austen’s Letters and Novels,” by Ellen Kennedy Johnson, author of the dissertation [and forthcoming book? ] Alterations: Gender and Needlework in Late Georgian Arts and Letters. [available now in dissertation format – you can add this to my want-list]
3. “Fiction in The Hampshire Chronicle, 1772-1829,” by Ruth Facer, author of the lately published Mary Bacon’s World: A Farmer’s Wife in Eighteenth-Century Hampshire.
[you can purchase this book at the CHL online shop here: http://chawton.org/shop/index.html [I would like this also!]
You can read more about the The Hampshire Chronicle here.
4. “Edward Austen’s Suit” – by Sarah Parry, tells of the portrait recently returned to CHL, and the suit as worn by Edward now on display [though not the same suit as in the portrait]
Edward Austen Knight portrait, with Steve Lawrence, Sandy Lerner,
and Richard Knight [image: JAS Society]
5. “Jane Austen and Chawton House Library: A New Patron’s View” by Deirdre Le Faye. Ms. Le Faye shares her thoughts on new areas of study in Austen’s world. She wrote of this also here in the Spring 2010 Persuasions On-Line and well-worth the read: http://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol30no2/lefaye.html
6. “Literary and Literal Landscapes” by Eleanor Marsden, wherein you are reminded to help CHL in whatever way you can…
7. “North Meets South: Women’s Travel Narratives at Chawton House Library” by Isabelle Baudino, a Visiting Fellow at CHL in 2010, on her use of the CHLibrary for her research on women travel writers, such as Anne Plumptre.
Anne Plumptre (LibraryThing)
8. The quarterly column “Faces of Chawton” is in this issue about Ray Moseley, the Information Officer, and the man behind the various PR postings, the facebook and twitter pages, membership databases, and the CHL shop! – a feast of a job!
The Calendar of upcoming events is the only column that leaves me in quite a melancholic mood: so much going on with lectures, balls and gatherings, I am sick at being so far away…
You can visit Chawton House Library on the web here: http://www.chawton.org
You can shop here: http://www.shopcreator.com/mall/chawtonhouselibrary/
You can subscribe in the UK here [£30.+]: http://www.chawton.org/support/friends.html
And in the US here [$50. and up]: http://www.chawton.org/support/nafchl.html
Treat yourself [you desesrve it] or a friend and help out CHL at the same time!
Austen - Grandison MS - CHL
Now it has all gone over the top, or perhaps I have been secretly transported to another planet? or landed in a Jane Austen time-travel spin-off into a zombie-controlled society?
This has nothing to do with Jane Austen, so pardon the aside – other than the Pride & Prejudice and Zombies book is getting more press than the original ever could hope for. But I today saw release news on the following book by Michael P. Spradlin, due out in late October 2009, just in time for the holidays – I am speechless to be quite honest – any thoughts out there??
Illustration by Jeff Weigel from the book
[though I can’t help but think that Dickens would love this ~ zombies in chains and all that!]
I append this post from another blog: the We Write Romance Blog
A Regency Christmas Anthology by Carolynn CareyWhen, in the spring of 2008, I was offered the opportunity to submit a novella for a proposed Regency Christmas anthology, I was delighted. After all, I love the Regency period, and I love the traditions of Christmas.
But I realized, of course, that tremendous differences exist between Christmas as it was observed in England in 1816 and Christmas as we celebrate it in America today. I immediately understood that I needed to do considerable research into the traditions of a different time and a different culture.
Fortunately, since I’ve had a long-time interest in the Regency period, I already possessed quite a few research resources. I delved into my files and soon found myself learning about the Christmas traditions during the Regency period. This in turn led to my writing a story called “A Tradition of Love” about Alethea, who adores Christmas, and her new husband, Robert, who says he has no time for trivialities such as Boxing Day, the Wassail Bowl, the Christmas Candle, the Yule Log, and Christmas Dinner. With just three weeks to go before Christmas Eve, Alethea struggles to find a way to teach her solemn husband to accept help with his responsibilities and to join her in creating their very own Christmas traditions.
“A Tradition of Love” is one of four novellas that make up the anthology entitled A Cotillion Country Christmas, to be released December 4, 2008, as an ebook by Cerridwen Press. The first story, “A Christmas Surprise” by Cynthia Moore, features Clara, who has loved Julian since she first saw him at a debutante ball in London. Several years later, Julian is forced to marry Clara because of gambling debts. After traveling to India soon after their marriage, Julian is now returning home for the holidays and Clara uses the magical spirit of Christmas to her advantage.
Amy Corwin is the author of “Christmas Mishaps” in which the magic of Christmas transforms a series of misfortunes into a gift of love for Caroline Bartlett. Now it is up to her to overcome her mistrust of the unexpected offer from a younger man.
And Barbara Miller’s “Country House Christmas” tells the story of Diana Tierney, who is so caught up in the past mystery of why Richard Trent was shipped off to war that she doesn’t realize he is coming to love her as much as she has always loved him.
In my email today, the latest newsletter from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath: see this link to an article on “Christmas Day with the Austen Family.”
And on my bookshelf … I highly recommend the book Jane Austen’s Christmas: the Festive Season in Georgian England, compiled by Maria Hubert [Sutton Publishing, 1996] (the book is out of print: search at www.biblio.com or www.abebooks.com; available copies are mostly in the UK).
Hubert offers a mix of selections from Austen’s novels and letters, and from other contemporary writers; there are poems about Christmas, along with games and dances and recipes ~ all accompanied by black and white illustrations from various sources. It is a must-have addition to your Austen collection.
You can visit this link at The Christmas Archives for a few excerpts from the book, as well as information on several of the author’s other books on Christmas (Shakespeare’s Christmas; Brontes’ Christmas; Christmas in Wartime are a few examples.]
Here is one of the excerpts ~ a recipe for
BLACK BUTTER
Black Butter would have been a novel recipe indeed, which one of the Austen’s wide circle of seafaring family and friends might have brought them.
Take 4 pounds of full ripe apples, and peel and core them. Meanwhile put into a pan 2 pints of sweet cider, and boil until it reduces by half. Put the apples, chopped small, to the cider. Cook slowly stirring frequently, until the fruit is tender, as you can crush beneath the back of a spoon. Then work the apple through a sieve, and return to the pan adding 1lb beaten (granulated) sugar and spices as following, 1 teaspoon clove well ground, 2 teaspoons cinnamon well ground, 1 saltspoon allspice well ground. Cook over low fire for about ¾ hour, stirring until mixture thickens and turns a rich brown. Pour the butter into into small clean jars, and cover with clarified butter when cold. Seal and keep for three months before using. By this time the butter will have turned almost black, and have a most delicious flavour.
Copyright Maria Hubert von Staufer March 1995
[I will be posting more on the holidays in Jane Austen’s time after our tea this weekend!]
Jane Austen in Vermont 