Georgian England

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Hot off the Presses! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine, Issue 74

Be on the lookout in your mailbox! – the March/April 2015 (issue 74) of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine is published this week and is being mailed to subscribers. In it you can read about:

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  • The Iron Duke: A major exhibition marks the Duke of Wellington’s triumph at the Battle of Waterloo
  • A Book’s Life: One of the rare books at Chawton House Library reveals all
  • Anyone for Pyms? Barbara Pym, the novelist who was known as the “Jane Austen of the 20th century”
  • Georgian Illnesses: Examining some of the ailments suffered by Jane Austen’s characters
  • From Daylesford to Delaford: Is there a connection between Warren Hastings and Sense & Sensibility?

*Plus News, Letters, Book Reviews and information from Jane Austen Societies in the US, UK and Australia

*To subscribe now click here – and make sure that you are among the first to read all the news from Jane Austen’s Regency World!

[Text and image courtesy of JARW].

c2015 Jane Austen in Vermont
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Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice, by Paula Byrne – A Review

Laurel Ann’s review of the book “Belle” by Paula Byrne – I highly recommend it…

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Belle by Paula Byrne 2014 x 200From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: 

Commissioned by the producers of the new movie Belle, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne aims to reveal the true story behind the main characters in the movie: Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy and an African slave, and her great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield (1705-93) and Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice is both a companion volume to the popular movie and a time capsule into the turbulent abolition movement in the late eighteenth-century England.

Inspired by the 1779 portrait of Dido and her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, screenwriter Misan Sagay has written a compelling story based on facts she first learned of while visiting the 2007, Slavery and Justice Exhibition. Dido and Elizabeth were Lord Mansfield’s wards and raised together at…

View original post 1,048 more words

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Jane Austen in Vermont ~ The Royal Navy and the Prince Regent visit Burlington

Lisa & Marie

Lisa & Marie

With hearty thanks to Lisa Brown for sharing her love of the Royal Navy with us Vermont Janeites, and to Marie Sprayberry for telling us of her shared-with-Jane rabid dislike of the Prince Regent and why, and displaying examples from her Georgian era royal collectibles – a most delightful day, despite the intense heat of Burlington’s heat wave and the Fletcher Free Library’s air conditioning on the fritz… [I have now successfully subjected our members and guests to one freezing December Tea where the computerized heating system refused to cooperate and we listened most intently to the two speakers, quietly shivering in our winter coats; and now the reverse of overheating the same members and guests with no air and loud fans in the skylight heated Pickering Room – as one guest bravely noted – “it was all a cost-free day in a sauna” ] – I find I have some control over these meetings, but alas! minus zero control over the weather and heating / cooling system snafus – I do apologize and thank you for your tolerance and good grace as an audience…

That said, extra kudos go to the models who courageously wore their wool-clad Royal Navy uniforms with elegance and style, as they paraded for us samples from Lisa’s wonderful collection.  Here are a few pictures with descriptions of each, with thanks to our fearless models for being such good sports:

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 Marilyn as appropriately clad “able seaman”
[photo: c2014 M. Harrington]

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Jim in the green Sharpe’s uniform of the “95th Rifles”
[see: http://www.95thrifles.com/history-95th-p1.html ]
[photo: c2014 M. Harrington]

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Jess and her redcoat from the Royal Welch Fusiliers

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Carole in the blue and red uniform as a “US” Navy Lieutenant during the Revolutionary War

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 Jay [a.k.a. Captain Wentworth] in an 1812 Royal Navy Captain’s uniform, deservedly admiring his epaulette
[see: http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/71310.html ]
[top photo c2014 M. Harrington]

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And a group shot of us all with Lisa (minus the able seaman, who had left to swab the deck), and with yours truly in the quickly donned uniform of a French Navy Lieutenant.

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Marie’s talk on the Prince Regent was cut short near the end by the heat and near fainting attendees, which was too bad as we were all quite taken with her chat on the dastardly Prince and his wicked ways – you can read the rest of her talk here in Persuasions-OnLine 33.1 (2012):

“Sex, Power, and Other People’s Money: The Prince Regent and His Impact on Jane Austen’s Life and Work” http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol33no1/sprayberry.html

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 “Long Live Queen Caroline!” ceramic jug (1820)
[from the collection of A. Marie Sprayberry and Edward R. Voytovich;
photo by E. Voytovich] [see the POL article for more images of Marie’s collection]

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All in all a great day, with a great audience, and a fun weekend with Marie and Lisa, here cavorting about at the incomparable Shelburne Museum… Marie (left) and Lisa (right) on a Vermont covered bridge:

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 Gaoled JASNA Regional Coordinators Marie and Lisa (hoping to be released in time for the Montreal AGM]

[All images c2014 by Deb Barnum, unless otherwise noted; and with special thanks to Margaret Harrington!]

  c2014 Jane Austen in Vermont
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You are Cordially Invited … the JASNA Vermont Region: All About Jane Austen and the Royal Navy, and the Dastardly Deeds of the Prince Regent!

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Our Next Meeting!

June 8, 2014

You are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s June Meeting 

A Peek into Jane Austen’s Regency World 

Lisa Brown

“‘Of Rears and Vices I Saw Enough’~
The Royal Navy in Mansfield Park and Persuasion”

and A. Marie Sprayberry

“Sex, Power, and Other People’s Money ~
The Prince Regent and His Impact on Jane Austen’s Life and Work” 

Sunday, 8 June 2014, 1:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Fletcher Free Library, Fletcher Room
235 College St, Burlington VT

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Lisa & Marie

Lisa & Marie

Lisa Brown will present an enlightening talk on how the Royal Navy figures in Mansfield Park and Persuasion. We will learn about the uniforms, the ships, the rating system, prize money, and more; as well as discover how very knowledgeable Jane Austen was about the Royal Navy because of her brothers’ involvement. Various uniforms will be on display – but, alas! without a Captain Wentworth in sight!

A. Marie Sprayberry investigates why Jane Austen wrote of the Princess of Wales in 1813: “Poor Woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband.” The Prince Regent brazenly personified the three themes of sex, money, and power – as long as the money was someone else’s! But did Jane Austen have particular reasons for disdaining him? And how might her views of the Prince have influenced her work? Photos of contemporary royal commemorative china and medals will illustrate the talk, all from Marie’s collection.

*Lisa and Marie are co-regional coordinators of the Syracuse Region; Lisa also co-chairs the Rochester Region, is an ECD teacher, owns a Regency era costume business, and has given various talks on the Royal Navy and Regency fashion; she works as a proof reader. Marie has spoken to JASNA on the Prince Regent and will be speaking at the Montreal AGM on “Fanny Price as Fordyce’s Ideal Woman?” She works from her Syracuse home for a NYC-based publisher.

Free & open to the public ~ Light refreshments served 

You can see the event flyer here: June 2014 flyer

Hope you can join us!

c2014, Jane Austen in Vermont
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Museum Musings: The British Library ~ “Georgians Revealed”

Opening today! ~ “Georgians Revealed: Life, Style and the Making of Modern Britain” – 8 November – 11 March 2014 at the British Library

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I.R. and G. Cruikshank. ‘Tom & Jerry at a Coffee Shop near the Olympic’ – Pierce Egan, Life in London (London, 1823).

 Tasteful and polite, or riotous and pleasure-obsessed? Discover the Georgians as they really were, through the objects that tell the stories of their lives.

From beautifully furnished homes to raucous gambling dens, Georgians Revealed explores the revolution in everyday life that took place between 1714 and 1830. Cities and towns were transformed. Taking tea, reading magazines, gardening and shopping for leisure were commonplace, and conspicuous consumption became the pastime of the emerging middle classes.

Popular culture as we know it began, and with it the unstoppable rise of fashion and celebrity. Art galleries, museums and charities were founded. In this time of incredible innovation, ideas were endlessly debated in the new coffee houses and spread via the information highway that was mass print.

Drawing on the British Library’s uniquely rich and rare collections of illustrated books, newspapers, maps and advertisements, as well as loaned artworks and artifacts, “Georgians Revealed” brings to life the trials and triumphs of the ordinary people who transformed Britain forever.

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See this link for a short video on the exhibition by curator Moira Goff.

And check out the online shop where all manner of Georgian -related treasures are for sale, as well as a catalogue of the exhibition, another must-have for your Jane Austen collection!

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Rocque map of London fan, £8
A beautiful wooden fan, featuring a historic map created by John Rocque.
The fan has been created exclusively for the British Library. Wood/ canvas.

[Images and text from the British Library website]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont
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Please Join Us! ~ JASNA-Vermont Meeting – June 2, 2013 ~ Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice, with Sheryl Craig

ja silhouetteYou are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s June Meeting 

 “Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice;
Or, Why ‘Mr. Darcy Improves upon Acquaintance’!”

 with Sheryl Craig* 

Sheryl Craig

Sheryl Craig

What Jane Austen’s first readers did not need to be told was that a man named Fitzwilliam Darcy had to be a moderate Whig, one who supported Tory Prime Minister William Pitt’s tax and Poor Law reform proposals, and that Darcy’s home county, Derbyshire, paid high wages, provided generous welfare benefits, and funded the best system of poor houses in England.  Thus, Darcy, and moderate Whigs like him, were worthy of both Elizabeth Bennet’s and the reader’s esteem and served as role models to be emulated throughout Georgian Britain and, as it turns out, throughout time.   

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Sunday, 2 June 2013, 2 – 4 p.m. 

 Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center,
375 Maple St Burlington VT  

~Free & open to the Public~
~Light refreshments served~ 

For more information:   JASNAVermont [at] gmail [dot] com
Please visit our blog at: http://JaneAustenInVermont.wordpress.com


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* Sheryl Craig has published articles in Jane Austen’s Regency World, Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and The Explicator.  She has also written film reviews for the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.  Sheryl was JASNA’s International Visitor in 2008, is the editor of JASNA News, and was JASNA’s Traveling Lecturer for the Central region in 2012.   She has a Ph.D. in Nineteenth-century British literature from the University of Kansas, has taught at the University of Central Missouri for over twenty years, and is a life member of JASNA.

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Workhouse at St. James’s Parish – from The Microcosm of London, 1810, [wikipedia commons]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont
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Hot off the Press! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine ~ Issue No. 53

News direct from the publisher – the latest issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine, No. 53 September / October 2011 is in the mail!

  •  KATE MIDDLETON AND JANE AUSTEN ~ How the Duchess is related to our favourite author 
  • STETSONS FOR JASNA ~ The AGM is comingTexas – and here’s a preview of all the exciting events in store
     
  • GORGEOUS GAINSBOROUGH ~ A new exhibition of the portraitist’s landscapes
     
  • THE MEDICAL REGENCY ~ Illness and death in Jane Austen’s time
     
  • WORDS OVERHEARD ~Maggie Lane looks at how Jane Austen uses eavesdropping as a literary device [think Miss Steele!]
     
  • BIRD MAN OF LYME REGIS ~ The ornithologist who became a success inAustralia
     
  • PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS ~ A lack of low-denomination coins caused a headache for Jane
     
  • AN A-PEELING TALE ~ Tackling the scandal of child labour in Georgian England
     
  • Plus: All the latest news from the world of Jane Austen, as well as letters, book reviews, CD reviews quiz, competition and news from JAS and JASNA. 

Jane Austen’s Regency World will be at the following events, and look forward to meeting many subscribers, old and new: 

  • Sept 17, 2011:  Jane Austen Festival,Bath,UK (country fayre) 
  • Oct 13-15:  JASNA AGM,Fort Worth,Texas,USA  [hurray!!]

 For further information, and to subscribe, visit: www.janeaustenmagazine.co.uk

[Image and contents courtesy of JARW Magazine]

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Book thoughts ~ ‘Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England’

On my TBO* list:  with a release date of January 16, 2011 [as per Amazon; publisher release date is February 2011]

Thomas Rowlandson: Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England, by Patricia Phagan; essays by Vic Gatrell and Amelia Rauser.  Published by D Giles LTD in association with the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 2011.

This illustrated volume which presents 72 watercolors, drawings, prints and illustrated books to reassess the legacy of this renowned 18th-century satirist. Accompanies the first major exhibition of Rowlandson’s work in North America for twenty years, showing at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, Jan 14, 2011 – March 13, 2011 and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, April 8, 2011 – June 11, 2011 [Click here for information on the exhibit]  

Thomas Rowlandson - Pages 110-11

[Click on to enlarge]

About the authors: 

Patricia Phagan is Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center and the co-author of ‘The American Scene and the South: Paintings and Works on Paper, 1930-1946’ (1996) and ‘Images of Women in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art: Domesticity and the Representation of the Peasant’ (1996).

Vic Gatrell is Life Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and the author of ‘City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London’ (2006) [fabulous book!] and ‘The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868‘ (1994).

Amelia Rauser is Associate Professor of Art History at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and author of ‘Caricature Unmasked: Irony, Authenticity and Individualism in Eighteenth-Century English Prints’ (2008). [from Amazon]

 See the publisher’s website at:  D Giles LTD; and Amazon.com   

            ISBN-10: 1904832784
            ISBN-13: 978-1904832782

*To Be Ordered

Copyright @ 2011, Deb Barnum, Jane Austen in Vermont