Tag: Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Winston Churchill on Jane Austen

BookLady Deb3 Comments

My husband has been reading Winston Churchill’s The Second World War series, currently on the 5th book Closing the Ring.  He was quite excited to find this paragraph in the middle of Churchill’s writings of December 1943 when he was ill with pneumonia while in Tunis with General Eisnhower.   I have heard this quote before, and you might all be familiar with it as well, but worth a shout-out here – again showing, as Kipling had done so admirably before, how Jane Austen in time of distress is just the thing!

The days passed in much discomfort. Fever flickered in and out.  I lived on my theme of the war, and it was like being transported out of oneself. The doctors tried to keep the work away from my bedside, but I defied them.  They all kept on saying, “Don’t work, don’t worry,” to such an extent that I decided to read a novel.  I had long ago read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and now I thought I would have Pride and Prejudice.  Sarah read it to me beautifully from the foot of the bed.  I had always thought it would be better than its rival.  What calm lives they had, those people!  No worries about the French Revolution, or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars.  Only manners controlling natural passion so far as they could, together with cultured explanations of any mischances.  All seemed to go very well with M and B*.

* “Mand B” refers to Lord Moran and Dr. Bedford who came to his aid

 From Winston Churchill, Closing the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951, p. 425.

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Jane Austen · News

For Sale! ~ Ibthorpe House

BookLady Deb1 Comment

I received an email yesterday from the JAS secretary re: the sale of  Ibthorpe House  – home to her friends the Lloyds and where Jane Austen visited on a number of occasions.  I had the pleasure to visit a few years ago, where tea was served and the owners toured us around the house and gardens and the fields with their alpacas.  But Alas! all my pictures are slides and rest comfortably in boxes! – more on Austen’s connection to the house in another post…

The link to the real estate firm [ http://search.knightfrank.com/hng110054 ]   who has listed the property no longer works, so perhaps it has already sold, but you can see a number of pictures here:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-29743015.html

But hurry! – this may be taken down soon as well…

Ibthorpe House
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Books · Fashion & Costume · Jane Austen · JASNA · Museum Exhibitions · News · Regency England

The Penny Post Weekly Review ~ All Things Austen

BookLady Deb1 Comment

The Penny Post Weekly Review

June 11, 2011

 Some goodies for this week – have you found anything of interest you would like to share? – please do!

 News and Gossip:

*Don’t miss this! – June 11 with Rick Steves: A Proper English Hour: Home, High Tea, and Jane Austen’s England — Bill Bryson examines private life during the Victorian age; London guide Britt Lonsdale explains how to enjoy a proper afternoon tea service; and screenwriter Andrew Davies [soon to be the JASNA AGM in Fort Worth!] shares his appreciation for the works of Jane Austen.

Click here to find where it airs in your area [alas! In Vermont, nowhere!] http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/whereitairs.htm

But, thankfully, beginning on June 12, the show will also be available to download any time from their website archives at this page: http://www.ricksteves.com/radio/archive.htm

*Masterpiece Theatre announces its fall lineup: watch for Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes and more! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/schedule/fall_2011.html

*The Jane Austen Regency Week in the UK has several events worth either attending OR lamenting if you are on the wrong side of the pond: http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/leisure/general/9071636.Jane_Austen_s_Women_brought_to_life_by_Eastleigh_actress/

http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/leisure/general/9072738.Don_t_miss_Regency_Day_at_The_Vyne_on_Saturday/

*For those of us who are on the western shore of the Atlantic, there is the fabulous JASNA Louisville 4th annual Jane Austen Festival July 9 – 10, 2011: information and registration here: http://www.jasnalouisville.com/

*see  LimogesBoxCollector.com at https://www.limogesboxcollector.com/product_info.php?products_id=2183&osCsid=m86f91l6la8d4g1th82filhu66 for your very own Jane Austen bookshelf [$249.00]:

– the latest issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World mentions a Pride & Prejudice Limoges Box, which was announced by Limoges in March 2011 – only the above box appears on the Limoges website, so perhaps they are sold out? – here are the two boxes in the announcement – let me know if you bought one!:



Blogs, websites, and such:

Elizabeth Montague by Edward Haytley

*Elizabeth Montague and the Bluestocking Circle: http://elizabethmontaguletters.co.uk/home

Their project to put all her letters online: Our goal is to prepare a fully annotated electronic edition of Elizabeth Montagu’s correspondence. The author and bluestocking salonnière (1718-1800) was the leading woman of letters and artistic patron of her day. The 8,000 extant letters, ‘among the most important surviving collections from the eighteenth century’ (Schnorrenberg) is held in the British Library, the Bodleian and the Huntington Library, the latter of which holds 6,000 of them. Less than a quarter of these documents has been previously published and then in partial archaic print selections.

*Oxford Bookworms, where Pride and Prejudice is a bestseller in its Stage 6 series:  http://www.oup-bookworms.com/oxford-bookworms.cfm 

*World Digital Library, http://www.wdl.org/en/about/site.html – a joint venture of the Library of Congress and other world libraries – alas! no Austen, but this growing database is worth searching – in a quick look I find the Gutenberg Bible,  William Blake’s The Book of Urizen http://www.wdl.org/en/item/201/?ql=eng&s=william+blake&view_type=gallery

and an abundance of Robbie Burns!: http://www.wdl.org/en/search/gallery?ql=eng&s=robert+burns

*Angela Thirkell – For lovers of Trollope in need of more Barset stories, you should add Angela Thirkell to your book shelf – there is also yet another Society to join!  http://www.angelathirkell.org/

*Lit Lists: an interesting blog for lovers of lists – here, all literary ones:   http://litlists.blogspot.com/ – an example? – “Five Best New Ways of Portraying Lives” which includes Claire Harman’s Jane’s Fame http://litlists.blogspot.com/2011/06/five-best-new-ways-of-portraying-lives.html

* The recently established Fresno Area Regency England Fellowship http://fresnoarearegency.com/ has a nice website, where you can sign up for their monthly newsletter and facebook page.


Books – Reviews – Recommendations:

*A book review: Laura Miller at Salon.com on A Jane Austen Education:

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/index.html?source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%20Newsletter%20%28Not%20Premium%29_7_30_110

*Miranda Seymour at the NYTimes on A Jane Austen Education and Rachel Brownstein’s Why Jane Austen?: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/books/review/book-review-a-jane-austen-education-and-why-jane-austen.html

*Reading lists:  I have found two perfect reading lists for what to read when you have read all of Jane Austen:


Other recommendations to add to your Austen Library:

 

Museums / Exhibitions:

The Musee McCord in Montreal – considered the leading collection of Canadian dress and the second most important collection of costume in Canada, this collection has grown since 1957 to contain some 18,845 items of dress and accessories – the Museum has the following 19th century fashion-related games online: [with thanks to JASNA-New Jersey http://cnjjasna.blogspot.com/ for this link]

Also in Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal: an exhibit of the Museum’s collection of Napoleon artifacts:  http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/expositions/exposition_134.html

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To close, I append a quote [and not even from Jane!] I found on a listserv – from Steven Wright [I love Steven Wright!]

“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
– Steven Wright, comedian (1955- )

He must have been reading Johnson’s Dictionary!

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Auctions · Jane Austen · News

Austen on the Block! ~ Austen Portrait Auction Results

BookLady Deb4 Comments

UPDATE:  NO SALE – A Pass [£28,000 highest bid]

Watching the Christies auction live! – the James Stanier Clarke Friendship Book with the illustration [as speculated] of Jane Austen had a highest bid of just £28,000 [estimate was 30,000 – 50,000]

Other items of interest in the sale:

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights. 1st Am. ed.:  PASS

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. 1st ed, 1st state:  £2800 [hammer price]

Samuel Richardson, Pamela. 1st ed.:  PASS

Shakespeare and John Fletcher, Two Noble Kinsman.  £26,000 [hammer price]

BUT, there was money passing hands at this auction ~ note this item!

MERIAN, Maria Sibylla (1647-1717). Blumenbuch. Nuremberg: Johann Andreas Graff, 1675-1677-1680.

Estimate:  £60,000 – £90,000  ($98,100 – $147,150)

Price realized:  £470,000 [ £565,250 ($924,184) with buyer’s premium]

Together, 3 fascicules, 2°. 2 leaves of letter-press text and 36 engraved plates COLOURED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND, numbered in the plate 1-12, 14-124, 1-12, including an engraved title-page with a different elaborate botanical border as plate 1 to each fascicule. Watermarks: tower with counter-mark ‘S H’ (pts. 1 and 2); coat-of-arms of Amsterdam (pt. 2); crowned double eagle with pendant ‘4 S H’ (pt. 3). Plates trimmed to plate edge (208 x 150mm) and tipped onto modern paper mounts (305 x 221mm), text leaves trimmed to type-area; loose in modern marbled paper folding box (upper joints split). An 18th-century German hand has added numbering (sometimes on the plate) and German plant-names, now mounted as caption labels beneath each plate, the register also annotated, 19th-century manuscript title-page in German. Provenance: the von der Osten family, Schloss Plathe, Pomerania, and by descent; nationalised by the DDR, transferred to the state archive in Potsdam, and subsequently restituted to the family.

A REDISCOVERED, APPARENTLY UNIQUE COPY, FINELY COLOURED, OF THE TRUE FIRST EDITION OF MERIAN’S FIRST AND RAREST WORK. The Blumenbuch was issued in 3 parts consisting of 12 plates each in 1675, 1677 and 1680, respectively. In 1680 also appeared a composite issue of all three parts newly entitled Neues Blumenbuch and 2 leaves of text containing an introduction and a register of plant names. The present copy conforms to the first edition, issued as 3 fascicules, with individual title-pages dated 1675, 1677 and 1680. Furthermore, the watermarks conform to the Bern copy of the 1675 and 1677 fascicules. NO OTHER COMPLETE COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION IS KNOWN. It is highly likely that it was acquired at or close to the time of publication by a von der Osten ancestor and has been in the family ownership for the subsequent 3 centuries. In c. 1900 it is recorded in the only surviving catalogue of the family library as being trimmed and mounted on loose sheets. Interestingly, several scholars have noted that the work seems to have remained in loose sheets for considerable periods; it is possible that the present copy was never bound.

The colouring in the present copy closely resembles that in copies considered to have been done by Merian herself (Dresden, London). If not by Merian, it is certainly by an accomplished contemporary artist, as is the Bern copy. In the introducton Merian states that she has produced the work as a model book, providing patterns to be copied in paint or embroidery. She thus joins a long tradition of florilegia serving this purpose. She also outlines briefly ‘tulip fever’ and the price of 2000 Dutch guilders paid for a single tulip, Semper Augustus. The plates for the Blumenbuch were not re-issued in Merian’s lifetime, but were reworked with the addition of insects for a 1730 edition, Histoire des Insectes de l’Europe. THE BLUMENBUCH IMAGES ARE THUS THE RAREST OF MERIAN’S PUBLISHED IMAGES.

Only five copies of individual fascicules survive: Vienna (pt. 1, ?lacking pl.2); Bern (pts. 1 and 2 [lacking II:12]); and Nuremberg (pt. 3, lacking pls. 8, 11, 12). Of the 1680 Neues Blumenbuch only 6 copies (3 with contemporary coluring) are known, in addition to a unique copy of coloured counterproof plates sold in Christie’s rooms in 2000. Blunt & Stearn, pp. 142-46; Nissen BBI 1340.

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Books · Jane Austen · Jane Austen Popular Culture · News

Book Alert! ~ Wooing Mr. Wickham

BookLady DebLeave a comment

The title of the second book in the Chawton House Library / Honno Press Jane Austen Short Story Award has been announced – the anthology will be released November 17, 2011.  Title?  Wooing Mr. Wickham.  [alas! – no cover image yet]

This year’s collection, which follows on from the huge success of the inaugural award set up in 2009 to celebrate the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s arrival at Chawton, takes as its point of inspiration the heros and villains in Jane Austen’s books. [from the Honno Press Newsletter]

Image: Brock, P&P - Molland's

The short list of authors was released on June 3, 2011 on the Chawton House Library website. Stay tuned for the winner and runners-up announcement!

This year’s Chair of the Judges is novelist Michele Roberts, who will write the introduction to the anthology. Ms. Roberts is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, including The Looking Glass and Daughters of the House, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the W.H Smith Literary Award. You can learn more at the Michele Roberts website.

Wooing Mr. Wickham is available for pre-order at WHSmith –  or wait until it is available through either Chawton House Library or Honno Press directly.

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum. of Jane Austen in Vermont
Auctions · Jane Austen · News

On the Block! ~ A Jane Austen Portrait?

BookLady Deb5 Comments

Christie’s Sale 8021:  Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts
8 June 2011
London, King Street 

[Jane Austen? by James Stanier Clarke]

James Stanier Clarke’s Friendship Book will be auctioned off tomorrow, June 8, 2011 at Christie’s London.  Clarke was the Prince Regent’s librarian at Carlton House – he famously invited Jane Austen to visit, requested her to dedicate her next book to the Prince [Emma], and carried on a lively correspondence with Austen – thankfully these letters survive to give us a rare insight into Austen’s own view of her talents.

This collection of Clarke’s watercolors is of interest to Jane Austen followers because it includes the portrait of a young woman, purportedly Jane Austen, as based on the research of Richard Wheeler [see: Richard James Wheeler,  James Stanier Clarke: His Watercolour Portrait of Jane Austen Painted 13th November 1815 in his “Friendship Book.” Kent: Codex, 1998]. 

There remain questions that this is indeed Austen – as there are only two known portraits, the small sketch by Cassandra in the National Portrait Gallery that all other “imaginary” portraits have been modeled on (and which family members said was not nearly a good likeness of her), and the second watercolor, also by Cassandra, offers us only a rear view – we are left with wanting more – what did she look like?!  

To get a great overview of the study of this possible Jane Austen image, please read this article by former JASNA President and Austen scholar Professor Joan Ray in Persuasions 27 (2005 ) [and co-authored by Richard James Wheeler]  – you can find it here in a pdf file: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number27/ray-clarke.pdf

Read below from the Christie’s Auction Catalogue  for the description of the other watercolors in Clarke’s book.  The Austen portrait however is the main selling feature, and the catalogue does tell the tale of Austen’s famed visit to Clarke at Carlton House on November 13, 1815.*

James Stanier CLARKE (?1765-1834). Album amicorum, 1791-1804 and n.d., comprising approx 47 drawings and watercolours of portraits, figures, landscapes, maritime scenes and other subjects, including (f.53) a watercolour portrait of an elegantly-attired young woman bearing a muff which has been identified as a PORTRAIT OF JANE AUSTEN (perhaps executed by Clarke himself on the occasion of their meeting, 13 November 1815), as well as contributions by George ROMNEY (the temple of Fame atop a mountain, with a 5-line verse, 2 July 1792), John FLAXMAN (unsigned, a wash drawing of a seated young woman and two children), John RUSSELL (‘A telescopic appearance of the southern limbs of the Moon on the 7th of August 1787’, the inscription dated 1796), William HODGES (wash drawing and verse, 1794), an anonymous portrait of the future Queen Caroline, possibly by Clarke himself (as chaplain on the Jupiter on which she sailed to England in March/April 1795), and 12 sketches closely related to Nicholas Pocock’s illustrations for Clarke’s 1804 edition of William Falconer’s The Shipwreck: A Poem, together with 16 silhouettes and an engraving; and manuscript contributions including by William COWPER (‘I were indeed indifferent to fame Grudging two lines t’immortalize my name’, Weston-Underwood, 28 October 1793), William Hayley (1792), Johann Kaspar Lavater (1792), Charlotte Smith (1793), Anna Seward (poem to Clarke, 12 lines) and Thomas Masterman Hardy (‘late Capt of the Mutine’).

Physical description: Approx 47 inscriptions and 12 cut signatures, 109 leaves, oblong 8vo (99 x 157mm), (some leaves weak at inner margin), green morocco gilt, lettered on spine ‘Sacred to Friendship J.S.C.’; remains of marbled-paper slipcase.

Provenance: Richard Wheeler — by descent to the present owner. Perhaps the best-known incident in the life of James Stanier Clarke took place on 13 November 1815, when, as chaplain and librarian to the Prince Regent, he showed Jane Austen around Carlton House: it was he who passed on the proposal that resulted in Emma being dedicated to the Prince, and who famously suggested, in their ensuing correspondence, that Austen devote future efforts either to a portrait of ‘an English Clergyman … of the present day’ or to a ‘Historical Romance illustrative of the History of the august house of Cobourg’. Richard Wheeler, in James Stanier Clarke, His Watercolour Portrait of Jane Austen (1998), makes a forceful case, based in particular on comparison of facial measurements with other Austen portraits and on dress, for the identification of the portrait in the present album with the novelist. The other entries in the album are marked by a close early association of Clarke with the circle of the poet and biographer William Hayley at his estate at Eartham in Sussex; by a tour to Germany and Switzerland in 1792; and by his association with the navy which was to colour his life from 1795 onwards, even after his appointment as domestic chaplain to the future George IV and, from 1805, librarian of Carlton House.

Estimate:  £30,000 – £50,000  ($49,260 – $82,100) 

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Alas! – once again outside my range! – one wonders what will happen – the 2007  auction of  the Rice portrait, another hoped-for likeness of Austen, did not fare so well – it did not sell…

 [The Rice Portrait ~ Jane Austen?]

Further Reading:

*1.  read more about this visit to Carlton House here: https://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/a-visit-to-carlton-house-november-13-1815/

2. and here at Austenonly:  http://austenonly.com/2009/11/20/jane-austen-and-londona-visit-to-carlton-house/

3.  Chris Viveash.  James Stanier Clarke: Librarian to the Prince Regent, Naval Author, Friend of Jane Austen.  Winchester: Privately Printed / Sarsen Press, 2006.

[Image:  James Stanier Clarke, courtesy of Austenonly]

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont 
Books · Jane Austen · Literature · News · Regency England · Social Life & Customs

The Penny Post Weekly Review ~ All Things Austen

BookLady Deb6 Comments

The Penny Post Weekly Review* 

June 4, 2011

News and Gossip: 

1.   “Josiah Wedgwood Tradesman – Tycoon, firing up the modern Age” at The Culture Concept Circle:  http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/josiah-wedgwood-tradesman-tycoon-firing-up-the-modern-age

 2.  http://www.e-enlightenment.com/ – free access through the month of June:   user ID: ee2011 / PW:  enlightenment

3.  How timely is this, as I just started to re-read Evelina last week! You can follow the Group read of Frances Burney’s Evelina at The Duchess of Devonshire’s Gossip Guide: here is the first post: http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.com/2011/06/evelina-volume-1-letters-1-20-and.html

The full reading schedule is here: join in if you can!http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.com/2011/05/evelina-group-read-rundown.html

  • 2 June: Volume 1 Letters 1-20
  • 9 June: Volume 1 Letter 21- Volume 2 Letter 6 (21-37)
  • 16 June: Volume 2 Letter 7- 22 (38-53)
  • 23 June: Volume 2 Letter 23- Volume 3 Letter 9 (54-71)
  • 30 June: Volume 3 Letter 10-23 (72-84)

4.  In the UK: The Jane Austen Regency Week [ June 18 – June 26, 2011], celebrating the time Jane Austen spent in Alton and Chawton, is sponsored by the Alton Chamber of Commerce – website with event information here: http://www.janeaustenregencyweek.co.uk/index.html

5.  As part of the above Regency Week celebration, the Chawton House Library will be hosting tea, talk, and tours on June 21st and 23rd : http://www.chawton.org/news/

6.  Two posts on the British and their lovely habit, the drinking of tea: at Mary Ellen Foley’s Anglo-American Experience blog:

Part 1: http://mefoley.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/tea-part-1/
Part 2: http://mefoley.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/tea-part-2/
Part 3: http://mefoley.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/tea-part-3/
Part 4:  coming soon, so check back

Chinese Flowers, Old Foley pottery, from M.E. Foley's blog

7.  Dressing the Part: Dolley Madison’s Life Through Fashion, an exhibit at James Madison’s Montpelier, June 15, 2011 – March 29, 2012: http://www.montpelier.org/explore/collections/dressing_the_part.php

8.  The In Fashion: High Style 1620-2011 exhibit at The Shelburne Museum opens June 18, 2011: http://shelburnemuseum.org/exhibitions/in-fashion/

9.  An interview with Diana Birchall at Maria Grazia’s The Jane Austen Book Club: [includes a book giveaway] http://thesecretunderstandingofthehearts.blogspot.com/2011/06/talking-jane-austen-with-diana-birchall.html

10.  I don’t even know where to begin re: V. S. Naipaul’s trashing women writers and Jane Austen’s “sentimentality” [see this article at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/02/vs-naipaul-jane-austen-women-writers ]

– but as one gentleman on one of the listservs I subscribe to so eloquently said: “Oh yeah Naipaul, how many movies have been made from YOUR books, huh?”

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New Books just out / about to be: 

1.  Why Jane Austen? By Rachel Brownstein. ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2011:  http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15390-4/why-jane-austen  [publication date: June 16, 2011 or thereabouts – more on this book next week!]

2.  Vauxhall Gardens, by David Coke and Alan Borg:  http://www.vauxhallgardens.com/ – the book is to be published by Yale University Press on June 8, 2011

3.  Jane Austen: Two Centuries of Criticism, by Laurence Mazzeno. Camden Press, 2011:

http://www.camden-house.com/store/viewitem.asp?idproduct=13605

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A few blogs / websites to check out:

1.  This one deserves repeating:  The Jane Austen Music Transcripts Collection at Flinders Academic Commons, transcribed by Gillian Dooley [this is a wonderful resource, most all from Austen’s music manuscript notebooks]: http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/dspace/handle/2328/15193

2.  William Godwin’s Diary: Reconstructing a Social and Political Culture, 1788-1836:  http://godwindiary.politics.ox.ac.uk/   [husband to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley’s father, Austen’s time]

3.  The Beau Monde Blog:  http://thebeaumondeworld.wordpress.com/

Beau Monde Blog header

4.  The Carlyle Letters Online:  http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org/ [i.e Thomas and Jane]

5.  The George Eliot blog:  [new!]http://desperatelyseekinggeorge.wordpress.com/

6.  The Yale Center for British Art – their fabulous new website:  http://britishart.yale.edu/

Mercier - 'The Sense of Hearing' - detail - YCBA

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* I hope to return to doing a weekly update of various Austen-related discoveries – so much out there – so little time – one must set aside some time for BOOKS, don’t you think??

Copyright @2011 Deb Barnum, at Jane Austen in Vermont
Jane Austen · JASNA-Vermont events · Schedule of Events · Social Life & Customs

JASNA-Vermont Event ~ ‘The Musical World of Jane Austen’

BookLady DebLeave a comment

A reminder about our JASNA-Vermont event, tomorrow June 5, 2011 from 2-4 pm!

~The Musical World of Jane Austen ~ 

with 

  Dr. William Tortolano

Dr. Tortolano is Professor Emeritus of Fine Arts at Saint Michael’s College and an internationally-known expert on Gregorian Chant. A forty-seven year faculty member at the college, he leads a busy “non-retirement” life as educator, concert organist, church musician, editor, author and director of Gregorian Chant workshops. He will be presenting a short lecture on the music of Jane Austen’s world, followed by an organ / piano recital of works
she would have known and heard:
Froberger, Pachelbel, Handel, Mozart, Purcell, Gluck and more…

*****

Vermont College of Fine Arts Chapel*

36 College St. Montpelier, VT  
http://www.vermontcollege.edu/ 

  • $10. / person ~ $5. / student ~ at the door
  • Light refreshments served
  • Please Join Us! 

[Image:  Emma, C.E. Brock, courtesy of Molland’s]

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Books · Jane Austen · Literature

Follow Friday ~ The Westminster Detective Library

BookLady DebLeave a comment

Murder will out …. Taking a slight detour from the usual Jane Austen and Regency Period fare here at Jane Austen in Vermont, I shall alert you today to the website The Westminster Detective Library. 

Hosted by McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland:

It is the mission of the Westminster Detective Library to catalog and make available online all the short fiction dealing with detectives and detection published in the United States before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891).

We have posted our working bibliography and will add full-text copy of its entries as we prepare them. We welcome comments and solicit both additional bibliographical entries and texts.

Editors:
LeRoy Lad Panek
Mary M. Bendel-Simso
-McDaniel College

A work in progress, the site offers a short tales by Dickens, Poe, Wilkie Collins, and a good number of more obscure writers, the first story from 1834,  “A Story of Circumstantial Evidence” by Daniel O’Connell.  You can access the stories from the Bibliography, where you can browse by title, author, or chronologically.  Stories are formatted as they may have originally appeared in a journal or newspaper, but the handy “printer-friendly” button allows the more modern full-screen view you may print out for bed-time reading, the best place for any and all detective fiction.

As murder seems to be on my mind [more on my escape from the elegant Regency to the dark side of Victorian London with a visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum in a future post], I point you to a new work on just this subject: murder in Victorian Britain.  Judith Flanders, author of the very enjoyable informative work The Victorian Home, as well as Consuming Passions, and A Circle of Sisters, has just published The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime:

 

In the nineteenth century, murder – a rarity in reality – was ubiquitous in novels, in broadsides and ballads, in theatre and melodrama and opera – even in puppet shows and performing dog-acts. As Punch wrote, ‘We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it.’

In this meticulously researched and compellingly written exploration of a century of murder, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping and gruesome cases, the famous and the obscure, the brutal and the pathetic – to build a rich and multi-faceted portrait of Victorian society. The Invention of Murder is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.

‘Dare I say it would be a crime not to read this book?’  – Donna Leon

[Image and text from Judith Flanders website]

And so as I now appear to be obsessed with murder, I also remind you of the running of the Agatha Christie murder mysteries on Masterpiece Theatre – beginning this past Sunday with “Murder on the Orient Express“.  This PBS summer series includes: (online viewing dates in parentheses following the national broadcast date)

  • May 22 (May 23 – Jun 5) Poirot: “Murder on the Orient Express” (Encore)
  • (May 23 – Jun 21) “David Suchet on the Orient Express: A Masterpiece Special” 60 min. (Encore)*
  • May 29 (May 30 – Jun 12) Marple: “The Secret of Chimneys” (Encore)*
  • Jun 5 (Jun 6 – Jun 19) Poirot: “Appointment with Death” (Encore)*
  • Jun 12 (Jun 13 – Jun 26) Poirot: “The Third Girl” (Encore)*
  • Jun 19 (Jun 20 – Jul 19) Poirot: “Three Act Tragedy”
  • Jun 26 (Jun 27 – Jul 26) Poirot: “The Clocks”
  • Jul 3 (Jul 4 – Aug 2) Poirot: “The Hallowe’en Party”
  • Jul 10 (Jul 11 – Aug 9) Marple: “The Pale Horse 

Enjoy!

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum at Jane Austen in Vermont 
Austen Literary History & Criticism · Books · Jane Austen · Literature · Publishing History · Rare Books

Austen on the Block! ~ Sotheby’s June 17, 2011

BookLady Deb1 Comment

The exciting news this past week on the impending sale of the manuscript pages of Jane  Austen’s The Watsons certainly sent most us into a mild depression about how unattainable such a piece is for most of us. But today, Sotheby’s has made its New York June 17th auction of Fine Books and Manuscripts available online, and I see there are several Austen titles up for sale, still perhaps unattainable for most of us, but a little more reasonable just the same… again, one can only lament how Austen struggled to earn a pittance for her labors, and how Cassandra sold all the copyrights believing that her sister’s popularity had crested as she sank rather rapidly into obscurity!  Aah! Hindsight!

Here are the six lots for sale ~ you can go to the Sotheby’s website for more information on these lots and how to bid online:   

 Sotheby’s Sale No. NO8755: Fine Books and Manuscripts

LOT 5

Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. London: T. Egerton, 1813

3 volumes, 12mo (6 3/4 x 4 in.; 170 x 100 mm). Half-titles; light, scattered staining in all 3 vols. but withal a clean copy, a few short marginal tears in vol. 1, oxidized catchword in 1:O8, paper creased in lower right corner of 2:F1 and so printed. Contemporary mottled calf, smooth spines with gilt rules resembling chained links; spine labels lacking on vols. 1–2, vol. 1 boards detached, joints starting on vols. 2–3, craquelure on spines, minor loss to head of spine of vol. 3.   25,000—35,000 USD

 LOT 50


Sense and Sensibility. London: Printed for the Author and published by T. Egerton, 1811 

3 volumes, 12mo (6 3/8 x 3 7/8 in.; 161 x 98 mm). Lacks half-title in vol. 1 and terminal blanks in all 3 vols., half-title guarded in vol. 3, strong offsetting from morocco library label in vol. 1 to title-page, washed and pressed with residual foxing and staining throughout vol. 1, quires A–F in vol. 2, and quire B in vol. 3. Sympathetically bound in half mottled calf antique over marbled boards, spines in 6 compartments, russet and black lettering and numbering pieces, plain endpapers, edges uniformly marbled with boards.  15,000—25,000 USD

LOT 51

Pride and Prejudice: A Novel. London: T. Egerton, 1813

3 volumes, 12mo (6 3/4 x 4 1/16 in.; 170 x 104 mm). Lacks all half-titles, washed and pressed with residual staining and browning but less pronounced in vols. 2–3, strong offsetting from morocco label and binding to title-page and B1 in vol. 1, offsetting from binding to title-pages and terminal leaves in vols 2–3, short tears to inside lower left corners in vol. 1, quire B. Modern half black calf over marbled boards, spines in 6 compartments, red morocco labels, endpapers and edges plain.  10,000—15,000 USD

 LOT 52

Mansfield Park.London: Printed for T. Egerton, 1814

3 volumes, 12mo (7 x 4 in.; 175 x 100 mm). Lacking final blanks in vols. 2–3 and all 3 half-titles, long tears at 1:P12 costing at least 4 words, quire 1:Q loose, long tear in 2:C1 touching 5 lines, small perforations in gutters of 3:C3–6, title-page tipped in vol. 3, occasional light staining, chiefly marginal, a few short tears. Modern brown buckram, black morocco spine labels, plain endpapers and edges.  6,000—8,000 USD

 LOT 53

Emma: A Novel. London: Printed for John Murray, 1816

3 volumes, 12mo (6 3/4 x 4 1/8 in.; 170 x 104 mm). Half-titles; washed and pressed with some residual foxing and staining, particularly to half-titles, short split to vol. 1 half-title near gutter. Half mottled calf, marbled boards, spines in 6 compartments (2 reserved for lettering pieces), the others ornamented with gilt marguerites and floral cornerpieces, plain endpapers, top edges gilt; joints and spine ends a trifle rubbed, endpapers renewed. Blue holland paper slipcase; faded and stained.  10,000—15,000 USD

LOT 54

Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. London, John Murray, 1818

4 volumes, 12mo (6 3/4 x 4 1/8 in.; 170 x 104 mm). Lacking half-titles in vols. 2–4 and blanks P7,8 in vol. 4 called for by Gilson, marginal offsetting to title-pages from bindings, washed and pressed with some residual toning and foxing. Uniformly bound with Emma (see previous lot); joints rubbed. Blue holland paper slipcase; faded and stained.   6,000—8,000 USD

Go in and browse the online catalogue – there are amazing items in this sale: Dickens, Bronte, Dickinson, Beatrix Potter and Arthur Rackham, Steinbeck letters,  Mark Twain, and so much more !

[Images and description text from the Sotheby’s catalogue]

Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont