Winterthur

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The Pemberley Post, No. 9 (Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

A week of goodies: Edward Gorey’s covers, Freddie Mercury, costumes for The Crown, Women’s History Month, Erotica, Cookery, Potatoes, Green Books, Doll Houses, and Highwaywomen…

Edward Gorey’s covers for literary classics: https://lithub.com/edward-goreys-illustrated-covers-for-literary-classics/
-What’s scary is how many of the books with these covers I have actually owned…(that dates me!)

 

***

Mary Wroth, a contemporary of Shakespeare, is the author of the Guardian’s poem of the week https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/jan/28/poem-of-the-week-from-a-crown-of-sonnets-dedicated-to-love-by-lady-mary-wroth

From A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love:

In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn?

Ways are on all sides, while the way I miss:

If to the right hand, there, in love I burn;

Let me go forward, therein danger is.

***

Now to the 21st-century – here is the Freddie Mercury clone Marc Martel who sings some of the songs in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic: http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/marc-martel-sings-just-like-freddie-mercury.html

***

Opening at Winterthur at the end of March (through January 5, 2020): “Costuming The Crown” http://www.winterthur.org/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/future-exhibitions/thecrown/

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Girl with Potato Earring – Atlas Obscura

Waxing poetic on the Potato – more than you ever thought you needed to know: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/potato-idioms

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A Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition: “First Chefs: Fame and Foodways from Britain to the Americas” (Jan 19 – Mar 31, 2019): https://www.folger.edu/exhibitions/first-chefs-fame-foodways-britain-americas

-and some of the recipes, such as Hannah Wooley’s Orange and Lemon Marmalade, or William Hughes’s Hot Chocolate: https://www.folger.edu/exhibitions/first-chefs/recipes

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March is Women’s History Month!

Two databases that focus on Women Writers are FREE during the whole month of March:

  1. Orlando: the subscription service Orlando:Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present will be available free for all through the month of March for Women’s History Month: http://orlando.cambridge.org/svHomePage

Here is the login information: (no caps, no spaces)

Id: womenshistory19
pw: orlando19

  1. The Women Writers Online collection includes more than 400 texts written and translated by women, first published between 1526 and 1850 (no login info required: you can search and read the texts in the collection at: http://wwo.wwp.northeastern.edu/WWO

Peter Harrington has put out a catalogue: In Her Own Words: Works by Exceptional Women – you can read it here: https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/151-final-low-res.pdf

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Erotica at the British Library: see this blog post at Untold Lives “Smutty stuff’ for ‘debauched readers’: The Merryland books in the Private Case” https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2019/02/smutty-stuff-for-debauched-readers-the-merryland-books-in-the-private-case.html

The Private Case is an historic collection of erotica segregated from the main British (Museum) Library collection on grounds of obscenity from the 1850s onwards in a moral climate of suppression and censorship. Now much of the work has been digitized for all the world to see (subscription through Gale or in the Reading Room of the British Library).

***

The Doll’s House at the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood – with great pictures:
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/02/28/denton-welchs-dolls-house/

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Those of us watching Victoria might want more information on the Great Exhibition of 1851: here’s a very small sampling of what’s on the internet:

The Great Exhibition – America

*

Then there’s the scene in North and South with Margaret and John Thornton meeting at the Great Exhibition and where she first sees the respect with which he is held by others (and always nice to have a reason to post a pic with Richard Armitage…)

“North and South” – the visit to the Great Exhibition

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For those of you wanting to know more about the Green Books that are the heart of the Green Book movie, The New York Public Library has a research guide and a digitized collection online here: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2019/02/25/explore-green-books-schomburg-center

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OK, are you a Miss, Mrs. or a Ms.? (all Misters – this is not about you…): Alexander Atkins at the Bookshelf gives us the history – it goes back a long time in case you didn’t know: https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/what-is-mrs-short-for/

(you should follow this blog – always enlightening word and book history…)

***

Lady Ferrers – Geste of Robin Hood

This week’s favorite “Found on the Internet and how will I ever read it all…”: https://gesteofrobinhood.com/

Here Begynneth A Lytell Geste of Robin Hood… Being A General and True History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Rogues, Cheats, Murderers and Rebel Leaders from the Medieval Period to the 19th Century

This post on “Female Highwaymen” is most arresting (pun intended)… https://gesteofrobinhood.com/2015/10/18/female-highwaymen/

Lady Katherine Ferrers (1634-1660) – do you think Jane Austen had her in mind when creating her Fanny Ferrars Dashwood (the sneaky thief of inheritances)?? Or perhaps that’s where Mrs. Ferrars money came from?

Happy reading! What has been your favorite internet find this week?

C2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Penny Post Weekly Review ~ All Things Jane Austen ~ And More!

The Penny Post Weekly Review

5 January 2012

Well, first a very Happy New Year to one and all!! – I have been away from my computer, and find some of my gathered “news” is no longer actually new, so I include here just some goodies discovered on the internet, a good number only peripherally related to Jane, but interesting nonetheless… [or so I believe…]

News /Gossip 

* How about taking a Jane Austen Cruise?! This coming July, you can head from Southampton to Guernsey, Spain and France for an 8-day cruise filled with all manner of Jane Austen diversions – http://janeaustencruise.com/

* Steventon remains unearthed!: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-16002088 

* At the Huffington Post, Deirdre Le Faye on Jane Austen’s Letters – “9 Facts You Didn’t Know”:
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deirdre-le-faye/jane-austen-letters_b_1153966.html?mid=555

* The Amanda Vickery broadcast of The Many Lovers of Jane Austen may have only aired in the UK, but we can view it here, with thanks to Diana Birchall for sending me the video link:

http://www.videozer.com/video/R5mHMAS?mid=56427

You might also like to check in at Jane Austen’s Regency World blog to see a review of the show by Tony Grant and the numerous (some indignant!) comments on his take on the Fort Worth JASNA AGM. You should watch the video and then read the review and comment if you can…!

 The Circulating Library


 * If you have enjoyed the Bitch in a Bonnet blog, you will be interested to know that Rodi’s writings on the first three Austen novels are available for your ereader! –  all for 99c… read about it here:  

http://bitchinabonnet.blogspot.com/2011/12/home-news.html

* Sense and Sensibility: The Bath/ Palazzo Bicentenary Edition Palazzo, illustrated by Niroot Puttapipat

Read more here: http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-Sense-and-Sensibility-The-Bath-2413443.php#ixzz1h55k3iJ3

* The latest Marvel Comic of Northanger Abbey [Issue 2] came out on December14th: 

http://marvel.com/comic_books/issue/41722/northanger_abbey_2011_2

* Dr. Maureen Mulvihill spoke at the Florida Bibliophile Society on “The Evolution and Education of a Collector (1980s-): The Mulvihill Collection of Rare and Special Books and Images.”  http://www.floridabibliophilesociety.org/mulvihill.html

* If you have an interest in bygone etiquette books, Abebooks compiled a list several months ago – here are some items for sale by various booksellers:

The Lady's Guide to Perfect Gentility - Emily Thornwell, 1856

  http://www.abebooks.com/books/men-vs-women-etiquette-manners/womens-gentlemens-guides.shtml?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-110328-m00-etiquettA-_-men

* Yale has issued several new updates of their Pevsner architectural books:

http://yalebooks.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/pevsner-update-news-about-new-and-forthcoming-architectural-guides-from-the-pevsner-editorial-team/

* New works from Pickering & Chatto:

1.  The Business of the Novel: Economics, Aesthetics and the Case of Middlemarch, by Simon R Frost

 http://www.pickeringchatto.com/monographs /business_of_the_novel_the

2.  Fashioning the Silver Fork Novel, by Cheryl Wilson

http://www.pickeringchatto.com/monographs/fashioning_the_silver_fork_novel

3.  and something new about Jane, coming in June 2012:

Jane Austen’s Civilized Women: Morality, Gender and the Civilizing Process, by Enit K. Steiner:

http://www.pickeringchatto.com/monographs/jane_austen_s_civilized_women

Jane Austen’s six complete novels and her juvenilia are examined in the context of civil society and gender. Steiner’s study uses a variety of contexts to appraise Austen’s work: Scottish Enlightenment theories of societal development, early-Romantic discourses on gender roles, modern sociological theories on the civilizing process and postmodern feminist positions on moral development and interpersonal relations.

Austen is presented as a writer who not only participated in late eighteenth-century debates, but who is able to address twenty-first-century concerns of a theoretical and practical nature.

 
* Gentleman’s Magazine exhibit at University of  Otago – not yet online:

Gentleman's Magazine - Monash University

Special Collections,University of Otago Library, is fortunate to have an entire run of the Gentleman’s Magazine from 1731 to 1866. Started by Edward Cavein January 1731, and printed form many years at St. John’s Gate in London, it was a ‘repository of all things worth mentioning’. It was the first ‘magazine’ in the modern sense. It was also the most important periodical in 18th century England, reflecting in its pages the diversity of Georgian life, politics and culture. It covered current affairs, political opinion, lead articles from other journals, miscellaneous information such as quack cures and social gossip, prices of stocks, science and technological discoveries, notices of births, deaths, and marriages, ecclesiastical preferments, travel, parliamentary debates, and poetry. Writers such as Dr Johnson, John Hawkesworth, Richard Savage, and Anna Seward were just a few of the thousands who contributed to it. At 6d per issue, it was an outstanding bargain. It remains an inexhaustible mine of information for scholars of eighteenth century life, and because of the wealth of genealogical information and records, it has become an important resource for family historians. 

Our exhibition ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine. The 18th century Answer to Google ‘ begins on 21 December 2011 and runs through to 16 March 2012, just in time for the new student intake. Eventually it will be online.

 But while we wait for that – you can visit their latest online exhibition “In Search of Scotland”

http://library.otago.ac.nz/exhibitions/insearchofscotland/index.html
 

  • Charles Dickens:

As we will are celebrating Charles Dickens 200th birthday throughout 2012, I will be posting a number of Dickens-related goings-on – I can only think that Austen would heartily approve of giving him his just due, and thus, he now has his own category in the PPWR: 

1. A bookseller’s list of some of his works that they have for sale [Tavistock Books]: 
 http://tinyurl.com/7c2t2y3

2. This one is very exciting as it combines my love of Dickens and my love of London and makes full use of my iphone capabilities: Dickens Dark London from The Museum of London:

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

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

  •  Books I am Looking Forward to:

* Thomas Jefferson’s Granddaughter in Queen Victoria’s England: The Travel Diary of Ellen Wayles Coolidge, 1838-1839. Edited by Ann Lucas Birle and Lisa A. Francavilla. Hardbound, 464 pages, 20 color and 10 black and white illustrations. Copublished by the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.  http://www.monticellocatalog.org/205632.html

 Ellen Wayles Coolidge arrived in London in June 1838 at the advent of QueenVictoria’s reign – the citizens were still celebrating the coronation. During her nine-month stay, Coolidge kept a diary that reveals the uncommon education of her youth, when she lived and studied at Monticello with her grandfather Thomas Jefferson. This volume brings the full text of her diary to publication for the first time, opening up her text for today’s reader with carefully researched annotations that provide the historical context.

London’s clocks, theaters, parks, public buildings, and museums all come under Coolidge’s astute gaze as she and her husband, Joseph Coolidge, Jr., travel the city and gradually gain entry into some of the most coveted drawing rooms of the time. Coolidge records the details of her conversations with writers such as Samuel Rogers, Thomas Carlyle, and Anna Jameson and activists including Charles Sumner and Harriet Martineau. She gives firsthand accounts of the fashioning of the young queen’s image by the artists Charles Robert Leslie and Sir Francis Chantrey and takes notes as she watches the queen open Parliament and battle the first scandal of her reign. Her love of painting reawakened, Coolidge chronicles her opportunities to view over four hundred works of art held in both public and private collections, acknowledging a new appreciation for the modern art of J. M. W. Turner and a fondness for the Dutch masters.

As rich as her experience in England proves to be, Coolidge often reflects on her family in Boston andVirginia and her youth at Monticello. As she encounters her mother’s schoolgirl friends and recalls the songs her grandfather sang while working in his study, Coolidge’s thoughts return to Monticello and the lessons she learned there. Across the spectrum of her observations, Coolidge’s diary is always strikingly vivid and insightful – and frequently quite funny.

* Cambridge University Press has just published Samuel Johnson in Context, a collection of 47 short essays about the great lexicographer and his world. The book, which is aimed at a college and general audience, is edited by DSNA member Jack Lynch (also author of The Lexicographer’s Dilemma: The Evolution of English from Shakespeare to South Park [2009]). Lynda Mugglestone contributes an article on “Dictionaries” and Lisa Berglund,  the introductory chapter on “Life.” Visit the Cambridge UP website for a complete Table of Contents: http://www.cambridge.org/gb/knowledge/isbn/item6476720/?site_locale=en_GB

Few authors benefit from being set in their contemporary context more than Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson in Context is a guide to his world, offering readers a comprehensive account of eighteenth-century life and culture as it relates to his work. Short, lively and eminently readable chapters illuminate not only Johnson’s own life, writings and career, but the literary, critical, journalistic, social, political, scientific, artistic, medical and financial contexts in which his works came into being. Written by leading experts in Johnson and in eighteenth-century studies, these chapters offer both depth and range of information and suggestions for further study and research. Richly illustrated, with a chronology of Johnson’s life and works and an extensive bibliography, this book is a major new work of reference on eighteenth-century culture and the age of Johnson. [from CUP site]

* John Sutherland,  Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives (Profile Books, 2011)

And a review by Jonathan Bate: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/biographyandmemoirreviews/8899313/Lives-of-the-Novelists-by-John-Sutherland-review.html

 

  • On my bedside table

* Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James.  Listen to this interview on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/08/143276773/in-pemberley-james-picks-up-where-austen-left-off

[ok. I have finished this – will post a short review and a compilation of other reviews – very mixed – but most Austen people seem to be universally disappointed … a shame really – it should have been better…]

  • Articles of Interest

* Rudd, Amanda. “The Spaces Between: Creating A Space for Female Sexuality in Frances Burney’s Evelina, Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.”   Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.1 (2011): 82-91.  Full text here: http://journals.tdl.org/plaza/article/viewFile/5934/pdf_415

* This is a podcast on Jane Austen and the Body, with  Cheryl Kinney and Elisabeth Lenckos [and thanks to Diana B. for the link]: http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2010-Jane-Austen-and-the-Body.aspx
 

Websites and Blogs worth a look:

* From the Letter & Layout – the rest is cultural history blog: about the Macaroni and Theatrical Magazine, with some mention of Almacks:

http://abeautifulbook.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/in-praise-of-eccentricity/

* Austen characters resolutions at Austen Authors: I thought this was very good and a lot of fun – can you think of more?

http://austenauthors.net/jane-austens-characters-new-years-resolutions
 

Museum Musings – Exhibition Trekking

1.  National Portrait Gallery:

Queens in Waiting: Charlotte & Victoria [26 November 2011 – 9 September 2012]

Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold

[by William Thomas Fry, after George Dawe, 1817]

In the early nineteenth century two young women would occupy the position of ‘heir to the throne’ in quick succession. One died tragically early, while the other, born to replace her, went on to reign for over sixty years as Queen Victoria. Telling a tale of romance, sorrow and renewed hope, this display focuses on the fateful linkage in the history of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Princess Victoria of Kent, and how both their lives pivoted around Prince Leopold – beloved husband to one, and trusted uncle to the other.

Featuring a range of portraits in wax, watercolour, and print, as well as commemorative images, it includes an engraving of Princess Charlotte’s last portrait from life by Sir Thomas Lawrence, completed posthumously. By bringing together these images, the display traces the idealised nature of the imagery used to represent a young woman in direct line to the throne at a time when the nation tired of the debauched Prince Regent’s rule. [from the NPG website]

 

* Winterthur is offering a workshop: Furniture in the South: Makers & Consumers – March 1–2, 2012
http://www.winterthur.org/?p=946&src=eblast

[image: Easy chair made in Charleston, South Carolina, 1760-70]

* An exhibition of recent acquisitions at Monash University– a memoir of a London pickpocket [George Barrington]:

http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/recent-acquisitions6/virtual-exhibition/items/item29.html

* Exhibition at the Boston Public Library – Rare Books Exhibition Room, through March 30, 2012:

From Pen to Print: the Handwriting Behind the Book features handwritten letters, notes, postcards, and other manuscripts that reveal personal, private, and otherwise veiled aspects of the production of books. Putting authors’ manuscript materials on display alongside their print books, the exhibition reveals the passions, obsessions, lofty dreams, and gritty realizations triggered by the writing and publishing process. These materials capture the relationships between 19th- and 20th-century American authors, editors, and readers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Cary, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Frost, and more. Open in the Rare Books Lobby at the Central Library in Copley Square through Friday, March 30, 2012, 617-536-5400. Special hours: M, T, W, F: 9am-5pm; Th: 11am-7pm

* American Christmas Cards 1900-1960: by Kenneth Ames:  the exhibit at the Bard Graduate Center is now over, but you can read about it here:

http://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/gallery-at-bgc/focus-gallery-1/christmas-cards.html

and more about the book here: http://yalepress.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/for-the-card-carrying-shopper-kenneth-ames-on-christmas-cards/
Regency Life

  • History 

* History Today – articles on Georgian England [many are for subscribers only, but there are several available to all]:  http://www.historytoday.com/early-modern-16th-18thc/georgian

  • Fashion

* The Charleston Museum– Fashion Plates: Illustrating History’s Latest Styles, 1760-1920s [November 19, 2011 – May 6, 2012] 

http://www.charlestonmuseum.org/exhibits-fashionplates

And you can follow the Museum’s Textile Tuesday, a weekly post of a piece from their extensive textile collection : http://charlestonmuseum.tumblr.com/

Shopping:  [I’m done with shopping…]

For Fun:

Visit the blog of the Jane Austen House Museum [now penned by Julie Wakefield of Austenonly!] for a post on board games for the holidays – “Snakes and Ladders the Jane Austen Way” …

http://janeaustenshousemuseumblog.com/2012/01/03/a-board-game-for-the-holidays-snakes-and-ladders-the-jane-austen-way/

Enjoy the browsing! – let me know if you find anything interesting to share…

Copyright @2012 Jane Austen in Vermont
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In such good company as this ~ the 2009 AGM!

The 2009 JASNA AGM ~  
Jane Austen’s Brothers and Sisters in the City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia October 9-11, 2009

 AGM 2009 banner

The best-laid plans of course often go astray – so my hopes to do a close analysis of everything going on the 2009 AGM have been sadly reduced to a mild wish to present a quick summary… so here goes… 

The Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter of JASNA has indeed put on a lovely event – the City of Brotherly Love opened its wide arms for all 550 of us obsessed Janeites, offering great tours, excellent hospitality, lively and elegant evenings, and fabulous sessions filled with all things Jane.  I always upon returning home have the worst time re-entering the 21st century – and this time more than ever.  And time spent with my best-AGM and travel buddy Sara, just adds to the treat … and this year the special treat of JASNA-Vermont friends Kelly and Carol…

 Day 1:  A tour of Winterthur on the Thursday, one of my favorite places through books only, was a living reality of the beauties of home and garden, what one man with a lot of money was been able to preserve for future generations.  I discovered that Electra Havemeyer Webb, the founder of the Shelburne Museum here in Vermont and one of the first collectors of American art and decorative arts, was the inspiration behind Henry du Pont’s veering away from the popular collecting of European antiques toward acquiring Americana.  It was a lovely day and a wonderful way to start that entry into the late 18th-century the rest of the weekend promised!  [only downside: I missed the talks on writing and Wedgwood.]

winterthur-museum-header

 

Thursday evening ~ “Elizabeth Garvie in Conversation with Dr. Elisabeth Lenckos” was a special offering this year and began with a short clip of the first proposal scene in the 1980 Pride & Prejudice.  Ms. Garvie, who most everyone knows as Elizabeth Bennet in that adaptation, and now an active patron of the Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, charmed the audience with her engaging and honest responses to Dr. Lenckos’s questions: the realities of filming a television production in the late seventies; how she portrayed a sister with four sister siblings without any of her own [she had a mother with FIVE sisters!]; a few comments on deleted scenes [falling off the log during that outdoor reading of Darcy’s letter…]; how each new P&P adaptation has something to offer each new generation with a reinterpretation of Austen [though she didn’t like the pig in the 2005 movie either!]  She ended the talk with a very humorous reading from one of Austen’s juvenilia pieces, “The Three Sisters.”

ElizabethGarvieElizabethBennett

 

Day 2:  Had breakfast with several Austen-L / Janeites participants [though I have been only a lurker for years!] – and ended up having a rousing discussion on Georgette Heyer!

An early visit to the Regency Emporium always ends with too many books and items that add to the weight of my suitcase [and those flying rules now are intimidating – even Austen cannot impel me to go over that 50lb limit!] – thankfully Jane Austen Books where I spent most of my time [and money] sends everything media mail after the conference, so I just set up a running account of sorts – almost guilt-free ~ and shopped happily away… The Emporium is great fun to catch up with many of the other regions, Chawton House Library [director Steve Lawrence was there], Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine [with editor Tim Bullamore], Austentation [two tables filled with regency accessories!] and a few other vendors with Austen-related goodies ~ I went back many times over the course of the conference…

 Off to a talk on tea by Mim Enck from the East Indies Company – and learned how to make the perfect “cuppa”…  and then a talk with visuals by Louise West, from the Jane Austen’s House Museum, on the exciting new addition to Chawton Cottage, the dreams, the funding, and the lovely reality.  The grand opening was in July – if you have been to Chawton, but not since this work was done, put it on your next Austen trip itinerary!

chawton cottage

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Marsha Huff, current JASNA President, welcomed all to the first official gathering, giving over the podium to our very own Vermont member Lorraine Hanaway [who was there for the founding of JASNA in 1978] who introduced the first Plenary speaker, Jan Fergus.  I love Dr. Fergus’s talks  – she inspired a whole new way of looking at Austen in her “The Whinnying of Harpies”? Humor in Jane Austen’s Letters” [Persuasions 27 (2005)] and has continued to regale her audiences with the humor of Austen’s whines ever since!  Today she spoke on “’Rivalry, Treachery between sisters!’ Tensions between Brothers and Sisters in Austen’s Novels” –  and the various ways in which Austen’s fictional siblings either love and support or compete with one another. Some of this thinking is based on the conduct books of the 18th-century, but also the reader must have awareness of the problems that arose between siblings due to the inheritance laws of the time.  Fergus showed by example Austen’s use of humor as a form of criticism between characters and how a sense of humor or lack thereof is an important gauge in understanding Austen’s characters:  i.e Marianne lacks humor and openness, thus her lack of understanding Elinor’s humor causes friction between them; Mr. Woodhouse has no sense of humor, just doesn’t get it!; and finally an emphasis on Elizabeth and Jane and how their different personalities and use of humor causes an undercurrent of almost comic aggression on Elizabeth’s part.  I liked this differing view of Elizabeth, not so perfect but with a tendency toward jealousy…

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One of the problems in the AGM is choosing between the breakout sessions – so much to hear, so many speakers – whichever one you choose leaves you knowing that you are, regardless of how great your chosen session might be, missing so much else.  One can only hope that many of the talks you miss will be in the next issue of Persuasions.  I am a voluminous note-taker – but alas! none of my friends are, so after a full day of events and all things Austen being bandied about, one is lucky to get a few intelligible sentences about a missed session – I know if I didn’t take notes, I would have trouble piecing this all together – and indeed even my notes leave me stupefied occasionally! – so I can only present a few thoughts of the four sessions I did go to, knowing full well I am only scratching the surface of the possibilities…

I went to hear Jocelyn Harris, author of ….Jane Austen’s Art of Memory and A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression:  Jane Austen’s ‘Persusaion’, who spoke on “Jane Austen:  Frances Burney’s Younger Sister”.  Harris’s emphasis is to move away from the biological interpretation of Austen toward an historical one, Austen being very connected to her historical and literary references.  In Persuasion, Austen shows her knowledge of the Navy, Nelson and the Napoleonic Wars, but Harris also shows how the two cancelled chapters of Persuasion are steeped in Frances Burney’s The Wanderer.  I confess to having read several books by and about Burney, but The Wanderer has sat upon my TBR pile for many a year, never opened, largely due to the negative contemporary reviews and all those succeeding.  But Dr. Harris has inspired me to finally pick it up, though she says herself it will be a bit of a “slog” – a perfect winter read perhaps…?

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

Then on to Susan Allen Ford’s “’Exactly what a brother should be’? The Failures of Brotherly Love”:  Again, with an emphasis on the contemporary conduct literature [and with a very helpful handout with bibliography and selected paragraphs], Ford reviews the examples of fraternal love in the various novels in the context of the time – issues of inheritance, personality differences, the role of women and the emphasis on them as daughters and mothers rather than sisters, the economic realities of the sister’s lives.  And while she says that “the fraternal role is difficult to define in Austen because the characters as brothers are not often in the foreground”, it was an interesting discussion on their varying degrees of success and failure:  John Dashwood as a brother [yikes!]; the parallels between Edward and Robert Ferrars; Tom Bertram, the prodigal son; the jealousy between Darcy and Wickham, but Darcy’s anxiety and his overriding concern to be a good brother; James Morland as a good brother who wrongly throws his sister into the hands of the Thorpes [yikes again!]; and Edmund, brother / lover who neglects Fanny once Mary appears on the scene [this is when one audience member graciously invited everyone to join the SLEUTH club = “SLap Edmund Upside The Head” – there were many joiners on the spot!] ~ Dr. Ford’s choices? – Edmund the biggest failure [he indeed has NO relationship with his sisters], and most successful? [drum-roll please!] HENRY TILNEY [Mags are you listening??] – and I couldn’t agree more! [love the Henry!] – but an interesting question – who would yours be??

 Then off to dinner with Sara and friends of hers who live in Philadelphia for a few short hours back in the 21st century – we went to an Israeli restaurant right across from the hotel [ Zahav ] and one of the best meals I have had in a good while – even the wine from the Golem Heights was superb!

Up tomorrow – Day 3 and 4…. meanwhile post a comment on your choice for the best and worst brother in Austen…