But not in Richmond. We'll just have to make do with multiple photos of Anne Hathaway arriving for the New York City premiere. Click here to see them.
A WalkWith Jane Austen is a lovely book, full of unexpected insights and revelations. Lori Smith's revealing and personal account is a pure joy to read. As a single, independent and talented woman she is in want of a man, but will not compromise her principles or her quest to experience romantic love in order to simply be with one. Sound familiar? This is one of the many parallels of Lori's life to Jane's. However, the one distinct difference between the two women is that Jane lived a geographically circumscribed and rather "eventless" life, whereas Lori is a seasoned world traveler who has embarked on a risky but life-altering journey.
In Part One of this very personal three part account, Lori travels to Oxford. Sitting in a church, she muses about Jane Austen's faith. As I read Lori's words, it occurs to me how universally loved Jane has become. Studying the world map sitting on my blog, Jane's fans live in China, Korea, Italy, South Africa, Chili, Mexico, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Bahrain, and of course, all the former British Colonies. How is it that Jane is able to attract a close following from so many countries and faiths? As Lori points out, while Jane is religious and operates from a moral foundation, she was spiritually reserved. "'She was 'more inclined to think and act than to talk' about her faith." Lori is so right, and I wonder if Jane's reserved approach to faith in her novels is one of the reasons she is so universally approachable and loved. In addition to our admiration of Jane's enormous writing talent, her novels about families, friends, and love gone awry and set right again resonate with people from a variety of backgrounds and religions.
At Oxford Lori meets several guys from D.C., one of whom is named Jack. At first impression she likes his easy going humor and affability. And although Jack confesses that he had just begun to see another woman and wasn't expecting to meet someone else, Lori cautiously and inexorably begins to fall for him. Her analysis of life as a single woman and quest for a man to share her life echo those of many single women. This includes Jane, who also preferred to spend her life single rather than settle on a mate just for the sake of getting married. Part One of the book ends with Lori spending a wonderful evening with Jack and friends, one that is filled with conversation and laughter.
Visit Lori's website here: Jane Austen Quote of the Day
In the image of the seaside above by James Gillray (A Calm, 1810) one can see the high hem of a typical seaside dress of the day, and the bathing machines lined along the water. Bathing in the sea, especially during the cold season, became fashionable in seeking a cure for many illnesses. The following is a short passage from The Bathing was so delightful this morning: The bathing experiences of Jane Austen and others from The Jane Austen Society of Australia:
In fact, during the Regency Era few men and women wore bathing costumes. They often swam nude, and entered the sea in separate beaches sheltered by rented bathing machines drawn by horses (much like those in the photograph above, taken in 1885-1890). Bathers changed in and out of their clothes in these portable dressing rooms. An 18th century description of a bathing machine from The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker gives one a good idea of what being in one was like:
This caricature depicts the staircase leading to the Great Room at Somerset House in Pall Mall, which was where the members of the Royal Academy exhibited their paintings. The stairway to the Great Room was steep and long, and undoubtedly tough to negotiate during crowded days.
(Thomas Rowlandson, The Exhibition Stare Case (c. 1811, hand-colored etching; etching may be by Rowlandson, although the coloring is not).
Wilton House, located in Wiltshire, is the ancestral home of the Earls of Pembroke. In 1811, Louis Simond wrote about his visit to the great house in An American in Regency England. Here is his description of the park and grounds.
I measured an evergreen oak (not a large tree naturally); it covered a space of seventeen paces in diameter, and the trunk was twelve feet in circumference. An elm was sixteen feet in circumference, and many appeared about equal. Beyond the water, which before it spreads out into a stagnant lake, is a lively stream, you see an insulated hill covered with wood. 
We went to it by a very beautiful bridge. The view from that eminence is fine, and its slope would have afforded a healthier and pleasanter situation for the house. The deer came to the call, and ate leaves held to them - too tame for beauty, as they lose by it their graceful inquietude and activity and become mere fat cattle for the shambles. Deer are a good deal out of fashion, and have given way to sheep in many parks.
Veteran Oak, Windsor Park
Arial view of the Wilton House grounds
In reading Undressing Mr. Darcy, this phrase leaped off my computer screen:
Here are two more descriptions of washing and doing laundry before modern conveniences took over. The first one is from Digital History:
The most interesting bit of information about laundering in the 19th century and before was the following excerpt from Reflections on Early Modern Laundry:
Be still my beating heart! I found another article about Mr. Darcy. Read this wonderful 2005 online article from Parameter Magazine about the clothes Mr. Darcy would wear and how they are made. Here is a quote from the website:
Top photo: David Rintoul. Middle photo: Colin Firth. Last Photo: Matthew MacFadyen & Simon Woods
Eric and Charlus, two of my blog friends, forwarded items of interest about David Lassman, director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, who had submitted several chapters from three of Jane Austen's novels to a score of publishing houses. They were summarily rejected. In fact, only one editor among the lot spotted the hoax and recognized that the submission had been lifted from Pride and Prejudice. This is more an indictment of how layered the submission process has become, since most query letters and submissions from authors don't make it past support staff unless the writer has signed up with a well regarded agent or has been invited to submit a proposal.
Pre order copies of both books at Amazon.com. Confessions is coming out August 1, and A Walk will be coming out this fall.
Gentle, Readers, these questions are designed to tickle the fancy of a Jane Austen fan who has read her books recently or often. The answers sit backwards at the bottom of this post.
Jewellery was not as popular during the Regency Era as one might surmise and its blatant use was considered vulgar. Nevertheless, beautiful examples survive from that era in the form of delicate earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, as in the heart pendant from 1800 above, the garnet and crystal ring and the long diamond and emerald earrings below. Diamonds were the preferred gemstone during this period, but pearls were also popular.
As always, the Prince Regent lived according to his own extravagant standards. In An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England, Venetia Murray writes: The Prince was clearly unable to pass a jewellery shop without buying what he referred to as a 'trinket', meaning anything from a diamond tiara to a butterfly brooch with emerald eyes. Among the fashionable jewellers he patronized were Hamlet's - whose customers included the Duke of York, the Duchess of Cloucester and various foreign rolyals - Thomas Gray in Sackville Street and Phillips in Bond Street. But his favoroute by far was Rundell and Bridge on Ludgate Hill, the principal goldsmiths and jewellers at the time.
Constance Hill writes in Jane Austen: Her Homes and Friends:
On the anniversary of Jane Austen's death - she died 190 years ago today - I thought I would put a different spin on things and celebrate her life. Jane means so many things to so many people, and her popularity, instead of diminishing, increases each year. What is it about Jane that attracts so many to her? It seems that every time we turn around, another book about Jane's life sits on a shelf in a book store and she is more popular than ever.
In her new book, A Walk With Jane Austen, author Lori Smith describes the first time she encountered Jane Austen in college. She discovered Pride and Prejudice in a used book sale, and so, over Christmas break, her love affair with Jane Austen began. My own relationship with Jane's novels started during my fourteenth summer. Like Lori I have read Jane's marvelous words ever since. But I digress. This post is meant to be a review of Lori's quest to strengthen her relationship with Jane and, in doing so, gain a better sense of her own life, which was whirling out of kilter.
I plan to review Lori's book chapter by chapter. The book, published by Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group, a Division of Random House, Inc., will be available this fall. Click here to visit Lori's blog.
These days it is not uncommon to see prominent cleavage shown in films set during the Regency era, most recently in ITV's Mansfield Park, where the actress Billie Piper in the role of Fannie Price is dressed to show off her two best assets. Aside from her loose and riotous hair, with which I also find exception, this particular Fanny Price fails to exhibit in her daytime attire the modesty of character for which she is famously known. I understand the producers deliberately chose a livelier actress to play this rather stiff and morally upright heroine, but in my opinion they went overboard in "undressing" her.
In The Mirror of Graces a Lady of Distinction writes: "Indeed, in all cases, a modest reserve is essential to the perfection of feminine attraction." The author goes on to caution young women to "throw a shadow over her yet-unimpaired charms, than to hold them in the light..." In other words, modesty was the key for daytime attire. Bosoms were to be entirely covered, and if the dresses were designed with a low scoop neckline, they were "filled in with a chemisette (a dickey made of thin material) or fichu (a thin scarf tucked into a low neckline). Unlike today, cleavage was NOT a daytime accessory." Rakehell
In the image above, Catherine Morland (Felicity Jones) is shown in proper modest attire; her friend Isabella Thorpe (Carey Mulligan) is not. One imagines that the director and costume designer hoped to demonstrate the difference between the young ladies' temperaments through visual cues, but I found this inaccuracy to historical detail distracting.
Despite Gillray's satiric viewpoint, a young lady of quality would only dare to go so far and then would step no further, as shown in the rather chaste evening gown from Vintage Textiles below and in the fronticepiece of The Mirror of Graces.
Neoclassic silk evening gown with metallic trim, 1800
Evening Gowns, Fronticepiece of The Mirror of Graces
During her short life, Jane Austen was a prolific writer of letters, yet few survive. It is widely known that a majority of Jane's letters were burned by her sister Cassandra and destroyed by other members of her family. Their reasons were varied. This excerpt from Jim and Ellen Moody's website: English and Continental Literature, discusses the destruction of these letters and the reasons for it:
Jane Austen, 1775-1817: I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow; I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself. I loved her only too well -- not better than she deserved, but I am conscious that my affection for her made me sometimes unjust to and negligent of others; and I can acknowledge, more than as a general principle, the justice of the Hand which has struck this blow.
Your very affec: Aunt
J. A. Had I not engaged to write to you, you wd* have heard again from your Aunt Martha, as she charged me to tell you with her best Love.
Alas, Jane died in her sister's arms on July 18, 1817. Today, there is a debate about the disease that caused her early death. (See the links below.) Mourning rituals and observances were fixed during the 19th century, and a lock of Jane's hair is preserved to this day (see the sidebar in this blog). I wouldn't be surprised (though I have found no corroboration of my suspicion) that Cassandra or Mrs. Elliot, Jane's mother, wore a locket with a sample of her hair.
Mourning heart locket, 1800-1820, typical of its day and often filled with the hair of a loved one.
