Jane Austen's Regency World Magazine: A New Issue

The July/August 2011 issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine is now on sale and has been mailed to subscribers.

In the new issue:

JANE AUSTEN FESTIVAL IN BATH A preview of the exciting programme lined up for September

THEATRICAL PAINTINGS The amazing set of costumed portraits collected by Somerset Maugham is now in safe hands

COAST DELIGHTS How Jane Austen depicts the seaside in her novels

FORGOTTEN BROTHER Maggie Lane traces the life of George Austen, Jane’s little-known brother

LUNAR RIOTS The day a Georgian society in Birmingham was attacked by a mob

WHEN WE ARE GONE How did Cassandra handle Jane’s legacy, and what about ours?

JANE’S MEN Our favourite author was not only an expert on women, she had a strong insight into the minds of men

Plus: All the latest news from the world of Jane Austen, as well as letters, book 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:

July 9 &10 Jane Austen Festival, Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Sept 17 Jane Austen Festival, Bath, UK (country fayre)

Oct 13-15 JASNA AGM, Fort Worth, Texas, USA


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

Friday Find: An English village named Sherrington

Just recently, Tony Grant, who acts as a guide in Jane Austen country for tourists, took a Canadian family to Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bath. Tony wrote:

To Sherrington, Church Lane. Image @Google Street View

"One of the ladies had family that originated from a little village between Stonehenge and Bath called Sherrington. She asked if we could stop there on the way to Bath. It wasn't far from the A36, the main road to Bath. however it felt as though, within a mile of coming off the main road we had entered an idyllic, picturesque dream like world. The village was in the bottom of a valley hidden from the outside world by great green folds in the landscape. It was indescribably beautiful. It was another world. And the sun shone on us from a blue sky and bird song was all around. It felt as though we had gone to heaven."

Tony's pictures are mostly of Sherrington church, called St Cosmas and Damian and the interior shots.

Sherrington to Boyton, Wiltshire, England 

I added images created through Google street view. They have the soft, fuzzy edges. Wikipedia says this about the village:

"Sherrington has the remains of a motte-and-bailey castle, presumed to have been made late in the 11th or early in the 12th century. 

Sherrington had a parish church by 1252 and it was dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian by 1341. [The church] was completely rebuilt in 1624; the new building includes the early 14th century east and west windows of the original building. It has a bellcot that was added in he 19th century. 

The village has a large mill pond."

Whilst virtually traveling through Google street view, I saw only a picturesque place. No fast food joints. No nasty 21st century signs.

Emma to Play Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Remember my Pride and Prejudice and Zombies conspiracy theory? The one that asserts that announcements and pronouncements regarding the making of the film are designed to keep the book front and center in the publicity rumor mill? Well, another announcement about the film's casting has been made.

Emma Stone, she of the red hot upwardly spiraling career, has been named as a viable candidate for playing Lizzie Bennet, zombie slayer extraordinaire. Emma's had experience playing a zombie slayer in Zombie land, so why not? Click on this link to read the news article. 

Zombieland, the poster

Emma Stone as zombie slayer  Wichita

Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg in action ...

...slaying zombies

Lizzie Bennet in action in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

The actress can clean up nicely to look romantic.

Will Banned Books Get Boys Interested in Jane Austen?

From Annual Jane Austen Night*

Geek Mom offered an interesting article on Wired on how to get teenage boys to read the classics.

Why, simple! Give them a list of banned books, like:

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Whoa! Pride and Prejudice? Darcy's dip in the lake certainly was not written by Jane. Even Geek Mom knew that. So she went to the source to find out why pimply pre-pubescent boys would read a spinster's 200 year-old-novel:

"If you’re wondering about that last one … well, as Nick, another of the boys in the group, explained, “It’s good to read to get the cultural references.” I suspect the allusions Nick was trying to understand involved the Undead, but hey, I’m not going to argue with anything that could get my kids to voluntarily pick up Jane Austen."

They're reading the original in order to understand Pride and Prejudice and Zombies??!!!! Ack! Guess that's is better than endlessly playing World of Warcraft or hanging around the mall.

*Image: Click on this link

Jane Austen Character Throwdown

You are a keen observer of personality oddities and collector of outrageous statements. Which Jane Austen character would you wish to observe most through visits and one-on-one interaction? If you prefer another character, please leave a comment.

Mr. Collins - Pride and Prejudice

Lady Catherine de Bourgh - Pride and Prejudice

Mr. Palmer - Sense and Sensibility

Mrs. Elton - Emma

Jane Austen Character Throwdown
	Mr Collins
	Lady Catherine de Bourgh
	Mr Palmer
	Mrs Elton
pollcode.com free polls

Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard by Belinda Roberts

Sourcebooks has released Belinda Robert's Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard: A Tale of Tide & Prejudice!

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a yacht must be in want of a female crew…

The balmy seaside resort town of Salcombe boasts the best in bikinis, sandcastle contests, and a fiercely competitive squad of buff local lifeguards as Regatta Week approaches. And if that weren’t enough excitement, Mrs Bennet hears that the splendid villa Netherpollock has been rented by a young man of great fortune. She is determined he’ll go out with one of her daughters, until Mr Darcy glides in on his stunning yacht Pemberley and she decides he would be the better catch...

• Follow the blog tour at Austenprose!
• Order the book at Sourcebooks.

Sense & Sensibility - Listen and Read with CC Prose

I've recommended to readers who have a difficult time with Jane Austen's prose to listen to her novels in podcasts, tapes, or CDs. This interactive series allows newbies to Jane Austen to read her prose and listen at the same time. Click here to read/listen to 50 chapters of Sense and Sensibility with synchronized text, interactive transcript, and closed captions.



I can download these videos onto my iTouch, and listen/read to them whenever I have some spare time.All audio on this channel is through the courtesy of Librivox.org.

The Hats at the Royal Ascot Races, 2011

Queen Anne first saw the potential for a racecourse at Ascot, then called East Cote. Whilst out riding in 1711, she came upon an area of open heath, not far from Windsor Castle, that looked an ideal place for “horses to gallop at full stretch”. The first race meeting held at Ascot took place on Saturday 11 August 1711. Her Majesty’s Plate, worth 100 guineas and open to any horse, mare or gelding over the age of six, was the inaugural event. - Ascot Racecourse

Royal Ascot, 2011

I have been fascinated by the hats worn at the Royal Ascot races since I saw Cecil Beaton's creations for My Fair Lady. Who can forget Eliza Doolittle's fabulous faux pas? "Come on, Dover, move yer bloomin' arse!"

The incomparable Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle

This year's hats are fascinating as always, starting with this Marie Antoinette-like creation:

Anneka Tanakas Svenka in a Louise Mariette head piece

More Anneka

Just can't get enough of Anneka

Belinda Stradwick, dahlings

Isabelle Kristiensen

Incredible peacock hat

More peacock hat

Mrs Florence Claridge in Daisy Hat

Veronica Veronina in a Victoria Grant hat

Tracy Rose in a windmill hat

Another view of Tracy

Spot the bird

Wooden sticks and horses

Pink butterfly hat

Pink rose hat

Classic car

Milliner David Shilling

Trio of hats

Julian Fellowes (script writer of Downton Abbey) and wife Emma Joy Kitchener

Daffodil hat

QE2

Jane Austen Back-to-Back Throwdown

Modified image of a Gerald Scharfe illustration
for The New Yorker.**

This is a first for Jane Austen Today, gentle readers, but I could not resist offering a back-to-back throwdown. It has been reported that Jacketcopy will produce a steamy version of Pride and Prejudice (as if that concept is new). Pride and Prejudice as a bodice ripper? Would you read such a trashy ripoff  intriguing novel?

Pride and Prejudice as a steamy bodice ripper
	Yes, I'll read it
	No way
	Only if I can get it for free
	Still thinking
pollcode.com free polls

**Original Illustration, Gerald Scharfe - The New Yorker, Everybody Loves Jane

Jane Austen Character Throwdown

Which Jane Austen secondary character would you be friends with? Part 2. In last week's friend showdown, you overwhelmingly voted for Colonel Fitzwilliam and Eleanor Tilney, with Mrs. Gardiner a close third. Poor Lady Russell came dead last with a little over 5% of the votes. This week you will consider characters from Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Mansfield Park. You may pick as many as you like, or none.

Emma & Mrs. Weston

Emma

Mrs. Weston (Miss Taylor)

Robert Martin

Sir John Middleton & Mrs. Jennings

Sense and Sensibility

Mrs. Jennings

Sir John Middleton

Pug by Gainsborough

Mansfield Park

Pug

Mrs. Grant

Which secondary Jane Austen character would you be friends with?
	Mrs Weston (Miss Taylor)
	Robert Martin
	Mrs Jennings
	Sir John Middleton
	Pug
	Mrs Grant
pollcode.com free polls

Fish and Chips Friday

Gentle Readers, earlier this week Tony Grant wrote an illuminating post for Jane Austen's World about Brighton during the 19th century and today. As usual, he peppered the article with photographs; so many, that they did not all fit comfortably into the post. In his spare time, Tony acts as a guide for visitors, and squires them around England. During one of those excursions he stopped at a fish and chips takeaway.

Tony's fish and chips dinner, with salt and vinegar

When one thinks of take away food in England, fish and chips come uppermost to one's mind. The history of this dish is rather recent. Pommes frites arrived in Britain from France in the 18th century, and chips were first mentioned in 1854 by a chef in Shilling Cookery. Initially the dish was made separately. Breaded fried fish was sold in fish warehouses around 1830, and it wasn't until 1870 or so that the first fish and chips shop opened in either London's East End or the textile factory districts of northern England.

There are around 11,000 fish and chips (chippie) shops in Britain today.
This one is in Brighton.

In 1910 there were about 25,000 fish and chip businesses in Britain, by 1927, there were around 35,000 family-owned shops, and around 11,000 are open today.

 Fish (cod or haddock) and chips compare favorably to other take away food. The dish has an average of 595 calories per portion, compared to a Big Mac meal with medium fries, which has 888. There are no fish and chips shops in Richmond, VA, but one can order the dish at Joe's Inn, which is quite tasty.

What if Lady Bertram wasn't just indolent and lazy?

What if she suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome? In this scene in Mansfield Park, Lady Bertram bas nodded off to sleep between 10-11, when Edmund and Julia walk into the drawing-room. Edward looks around for Fanny, who was on the sofa nursing a headache:

"While Fanny cut the roses," Brock. Image @Molland's. In the alcove sits Lady Bertram
with pug on her lap.

"Go out! to be sure she did," said Mrs. Norris: "would you have her stay within such a fine day as this? Were not we all out? Even your mother was out to-day for above an hour."

"Yes, indeed, Edmund," added her Ladyship, who had been thoroughly awakened by Mrs. Norris's sharp reprimand to Fanny; "1 was out above an hour. I sat three quarters of an hour in the flower garden, while Fanny cut the roses, and very pleasant it was, I assure you, but very hot. It was shady enough in the alcove, but I declare I quite dreaded the coming home again."

"Fanny has been cutting roses, has she?"

"Yes, and I am afraid they will be the last this year. Poor thing! She found it hot enough; but they were so full blown that one could not wait." - Mansfield Park, Jane Austen, 

The morning after Fanny's ball for Fanny, when her brother William must leave, Jane Austen  describes Fanny's state of mind and her conversation with her aunt:

It was a heavy, melancholy day. Soon after the second breakfast, Edmund bade them good-by for a week, and mounted his horse for Peterborough, and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her aunt Bertram— she must talk to somebody of the ball; but her aunt had seen so little of what had passed, and had so little curiosity, that it was heavy work. Lady Bertram was not certain of any body's dress or any body's place at supper, but her own. "She could not recollect what it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr. Crawford or of William, when he said he was the finest young man in the room; somebody had whispered something to her,— she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be." And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications: the rest was only a languid "Yes — yes — very well — did you? did he ? — I did not see that — I should not know one from the other." This was very bad.

A little later, Lady Bertram says:

The evening was heavy like the day:— "I cannot think what is the matter with me," said Lady Bertram, when the tea-things were removed. "I feel quite stupid. It must be sitting up so late last night. Fanny, you must do something to keep me awake. I cannot work. Fetch the cards, — I feel so very stupid."

One can only conclude that Lady Bertram suffers from indolence, boredom, stupidity, or chronic fatigue, or a combination of all four. What do you think?

Jane Austen and V. S. Naipaul

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.” - Jane Austen, Letters

On May 31st during an interview portion with the Royal Geographic Society the writer V. S. Naipaul, who is considered one of the greatest living writers of English prose, was asked if he considered any woman writer his equal. "I don’t think so," he replied. Until this point, his statement was no big deal, for a great number of the public believes that Jane Austen is very sentimental, many coming to this conclusion based on their perception of the movies adapted from her novels, saying that he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world."   .But then he went further in his explanation:

I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me….[A] woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too…My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh. I don’t mean this in any unkind way...- Buffalo News.Com

Sir V. S. Naipaul, in his house, Wiltshire, England. © AP Photos | The Sidney Mourning Herald

I will say nothing about Naipaul's ouvre, because I've never read one single line of his work. It is conjectured that his opinion of Jane Austen is perhaps a mix of his notorious misogyny and the need to keep himself in the public eye, if even for a short time.

I wonder if he will still be as greatly admired as Jane in the next two hundred years. Poor fellow...  In case I am accused of a partiality to Jane, I shall finish the post with George Eliot *:

“Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” - George Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such

In this quiz the reader is asked to distinguish whether a male of female writer wrote the passages! How well can you guess the author's sex?


Sources:

• The New York Times (2009) “V. S. Naipaul, a Man Who Has Earned a Knighthood, a Nobel and Enemies Galore ”
•  “A grown man does not worry ”, Tom Adair, The Sydney Morning Herald.
• *The Telegraph: “Hay Festival: no woman writer will ever be as good as me, says VS Naipaul ”.

Post contributed by Raquel Sallaberry, Jane Austen em Portugues

Jane Austen Character Throwdown

Which Jane Austen secondary character would you be friends with? For the sake of brevity, I shall pick three novels first, and ask the question again next week with characters from Jane's remaining novels. You may pick as many as you like, or none.

Pride and Prejudice

Colonel Fitzwilliam
Mrs. Gardiner
Charlotte Lucas

Persuasion

Mrs. Smith
Mrs. Croft
Captain Harville

Northanger Abbey

Eleanor Tilney

Which secondary Jane Austen character would you be friends with?
	Colonel Fitzwilliam
	Mrs. Gardiner
	Charlotte Lucas
	Mrs. Croft
	Lady Russell
	Captain Harville
	Eleanor Tilney
pollcode.com free polls

Film Friday

Scents and Sensibility, a modern adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and starring Ashley Williams (Something Borrowed), Marla Sokoloff (Hallmark Channel’s Flower Girl and ABC Family’s Christmas in Boston), and Nick Zano (What I Like About You and Everything You Want) is coming soon. Scents and Sensibility was filmed in 2010 and is currently in the last stages of post production. It is a more comedic telling of Jane Austen’s story. Follow Elinor and Marianne through a sometimes hilarious job search and a journey of learning to trust their hearts.



Check out the film's Facebook page, or "Like" Scents and Sensibility for behind-the-scenes content.

Synopsis:

Scents and Sensibility brings the 1800’s story to the present day with a comedic twist. After their father is charged with swindling investors, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood must make their own way in the world. Having always been given everything they needed, they struggle to find jobs where being a Dashwood isn't a major impediment.

While Elinor finds work as a janitor at a spa, Marianne finds a position at a marketing firm. Their struggle to make ends meet – especially so they can help their mother pay for critical medicine for their youngest sister – is complicated by the risks of love. Their burdens are only lightened by Marianne's hobby of making scented lotions. They learn that one lotion has amazing properties that soothe aches and pains, which they begin selling to supplement their resources. But others learn of the scented lotion formula, which could be worth a fortune.

Marla Zokoloff (Marianne) and Nick Zano (Brandon)

As the sisters strive to overcome the obstacles in their lives, they wonder whom they can trust to help along the way? With all the turmoil can they balance relying on their hearts and using their good sense without losing everything?

Brad Johnson (Edward) and Ashley Williams (Elinor)

Cast:

Ashley Williams – Elinor Dashwood

Marla Sokoloff – Marianne Dashwood

Danielle Chuchran – Margarett Dashwood

Jim Christian – Mr. Dashwood

Brad Johnson – Edward Farris

Nick Zano – Brandon

Jason Celaya – John Willoughby

Jaclyn Hales – Lucy Steele

Dee Macaluso – Mrs. Jennings

The release date has not yet been set.

Who is Who?

I am reading The Making of Pride and Prejudice (1995) and the book has lovely histories and images.

One of the photos intrigued me because I could not identify all the actors. I recognized Mrs. Bennet, Mary Bennet, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. In one case I suspect who is the actor, but I am not sure. There are still two remaining ladies who I do not recognize.

Could you help me identify them?

PS: I'm curious about the books the Ladies are reading, but in this case it is almost impossible to see the titles...

Contributed by Raquel Sallaberry, Jane Austen em Português,