The Austen Journeys

Gary Warner from the Orange County Register writes:

My Austen journeys have stretched from Steventon, where Austen was born, to Winchester, where she died -- with stops in Bath, Southampton, Portsmouth, Oxford and Chawton along the way.

"These journeys were taken up out of love -- not for Austen, but for my wife, whose stacks of dog-eared Austen paperbacks are on the short shelf next to her nightstand. I am not so much a "Janeite" as an enabler of one. So I offer the apology for a dabbler who writes about what millions across the planet embrace with so much passion.

So take a journey to the world that created the mind that created Elizabeth and Darcy, Elinor and Edward, Emma and Mr. Knightley. We'll just try to avoid Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She might not approve of insolence and mushy breeding..." Click here to read the rest of the article.

Good News: The Jane Austen Festival, featuring Regency dress balls, theatre, dancing, exhibits and talks, will take place Sept. 17 to 25 in Bath.

Chawton Cottage

So many people have had the pleasure of visiting Jane Austen's house, a cottage in Chawton which is now a museum, and published their pictures of the house and gardens online. These photos by Sarah on Flickr show the wallpaper on the walls (a 1988 pattern by Laura Ashley), a different perspective of her bedroom, and, most interestingly, Jane's silhouette framed and hanging on the wall as well as several silhouettes of her relatives. This photo album on Flickr shows the kitchen garden at Chawton Cottage.


This link leads to a map with more images of Chawton, some quite lovely.

Click here to listen to a 9-minute BBC4 podcast of an interview with Sandy Lerner, the American silicon valley millionaire who purchased Chawton House, located near Chawton Cottage and former home of Jane Austen's brother, and created a women's literary centre and library there. Sandy has read Persuasion 70 times!

"Enter Sandy Lerner. It is, of course, a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Californian, in possession of several hundred million dollars, must be in want of a Project. Ms Lerner, in her late 30s, is a farmer's daughter who in 1984 founded, with her husband, a computer company. They sold control of Cisco in 1990 for dollars 170m ( pounds 110m), and further shares in it for many more millions when it went public a year later. Ms Lerner is reclusive, an animal-rights activist, and claims to hold daily conversations with Disraeli. She has spent dollars 115m setting up a charitable foundation. - Chawton is crumbling as Janeites cross swords, the Independent, UK

Other links:

• Money's My Little Defining Thing, Telegraph.co.uk - more about the Chawton House Library
• Chawton House Library
• The Female Spectator, Newsletter of the Chawton House Library
• Chawton House Library Visiting Fellowships