Chair Reading Jane Austen

I just loved this image by Marc Johns, which you can purchase at this site.

Image @Marc Johns

Find other prints of objects reading books on this page. Fabulous stuff.

Book Handbags, Jane Austen Style

This Etsy shop, spoonfullofchocolate, will make custom book bags.

You can order this Pride and Prejudice bag, for instance.

This is how it looks on the inside.

This Librarian Has Yet to Read a Jane Austen Novel

Kelly at Stacked makes a confession: She has yet to finish a Jane Austen novel. Unbelievable as this may seem, this librarian has only completed 40 pages of Sense and Sensibility. That's it!

Eye am not amused. Image @Jane Austen Today

She writes:

Confession: I have not read any Jane Austen. Actually, I take that back. I've been sitting about 40 pages in Sense and Sensibility for over a year now, and I read one of Austen's short stories. I took a class in Victorian Lit (see the Anne Bronte book above) and had one of my favorite professors, who told me that if I wanted to start somewhere with Austen, to read her short story "Lady Susan." "Lady Susan" was the only thing Austen ever wrote that she hated and wished she hadn't written, so of course I read it. It's dark! I loved it! But after that, I never found myself compelled to finish a novel of hers. I've got copies of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and, yes, The Complete Works of Jane Austen on my book shelf. They've been great dust collectors.

DUST collectors? Why not go over to Kelly's blog and let her know what she's been missing! Here's the link.

Jane Austen: Genius

Wolfgang Mozart, Marie Curie, Steve Jobs, Tiger Woods, Jane Austen, Isaac Newton. 

Are geniuses born not made? Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Dr. Zach Hambrick debate this issue. I find it interesting that Jane Austen's image is included among this group. She certainly belongs there, but it is visual proof of how popular she is in today's age. Would her image have been included before the 1990's, I wonder?

The vote in the poll and read the article, click here.

Reading Jane Austen

Cool image from *Nachan on Deviant art.

The Unseen Portrait of Jane Austen

Inquiring Reader, Frequent contributor Raquel Sallaberry sent a YouTube video of Jane Austen: The Unseen Portrait. Sadly, the link was taken off the site. The clip below shows a fascinating discussion of whether the image of the woman identified as Jane Austin is really of her. I wrote a brief post about this portrait before the holidays. The comments that sit below it are more interesting than my own thoughts.

What do you think? Could this be a portrait of Jane Austen or not?

The Unseen Portrait of Jane Austen
	Yes, this is her portrait
	No way
	I'm not sure
pollcode.com free polls

Contributed by Raquel Sallaberry, Jane Austen em Portugues

Mr. Palmer Discusses His Fellow Minor Characters

Gentle Readers, This month I have joined the Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Celebration on Maria Grazia's My Jane Austen Book Club blog. Click on the banner on the sidebar to read the other articles posted each month in celebration of Jane Austen's first published book. The first half of my post about Mr. Palmer's observations of his fellow minor characters in the book sits here. The rest of the article sits on My Jane Austen Book Club. 

I, Thomas Palmer, Esq., have been charged to analyze and discuss the traits of my fellow minor characters in Sense and Sensibility, the first of six novels by Jane Austen. I shall endeavor to do JUSTICE to that estimable author's first published effort, which made its way to the public some 200 years ago and has never failed to be in print since.

I must first cast my thoughts upon Fanny and John Dashwood, whose miserliness oblidged the Dashwood women to leave their comfortable home at Norland to establish themselves in Barton Cottage and live a FRUGAL life in Devonshire amongst strangers. Miss Austen was a mere 20 years of age when she first conceived of this novel in epistolary form, first naming it Elinor and Marianne. That such a young author, whose knowledge of the world was CONFINED largely to books and the experiences of others, could create two such memorable characters as Fanny and John Dashwood portended her genius.

Fanny in particular is a character like no other in literature. Her manipulation of her weak husband in persuading him to abandon his PLEDGE to his father on that man's deathbed is breathtaking in its audacity and avarice. The sequence of her skewed logic and her husband's reaction to her CONTRIVANCE to preserve every pence of her darling son's inheritance is matchless. Even I could not have conceived of a more cynical, darkly humorous dialog than young Miss Austen presented through these two minor characters, thereby setting the novel's direction and tone. “People always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them.” One simply cannot add or take away a word to improve this utterance by Mrs. Dashwood.

The John Dashwoods represent, like so many minor characters, a FOIL – brilliantly conceived foils, to be sure – that are meant to contrast with other characters. Take my rather vulgar brother-in-law, Sir John Middleton, who is renowned for his generous impulses. Whilst the Dashwood ladies were figuratively shoved out of Norland by the John Dashwoods, Sir John, a distant relation, emerges from nowhere to offer them a hearth and home. The CONTRAST twixt the two Johns – one so weak and tight-fisted that he willing to break his vow to his dying father, the other so generous that he is forever inviting the entire neighborhood to sample the contents of his larder – cannot be ignored.

I next turn my gaze upon the Steele sisters, Lucy and Anne. Anne is a flat minor character who is doomed to learn nothing from life's experiences, but who interjects a running COMIC gag over her obsession with Dr. Davies (he will never offer his hand in marriage). Her main purpose in the novel is to REVEAL the engagement of Lucy to Edward at a most awkward moment.

Her sister Lucy, a smarter, prettier version of Anne, is as mean, cunning and scheming a creature as I have ever come across. I had her measure from the start, I assure you. Lucy's sole ambition is to ingratiate herself with her betters in order to take her place in SOCIETY. Knowing of Edward Ferrars' attraction to Miss Dashwood, she makes a preemptive strike by CONFIDING her secrets to Elinor, forcing our hapless heroine to LISTEN to matters that, while they pain her deeply, she must keep to herself. Many minor characters play the role of confidante to a novel's protagonist, but Lucy Steele turned the table on Elinor, forcing her to listen to matters that were most distasteful and hurtful. Our scheming Lucy more than turned the table on Edward, eloping with his younger brother Robert when it becomes apparent that the latter will INHERIT the Ferrars fortune of £1,000 per year. One can only cheer knowing that this feckless couple will always be dissatisfied with each other, always wanting more possessions.

To read the rest of the article, click here to enter My Jane Austen Book Club

Click here to read the other articles in this year long series:

1. January          Jennifer Becton    

Men, Marriage and Money in Sense and Sensibility

2. February      Alexa Adams         

Sense and Sensibility on Film

3. March            C. Allyn Pierson

Property and Inheritance Law in S &S 

4. April               Beth Pattillo

Lost in Sense and Sensibility

5. May                Jane Odiwe

Willoughby: a rogue on trial

6. June               Deb @JASNA Vermont

Secrets in Sense and Sensibility

7. July                Laurie Viera Rigler

Interview with Lucy Steele

8. August           Regina Jeffers       

Settling for the Compromise Marriage

9. September    Lynn Shepherd

The origins of S&S: Richardson, Jane Austen, Elinore & Marianne                                        

10. October       Meredith @Austenesque Reviews

Sense and Sensibility Fan Fiction

11. November   Vic @Jane Austen's World  

Mr. Palmer Discusses His Fellow Minor characters in Sense and Sensibility

12. December    Laurel Ann @Austenprose

Marianne Dashwood: A passion for dead Leaves and other Sensibilities

The Trees in Jane Austen's Landscape

When I was in England, I loved visiting its forests with its bluebell carpets and ancient stands of trees. This article, Trees Scattered Across Jane Austen's England reminded me of my wonderful visits there. These images from Pride and Prejudice 2005, where Elizabeth and the Gardiners are nestled among ancient trees, absolutely took my breath away.

Ice and Ices to Keep Cool

Entrance to the ice house. Image @Tony Grant

The July heat this year is stifling. It is all people (and animals) can do to keep cool. Tony Grant sent two images of an ice house at Ham House in Cleveland.

One can see how far into the ground these ice houses went.
Image @Tony Grant

 Before refrigeration, blocks of ice were carved from frozen rivers, ponds, and streams and carted to these thick-walled, underground ice houses, where the ice was covered with burlap and straw to prevent melting.
Learn about the ways people kept cool during Jane Austen's day at Jane Austen's World.

Ham House

This strawberry frozen yogurt recipe offered by Jean from Delightful Repast is a sure fire way to beat the summer doldrums. Jean writes that yogurt has been around for centuries. I wonder if they froze it even back then?

Strawberry frozen yogurt by Jean @Delightful Repast

Gigi Stone's Jane Austen Wedding? Methinks Not

Gigi and Ian cut the cake

Anisha Lakhani described Gigi Stone's Jane Austen Wedding in Huffington Post yesterday.

A Jane Austen wedding? I did a double take when I saw the images. Where's the Regency inspired gown? The little stone chapel? The horse drawn carriage? The small bouquet of meadow flowers in season? The neatly coiffed and curled hair? While Gigi looked ravishing and the setting of her wedding was picturesque, I would not have described her wedding as Austenesque.

The headline proves how a mere association with Jane Austen's name can attract readers. If you want to see a Regency inspired wedding, view this image of Caroline D's wedding in 2007 on Sense and Sensibility Patterns.

Caroline Ds Regency - Horatio Hornblower - inspired wedding
Image @Sense and Sensibility Patterns

Caroline provides even more information and images on this discussion post.

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

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.

Lyme's Literary Links

"Politely drew back and stopped to give them way." Persuasion illustration. Brock illustrates the moment Anne Elliot meets William Elliot on the Cobb in Lyme Regis.  Image @Wikimedia Commons

The Lyme Regis Museum now has a blog! One of its announcements might interest our friends across the Pond:

Thursday 26 May 2.30pm - LYME’S LITERARY LINKS: David Coates will talk about great literary figures who have been inspired by and lived and worked in Lyme. Jane Austen, who wrote about Lyme in Persuasion, and John Fowles in French Lieutenant’s Woman are the most notable, but also children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, who came to Lyme in 1904 and wrote about the town in Little Pig Robinson; J R R Tolkein, author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, who regularly visited Lyme for his summer holidays between 1905 and 1910; Henry Fielding, novelist and playwright, who visited Lyme as a young man and tried to elope with a 15-year-old heiress; Francis Palgrave, poet and editor of the poetry anthology Golden Treasury; P G Wodehouse, G K Chesterton and Ivy Compton-Burnett.

Lyme Regis Museum

A Copy of The Watsons, a Rare Jane Austen Manuscript, for Sale at Sotheby's

An extremely rare manuscript handwritten by Jane Austen will go on sale at Sotheby's, London on July 14th of this year. The novel

is unquestionably rare. Original manuscripts of her published novels do not exist, aside from two cancelled chapters of Persuasion in the British Library.

The novel is considered around a quarter completed and the manuscript has 68 pages – hand-trimmed by Austen – which have been split up into 11 booklets.

Fragment of the Watsons at the Morgan Library

The Pierpont Morgan Library in New York owns the first 12 pages, which I had the privilege to view last year at A Woman's Wit: Jane Austen's Life and Legacy exhibit. Click here to see a facsimile of those pages.

The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen's other manuscripts must have looked. It also shines an interesting light on how she worked. Austen took a piece of paper, cut it in two and then folded over each half to make eight-page booklets. Then she would write, small neat handwriting leaving little room for corrections – of which there are many. "You can really see the mind at work with all the corrections and revisions," said Heaton.

Only this manuscript and a couple of canceled chapters of Persuasion in Jane's hand have survived. They show her creative mind at work.

At one stage she crosses so much out that she starts a page again and pins it in. It seems, in Austen's mind, her manuscript had to look like a book. "Writers often fall into two categories," said [Gabriel] Heaton, [Sotheby's senior specialist in books and manuscripts]. "The ones who fall into a moment of great inspiration and that's it and then you have others who endlessly go back and write and tinker. Austen is clearly of the latter variety. It really is a wonderful, evocative document."

• Read more of the Guardian article here.

Join Jane Austen at the Classroom Salon

This post was published by Mags at Austenblog, who also graciously allowed me to publish it on this blog.

We are pleased to announce that the Gentle Readers of AustenBlog, as well as Janeites everywhere, have been invited to join a discussion of Sense and Sensibility at Classroom Salon, a free discussion platform from Carnegie Mellon University. Using this tool, one may select any section of text, make comments, answer questions, and see and respond to the comments and questions. The Salon team at Carnegie Mellon is starting to post the text of Sense and Sensibility so that you can now join fellow Janeites inside the novel. The Editrix has contributed some discussion questions as well.

A few things you should know about this Austen playground:

1. This is the latest, the greatest and the coolest, but it’s also a beta. It’s not difficult to use and there are basic instructions (which you can annotate and improve), but you’ll need to find your own way without too much guidance. An adventure!
2. The Sense and Sensibility beta is limited, so you’ll need to be one of the first fifty people to sign up. If you’re not, they’ll put you on a waitlist.
3. A new chapter will be opened for annotation about once a week.
4. If there is sufficient demand, the Salon team will start to post Jane’s other works as well.
5. The beta is completely free. It’s always possible that the University might decide to commercialize the platform at some point in the future, but the inventors are hoping to always maintain a free version.
6. Don’t worry if you’re the first or second or third commentator. Responses will breed more responses, and with lots of participation, we’ll have a rich, crowd-sourced online version of Sense and Sensibility.

How to Sign Up:

1. Go to http://www.classroomsalon.org/redirect/redirect.aspx?action=viewSalon&id=172 (new link; will take you directly to the S&S Salon)
2. Enter a name, email address and password and the registration code “Facebook Jane,” then click on Sign Up.
3. Sign in. This should take you to the Sense & Sensibility Salon.
4. Click to Join the Sense & Sensibility Salon.
5. You will receive email notification when you’ve been approved by the Salon owner. When you receive the approval, just click on the link in the email and you’re in.

Before you start annotating and engaging, you might want to have a look at the “Working with Documents in a Salon” document in the Salon. Feel free to annotate this document, as well.

Chapter 1 opens on Sunday morning, May 22 at 7 a.m., so sign up now and be the first on your block.

Happy Annotating!

NOTE: Classroom Salon works best in Firefox.

Quiet Blog

Gentle readers, I broke my foot and thus the blog will be quieter than it has been for a while. Thank you for your patience! Meanwhile, to keep you amused, I shall pair an image with a Jane Austen quote in a few posts until I regain my energy.

Mr. Knightley (Jeremy Northam) drinks tea

During the Georgian era, tea was a new luxury item that was kept under lock and key. Jane Austen estimated that the consumption of tea at Godmersham was 12 lb. A quarter. - Jane Austen and Food, Maggie Lane

Friday Folly: Twinings Tea Production to Move to Poland and China

In a letter written to Cassandra on Saturday 5th March 1814 from Henrietta Street, amongst gossip about the theatre, mending a petticoat, [her brother] Henry having a cold, going out for walks and meeting people, Jane writes, 

"I am sorry to hear that there has been a rise in tea. I do not mean to pay Twining till later in the day, when we may 0rder a fresh supply." - London Calling, A Cup of Tea With Jane Austen

It is a sad state of affairs when an august and venerable firm such as Twinings decides to pull up shop and outsource its tea production from England to Poland and China by September 2011 as part of "an efficiency drive." Worse, the powers that be have decided in their almighty wisdom (and lack of empathy) that the British employers about to be laid off will have to train their replacements. Nice touch that.

In addition, "the firm applied for £10m worth of EU aid to help it open a new factory just weeks after announcing plans to close down production in North Shields." At the very least, the firm should be stripped of its royal warrant, which apparently isn't going to happen. Rub salt in the wound much?

My thought is this: Jane Austen should never have paid her bill.

(All opinions expressed in this folly piece are Vic's, who is biased.)

• Twinings site: No hint of desertion here.
• Twinings to Leave Britain for Poland

All I Want for the New Year ... Is More Jane Austen

For me, the past few years have offered a cornucopia of Jane Austen film and television adaptations. I began blogging when the Jane Austen Book Club was being filmed.  In 2007, PBS offered Jane Austen season, and I was in seventh heaven watching the remakes of Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. In 2008 we viewed Sense and Sensibility and Miss Austen Regrets, and 2009 gave us Lost in Austen. Earlier in 2010 we watched Emma. What joy!

In January of 2011 we can expect the theatrical release of Prada to Nada, a modern Latino take on Sense and Sensibility, and there are rumblings that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies will actually be made. But then, I fear, the future of Jane Austen film making will hit a dry spell.

Oh, book publishers are printing plenty of Jane Austen sequels and prequels and mysteries, and the like. Excellent anthologies, such as A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Authors on Why We Read Jane Austen, have been released. Collateral series, such as Amanda Vickery's At Home With the Georgians, provide us with insights about life during the time of Jane Austen, but ... what does the cinematic future hold for Janeites who simply can't get enough of Jane Austen's writing and her characters? Here is my wish list, if producers are paying attention:

Rachel Hurd Wood as Catherine?

A remake of Northanger Abbey: Let's finally do justice to Jane's fine Gothic tale, and give this novel enough time to develop cinematically in a two-part, four-hour series. Let's take advantage of Henry Tilney's wit and young Catherine's wide-eyed innocence, and leave the overblown Gothic scenes to the first two inadequate NA adaptations.

The casting of Henry Tilney would be crucial, although I did fall a little in love with J.J. Feild in the woefully short 2007 ITV remake.

Minnie Driver as Lady Susan?

Lady Susan: I think a film with Jane's anti-heroine at its center would be quite popular in this cynical age. More Dangerous Liaisons than Persuasion, Lady Susan and her machinations will strike a chord with modern audiences, who will see Jane Austen's talent for creating vivid characters in a new light.

Cassandra's drawings

The History of England: Young Jane's irreverent chronicle of the History of England would be a delightful basis for a tongue in cheek cartoon in the tradition of South Park or ( for those of you who are old enough to remember) Rocky and Bullwinkle, which you can see on YouTube.

Using Cassandra's drawings, I can see this short book translated into a rollicking 1/2 hour of fun that is sure to go viral with history fans.

What say you?

Friday Follow

This Friday we follow Andrew Lang, whose lovely letter to Jane Austen After Her Death is thought-provoking, though at first not easy to grasp. Here are two excerpts:

You are not a very popular author: your volumes are not found in gaudy covers on every bookstall; or, if found, are not perused with avidity by the Emmas and Catherines of our generation. ‘Tis not long since a blow was dealt (in the estimation of the unreasoning) at your character as an author by the publication of your familiar letters. The editor of these epistles, unfortunately, did not always take your witticisms, and he added others which were too unmistakably his own. While the injudicious were disappointed by the absence of your exquisite style and humour, the wiser sort were the more convinced of your wisdom.

The letter is filled with irony and needs a second reading, for Mr. Lang's language is old-fashioned. His thoughts take us on meandering and eventually satisfying read:

Your heroines are not passionate, we do not see their red wet cheeks, and tresses dishevelled in the manner of our frank young Maenads. What says your best successor, a lady who adds fresh lustre to a name that in fiction equals yours? She says of Miss Austen: “Her heroines have a stamp of their own. THEY HAVE A CERTAIN GENTLE SELF-RESPECT AND HUMOUR AND HARDNESS OF HEART . . . Love with them does not mean a passion as much as an interest, deep and silent.” I think one prefers them so, and that Englishwomen should be more like Anne Elliot than Maggie Tulliver.

• Jane Austen in Vermont weighed in on Lang's letter in July.

The Jane Austen Editing Controversy Continues: Thoughts From Brazil About Katrhyn Sutherland's Statements

19th century hornbook and speller

Statements by Kathryn Sutherland, professor of St. Anne's College (Oxford) and Jane Austen's Fiction Digital Edition Manuscripts project coordinator, were recently published in various newspapers. They have generated great discussion online, and controversy resulted, including in my country, Brazil.

Professor Sutherland's quotations, published on the Oxford website, are the basis for this post.

The headlines in Brazil generally said: "Escritora Jane Austen era péssima em ortografia" ["Jane Austen was bad at spelling"] Folha de Sao Paulo, Veja Magazine and Correio Brasiliense.

Two British headlines were more cautious. The BBC declared, "Jane Austen's style might not be hers, academic claims." The Telegraph stated, "Jane Austen's famous prose may not be hers after all " and The Guardian made it clear that an "Attack on Jane Austen's genius shows neither sense nor sensibility ".

The headlines, which at first I thought were exaggerated, were not. They are perfectly in line with the original Oxford declaration: "Austen's famous style may not be hers after all".

Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen

We can instantly see that fair copies of the six published books were not part of the repertoire of over 1,100 pages that Professor Sutherland studied, therefore the mastery of Jane on Emma and Persuasion obviously could not be found in these 1100 manuscripts pages." Nevertheless, Sutherland concluded:

‘But in reading the manuscripts it quickly becomes clear that this delicate precision is missing. Austen’s unpublished manuscripts unpick her reputation for perfection in various ways: we see blots, crossings out, messiness; we see creation as it happens; and in Austen’s case, we discover a powerful counter-grammatical way of writing. She broke most of the rules for writing good English. In particular, the high degree of polished punctuation and epigrammatic style we see in Emma and Persuasion is simply not there.’

Before analysing the quote below, we must clarify that no reputable publishing house publishes a book without preparing an author's work. William Gifford's edits were thus not exceptional.

The expressions "heavily involved" and "Gifford as the culprit", and the assertion that "The famous style of Jane Austen can not be hers after all" set the tone for suspicion. Were the errors in the manuscripts so many and the corrections so deep that they modified Jane's style?

‘This suggests somebody else was heavily involved in the editing process between manuscript and printed book; and letters between Austen’s publisher John Murray II and his talent scout and editor William Gifford, acknowledging the untidiness of Austen’s style and how Gifford will correct it, seem to identify Gifford as the culprit.’

Sutherland speaks about the first books published by Thomas Egerton:

‘Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and the first edition of Mansfield Park were not published by Murray and have previously been seen by some critics as examples of poor printing – in fact, the style in these novels is much closer to Austen’s manuscript hand!’

While discussing Jane's innovative writing (quotes above), Sutherland also points out endless paragraphs, blots, crossings out and messiness in her manuscripts

‘The manuscripts reveal Austen to be an experimental and innovative writer, constantly trying new things, and show her to be even better at writing dialogue and conversation than the edited style of her published novels suggest,’ she says.

‘She is above all a novelist whose significant effects are achieved in the exchanges of conversation and the dramatic presentation of character through speech. The manuscripts are unparagraphed, letting the different voices crowd each other; underlinings and apparently random use of capital letters give lots of directions as to how words or phrases should be voiced.’

Professor Sutherland concludes by talking about the satire in the author's writings, and saying that Jane Austen's last unfinished work is less smooth than her published works.

‘Austen was also a great satirist. This thread in her writing is apparent in the sharp and anarchic spoofs of the teenage manuscripts and still there in the freakish prose of the novel she left unfinished when she died. The manuscript evidence offers a different face for Jane Austen, one smoothed out in the famous printed novels.'

Kathryn Sutherland

The controversy about the style of Jane Austen is based solely on information from Professor Kathryn Sutherland and her study of the online manuscripts. In my opinion it is impossible to claim that the writing of Jane Austen has been softened or modified in such way that Jane's writing style can no longer be called her own.

And just what led to this controversy? The professor herself with her assertions and contradictions. Perhaps it was advertising for the online manuscript, of which Sutherland is the coordinator (see AustenBlog). Perhaps it was simple vanity to launch a theme that she knew would arouse public interest. (Read about the brouhaha in Jane Austen's World ).

I will end this post by highlighting two passages of the text by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian with which I totally agree:

Jane Austen’s style is not a bit of polishing on the surface of her novels, it goes deep into their structure, which is why they are so satisfying.

There is a dance between academics and arts reporters that has gone on long enough, in which scholars allow silly overinterpretations of their claims to become news, while at the same time looking down on the newsmonger. In this case the result is a pedantic assault on genius that can only diminish the pleasure of readers and confuse students. Austen is a great artist – through and through. Her voice is her own.

More about professor Kathryn Sutherland:

• Kathryn Sutherland no St. Anne's College, Oxford
• Jane Austen's Textual Lives: From Aeschylus to Bollywood, by Kathryn Sutherland

Posted by Raquel Sallaberry, Jane Austen em Português