First Line Friday - Autumn Masquerade

Happy First Day of Autumn! 

A Merry Dance

Chapter 1

At the far end of the study was a desk set against a corner where, if a girl were overly curious and perpetually bored - as Lila was - she could hide away and entertain herself with both the thrill of being unseen and the snippets of information she was not entitled to otherwise.



Timeless Regency Collection: Three Brand New Novellas from Bestselling Regency Romance Authors...

A Merry Dance by Josi S. Kilpack. When Lila overhears her uncle talking about a man coming to look for property in the county, she doesn’t think twice, until her uncle says he hopes Lila will find enough interest to marry the man. How can she marry someone named Mortimer Luthford, not to mention that his advanced age of thirty-three, and especially since she’s already in love with her absent cousin Neville? But when Mortimer arrives, Lila has to try every trick known to women to act not interested in the rather fascinating man, which proves a very difficult façade to maintain.

The other titles in this collection are Unmasking the Duke by Donna Hatch and What's in a Name by Nancy Campbell

First Line Friday - Letter to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen

Letter One

The City of Invention

Cairns, Australia, October

My dear Alice, 

It was good to get your letter. I am a long way from home here; almost in exile. And you ask me for advice, which is warming, and makes me believe I must know something; or at any rate more than you. 

Summary of Letters to Alice on Frist Reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon from Goodreads:

Inspired by a series of instructive letters written by Austen to a novel-writing niece, Letters to Alice is an epistolary novel in which an important modern writer responds to her niece's complaint that Jane Austen is boring and irrelevant. By turns passionate and ironic, "Aunt Fay" makes Alice think--not only about books and literature, but also life and culture.

First Line Friday - Mary Brunton's Self-Control

While she aroused interest Austen was never a best-seller in her lifetime. She had stiff competition. Mary Brunton, a Scottish novelist, created an overnight sensation with her novel Self Control. It was published around the same time as Sense and Sensibility and everyone was clamouring to read it, including Jane Austen:

"We have tried to get Self-controul, but in vain. I should like to know what [Mrs Knight's] Estimate is, but am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever and of finding my own people all forestalled." (Jane Austin, 30th April 1811)

-from the BBC article "Jane Austen: What books were on her reading list?"

So here is the first paragraph of Self-Control

It was on a still evening in June, that Laura Montreville left her father's cottage, in the little village of Glenalbert, to begin a solitary ramble. Her countenance was mournful, and her step languid; for her health had suffered from long confinement, and her spirits were exhausted by long attendance on the deathbed of her mother. That labour of duty had been lessened by no extrinsic circumstance; for Lady Harriet Montreville was a peevish and refractory patient; her disorder had been tedious as well as hopeless; and the humble establishment of a half-pay officer furnished no one who could lighten to Laura the burden of constant attendance. But Laura had in herself that which softens all difficulty, and beguiles all fatigue—an active mind, a strong sense of duty, and the habit of meeting and of overcoming adverse circumstances.

You can read the full novel from Project Gutenberg - Mary Brunton's Self-Control

And read more on Mary Brunton here.

First Line Friday - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

To finish up with our week long Anne Bronte theme here is the first line of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

Prologue

To J. Halford, Esq.

Dear Halford,

When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me. Not being in a story-telling humour at the time, I declined, under the plea of having nothing tell, and the like shuffling excuses, which were regarded as wholly inadmissible by you; for though you instantly turned the conversation, it was with the air of an uncomplaining, but deeply injured man, and your face was overshadowed with a cloud which darkened it to the end of your interview, and for what I know, darkens it still; for your letters have, ever since, been distinguished by certain dignified, semi-melancholy stiffness and reserve, that would have been very affecting, if my conscience had accused me of deserving it.

First Line Friday - Old Friends and New Francies

Two weeks ago on Flashback Friday I re-shared a book recommendation for Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton

I ended up ordering the book through my library's Interlibrary Loan Dept.  Can't wait to read it!

There is one characteristic which may be safely said to belong to nearly all happily-married couples-that of desiring to see equally happy marriages among their young friends; and in some cases, where their wishes are strong and circumstances seem favourable to the exertion of their own efforts, they may even embark upon the perilous but delightful course of helping those persons whose minds are as yet not made up, to form a decision respecting this important crisis in life, and this done, to assist in clearing the way in order that this decision may forth-with be acted upon. 

First Line Friday - Lovers' Vows

LOVERS' VOWS

ACT I.

SCENE I. A high road, a town at a
distance--A small inn on one side of
the road--A cottage on the other.

The LANDLORD of the inn leads
AGATHA by the hand out of his house.

LANDLORD.  No, no!  no room for you any longer--It is the fair to-day
in the next village; as great a fair as any in the German dominions.
The country people with their wives and children take up every corner
we have.

AGATHA.  You will turn a poor sick woman out of doors who has spent her
last farthing in your house.

LANDLORD.  For that very reason; because she _has_ spent her last
farthing.

AGATHA.  I can work.

LANDLORD.  You can hardly move your hands.

AGATHA.  My strength will come again.

LANDLORD.  Then _you_ may come again.

AGATHA.  What am I to do?  Where shall I go?

LANDLORD.  It is fine weather--you may go any where.

AGATHA.  Who will give me a morsel of bread to satisfy my hunger?

LANDLORD.  Sick people eat but little.

AGATHA.  Hard, unfeeling man, have pity.

LANDLORD.  When times are hard, pity is too expensive for a poor man.
Ask alms of the different people that go by.

AGATHA.  Beg!  I would rather starve.

- Lovers' Vows by Elizabeth Inchbald

Full text can be found on Project Gutenberg

More information about the play can be found on Wikipedia

First Line Friday - Mansfield Park

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.

-Mansfield Park - full text at The Republic of Pemberley

This year is all about Mansfield Park for our region. We'll be discussing the novel at our February meeting and discussing criticism of the novel during our August meeting.  Please see the Meetings and Events tab at the top of the page for more meeting information.

First Line Friday - Cecilia by Frances Burney

On this rainy Friday and was thinking about how I would like to stay curled up with my tea and a book. This got me thinking about how Jane might have spent a rainy afternoon. I found this article from the BBC that lists some of the books that Jane would have been reading. I decided on Cecilia by Frances Burney.

About the book from Wikipedia:

Cecilia, subtitled Memoirs of an Heiress, is the second novel by English author Frances Burney, set in 1779 and published in 1782. The novel, about the trials and tribulations of a young upper class woman who must negotiate London society for the first time and who falls in love with a social superior, belongs to the genre of the novel of manners. A panoramic novel of eighteenth-century London, Cecilia was highly successful with at least 51 editions.

The first line:

"Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their remains, and immortalized their virtues! may time, while it moulders their frail relicks to dust, commit to tradition the record of their goodness; and Oh, may their orphan-descendant be influenced through life by the remembrance of their purity, and be solaced in death, that by her it was unsullied!"

Project Gutenberg has the novel for you in a few formats for your reading pleasure. -
Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3

First Lind Friday - Sanditon

A GENTLEMAN AND A LADY travelling from Tunbridge towards that part of the Sussex coast which lies between Hastings and Eastbourne, being induced by business to quit the high road and attempt a very rough lane, were overturned in toiling up its long a scent, half rock, half sand. The accident happened just beyond the only gentleman's house near the lane ~ a house which their driver, on being first required to take that direction, had conceived to be necessarily their object and had with most unwilling looks been constrained to pass by. He had grumbled and shaken his shoulders and pitied and cut his horses so sharply that he might have been open to the suspicion of overturning them on purpose (especially as the carriage was not his master's own) if the road had not indisputably become worse than before, as soon as the premises of the said house were left behind ~ expressing with a most portentous countenance that, beyond it, no wheels but cart wheels could safely proceed. The severity of the fall was broken by their slow pace and the narrowness of the lane; and the gentleman having scrambled out and helped out his companion, they neither of them at first felt more than shaken and bruised. But the gentleman had, in the course of the extrication, sprained his foot; and soon becoming sensible of it, was obliged in a few moments to cut short both his remonstrances to the driver and his congratulations to his wife and himself and sit down on the bank, unable to stand. "There is something wrong here," said he, putting his hand to his anle.

- Sanditon, Jane Austen

First Line Friday - The Watsons

The first winter assembly in the town of D. in Surrey was to be held on Tuesday, October 13th and it was generally expected to be a very good one. A long list of county families was confidently run over as sure of attending, and sanguine hopes were entertained that the Osbornes themselves would be there. The Edwards' invitation to the Watsons followed, of course. The Edwards were people of fortune, who lived in the town and kept their coach. The Watsons inhabited a village about three miles distant, were poor, and had no close carriage; and ever since there had been balls in the place, the former were accustomed to invite the latter to dress, dine, and sleep at their house on every monthly return throughout the winter. On the present occasion, as only two of Mr. Watson's children were at home, and one was always necessary as companion to himself, for he was sickly and had lost his wife, one only could profit by the kindness of their friends. Miss Emma Watson, who was very recently returned to her family from the care of an aunt who had brought her up, was to make her first public appearance in the neighbourhood, and her eldest sister, whose delight in a ball was not lessened by a ten years' enjoyment, had some merit in cheerfully undertaking to drive her and all her finery in the old chair to D. on the important morning.

- The Watsons, Jane Austen

First Line Friday - Fan Fiction

Fan fiction or fanfiction is fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator.

Chapter One

I am Charles Bingley, now of the county of Derbyshire, and there is something I need to set straight for my own peace of mind. What you or others will make of it I have no control over. It is thus: I have been accused by some "friends", acquaintances, and even by people who know nothing of me, of acting in a hesitant, and indeed a faint-hearted, manner in an affair of the heart. It is claimed that my indecision almost cost me the woman I truly love. It is not so......

This is the first line from the fan fiction story I Charles Bingley by Jim G.M.

You can find more fan fiction stories at the Derbyshire Writers' Guild at Dwiggie.com.

First Line Friday - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale.

When the service began, Mr. Ford was as well behaved as any corpse could be expected to be. In fact, he lay stretched out on the bier looking almost as stiff and expressionless in death as he had in life, and Oscar Bennet, gazing upon his not-so-dearly departed neighbor, could but think to himself, You lucky sod.

It was Mr. Bennet who longed to escape the church then, and the black oblivion of death seemed infinitely preferable to the torments he was suffering. At the pulpit, the Reverend Mr. Cummings was...

-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith

First Line Friday - Suspense and Sensibility

"1784
'Damn this mortal coil.'"

To read what comes next check out:
Suspense and Sensibility: Or, First Impressions Revisited (Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries #2) by Carrie Bebris

Interest in this book? It's part of our Henrietta's Boutique and will be available at our next meeting!