Wordless Wednesday #194

Wordless Wednesday #183

Source: unknown 

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Wordless Wednesday #143

Source: Basingstoke Gazettevia CNJ JASNA on Pinterest

Wordless Wednesday #128

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Wordless Wednesday #125

Wordless Wednesday #124

199th Anniversary of Jane's Passing

Jane's funeral was held in Winchester Cathedral and she was buried in the north aisle. Just as her novels were published anonymously, the inscription on her tomb (right) makes no mention of her literary talents:

In Memory of JANE AUSTEN, youngest daughter of the late Revd GEORGE AUSTEN, formerly Rector of Steventon in this County. She departed this Life on the 18th of July 1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and the hopes of a Christian. The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection, they know their loss to be irreparable, but in their deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her REDEEMER.

A brass tablet was added at a later date.
Jane Austen. Known to many by her writings, endeared to her family by the varied charms of her character and ennobled by her Christian faith and piety was born at Steventon in the County of Hants, December 16 1775 and buried in the Cathedral July 18 1817. "She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness".

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday Jane!

How are you celebrating today?

I set up a small book display at my library:

Wordless Wednesday #87

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National Poem In Your Pocket Day - Poems by and about Jane

Tomorrow, April 30th, is National Poem In Your Pocket Day.  To celebrate, you print out a poem and carry it around with you and share it throughout the day.  In preparation for that day, I have some poems written by Jane and about Jane.

A letter to Frank written fully in verse.

Jane wrote a letter to her brother Frank (picture above) in the form of a poem. It starts:

My dearest Frank, I wish you joy

Of Mary's Safety with a boy,

Whose birth has given little pain,

Compared with that of Mary Jane.

You can read the full poem here.

You can find a number of examples of poetry written by Jane included in her letters. One such poem was included in a letter to Miss Bigg and it reads:

Cambrick! With grateful blessings would I pay

The pleasure given me in sweet employ.

Long may'st thou serve my friend without decay,

And have no tears to wipe but tears of joy.

You can read more of these poems here.

As we know Jane wasn't her only sibling to write a creative line or two.  Her brother James wrote the following poem after the publication of Sense and Sensibility.

On such Subjects, no Wonder that she should write well

In whom so united those Qualities dwell;

Where "dear Sensibility", Sterne's darling Maid,

With Sense so attemper'd is finely portray'd

Fair Elinor's self in that Mind is exprest,

And the feelings of Marianne live in that Breast.

Oh then, gentle Lady! continue to write,

And the Sense of your Readers t' amuse and delight.

Others have also written poems about Jane and her work, a few years ago we discussed Rudyard Kiplin's the Janeites and his poem about Jane's Marriage.  There are more like the poem titled Mr. Bingley's Friend by Patricia Shepherd:

I have never understood

Quite how Mr. Darcy could

Tolerate the sisters Bingley --

As a pair, or even singly.

Much for friendship he endured;

For he often was immured

All those evenings with the boring

Elder sister's husband snoring.

You can find more poems about Jane here.

Kinda Wordless Wednesday - Tea with Jane Austen

Source: Jane Austen's World via CNJ JASNA on Pinterest

Read Jane Austen's World's review of Tea with Jane Austen: Review of a book by Kim Wilson

Obituaries in the Time of Jane Austen - Program Review

Posted by JASNA New Jersey on Sunday, March 29, 2015

We had a wonderful program this weekend presented by Tim Bullamore.

Tim talked about the history of obituaries, the changes over the years, and more specifically the death notices of the Regency era.

There are 11 known obituaries for Jane. They all read about the same and the one Tim shared reads:

“At Winchester, Miss Jane Austen, youngest daughter of Rev. George Austen, Rector of Steventon, Hants, authoress of “Emma”, “Mansfield Park”, “Pride and Prejudice”, and “Sense and Sensibility.”‘

In every one, plus the plaque on her grave, she is first identified as 'the daughter of Rev. George Austen.'

You can read more about the different obituaries and her death plaque here:
The Jane Austen Society of Australia - Obituary 
JASNA Vermont - Austen's Obituaries

You can view more pictures on our Facebook Page

A full write up of the program will be in our next newsletter due out in a few weeks.  You can sign up to the right to recieve our bi-monthly newsletter in your inbox.

Wordless Wednesday #73

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading? - Austen in August

This is a meme hosted by Book Journey.

I started my Austen in August reading with:

The List Lover's Guide to Jane Austen by Joan Strasbaugh. This small but packed book is filled with lists covering the places Jane lived, her extended family, the books she read, the people she knew, and lists about her works.  It's not the kind of book you would read cover to cover, though I did skim through it that way at first.  It's a great resource for information.

Longbourn by Jo Baker, read by Emma Fielding.  So this is the story of the staff of Longbourn told about the same time that the events of P&P are taking place, but it's not a retelling.  This story focuses on Mr. and Mrs. Hill, Sarah, Polly, and the newest and mysterious addition to the staff James. So far I'm really enjoying the look at the Bennet Family from the point of view of the servants while also getting a fresh new story. James is a bit of a mystery and I can't wait to find out more about him.  I left off with Sarah snooping through his things, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Mansfield Park. I haven't touched MP since I originally read it like ten years ago.  I forgot how much I like Fanny. I find that I relate more to Fanny than any other Austen leading lady. If you haven't read MP I suggest giving it a try!

What are you reading?

Jane Austen's Will

I follow a number of social media websites and news feeds to find stories, pictures and other things to share with you guys. This showed up in my email earlier this week and I found it quite interesting as I had never seen it before. I figured if it was new to me, it might be new to other (newer) Jane Austen fans as well.

Click here to see a larger image.

Transcript from the British National Archives:

I Jane Austen of the Parish of Chawton do by this my last will & testament give and bequeath to my dearest sister. Cassandra. Elizabeth everything of which I may die possessed, or which may be hereafter due to me, subject to the payment of my Funeral expences, & to a Legacy of £50. to my Brother Henry, & £50 to Mde de Bigeon - which I request may be paid as soon as convenient. And I appoint my said dear sister the executrix of this my last will & testament.

Jane Austen
April 27 1817

We know that at this time Jane was ill and had been since 1816. She would die a little less than three months after the writing of her will in July of 1817.

Jane Austen News!

From the Huffington Post article BoE Chooses Jane Austen to Grace 10 Pound Note:

LONDON — Jane Austen will become the new face on England's 10-pound notes – in an attempt to add a little pride and fight the prejudice against women on the country's currency.

The Bank of England chose the chronicler of 18th century English country life as the new face of the note, bowing to critics who complained that the venerable institution was ignoring women on their currency.

"Jane Austen certainly merits a place in the select group of historical figures to appear on our banknotes," the bank's new governor Mark Carney said Wednesday in a statement.

"Her novels have an enduring and universal appeal and she is recognized as one of the greatest writers in English literature."

Read the full article! 


From The Guardian - Why that Jane Austen quotation on the new £10 note is a major blunder

Yet surely there has been a blunder. The new note displays an image of Austen based on the only certain surviving portrait of her, a drawing by her sister Cassandra. Fine. It also blazons forth some of the great writer's immortal words. You can imagine being the Bank of England employee given the task of finding the telling Austen quotation. Something about reading, perhaps? A quick text search in Pride and Prejudice turns up just the thing: "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!"

 While it is a great quote in that many of us feel the same way about reading, it's taken out of context and does kind of skew the sentiment behind the statement. We know it was Caroline Bingley who spoke the line, and that she probably never picked a book up in her life. 

Read the full article!

The Many Words of Jane Austen

Last week I posted an article to our Facebook page called The Queen of Modern Slang which briefly discussed words and phrases coined by Jane Austen that we still use today. After I posted that article I saw another brief article, In Jane's Words,  and a mention in an Editorial: There's a Word for That (you have skim down the page a bit).

All three of these were discussing Oxford professor Charlotte Brewer's talk at the Hay Festival.

...that while Austen had a great influence on the first Oxford English Dictionary publised in 1928, she is quoted 1,640 times in the most recent edition.

Entries include 321 phrases from her 1815 novel Emma... (from The Queen of Modern Slang @ The Daily Mail) 

Here is a list of the words and phrases shared in these three articles:

• dinner-party
• brace yourself
• if I've told your once, I've told you 100 times
• family portrait
• door bell
• morning room
• shut up
• dirt cheap
• dog-tired

Jane Austen LIterary Sighting! - Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon

It was a May book club pick for my book club.  It was a random pick off the shelf and turned out to be a really cute book and worth reading.

Description from Goodreads:

For fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.

Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.

But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).

And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.

7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.

Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.

But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.

As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac.

Sightings:

1. The study is being done by the Netherfield Group.
2. There is a ring involved (not telling you how) with a quote from Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen Birthday Celebration and Book Pollyanna

As always we had a lovely tea and food spread. Our gracious host Deborah made these delicious scones.

After a business meeting we got down to our discussion of Lesley Castle. With the busy holiday season in full swing not everyone got a chance to finish reading the work, but we were still able to talk about the story.  It was noted that you can see the start of some plot lines, character development and Jane's notable wit being formed in this work.  Written in her late teens, Lesley Castle, is a funny story filled with superficial characters and interweaving plot lines.

On Friday I shared on Facebook and Twitter some of my favorite lines from the novella. Here they are again!

"Louisa was naturally ill-tempered and Cunning; but she had been taught to disguise her real Disposition, under the appearance of insinuating Sweetness, by a father who but too well knew, that to be married, would be the only chance she would have of not being starved, and who flattered himself that with such an extroidinary share of personal beauty, joined to a gentleness of Manners, and an engaging address, she might stand a good chance of pleasing some young Man who might afford to marry a girl without a Shilling." - Letter the Third (Lesley Castle)

"During our visit, the Weather being remarkably bad, and our party particularly stupid,..." Letter the Fourth (Lesley Castle)

"She has not a bad face, but there is something so extremely unmajestic in her little diminutive figure, as to render her in comparison with the elegant height of Matilda and Myself, an insignificant Dwarf." - Letter the Fifth (Lesley Castle)

"But here again, I met with nothing but Disappointment and Surprise. Matilda and Margaret Lesley are two great, tall, out of the way, over-grown, girls, just of a proper size to inhabit a Castle almost as large in comparison as themselves. I wish my dear Charlotte that you could but behold these Scotch giants; I am sure they would frighten you out of your wits." - Letter the Sixth (Lesley Castle)

After our discussion we made a sherry toast to Jane for her birthday (we also toasted our out going and in coming officers).

Then we got started on our Book Pollyanna.

• The Turn of the Screw, The Aspern Papers and Two Stories, by Henry James
• Daisy Miller and Washington Square, by Henry James
• Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
• The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
• A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz
• The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
• Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
• Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
• Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by  Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
•  Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton
• All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith
• Dearest Cousin Jane  by Jill Pitkeathley
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
• How it All Began by Penelope Lively
• Jane-A-Day Journal

 All these books will be added to our LibraryThing list.

To see all the pictures from the event please see our Facebook Page.

Austen, Dickens, & Rushdie

I have written and spoken elsewhere about my debt to the oral narrative traditions of India, and also to those great Indian novelists Jane Austen and Charles Dickens - Austen for her portraits of brilliant women caged by the social convention of their time, women whose Indian counterparts I knew well; Dickens for his great, rotting, Bombay-like city, and his ability to root his larger-than-life characters and surrealist imagery in a sharply observed, almost hyperrealistic background, out of which the comic and fantastic elements of his work seem to grow organically, becoming intensifications of, and not escapes from, the real world.
 - Salman Rushdie

From the Introduction to Midnight's Children

Rushdie, Salman. Introduction. Midnight's Children. By Rushdie. New York: Random House, 2006. eBook.