Hot off the presses is the May/June 2010 (No 45) edition of Jane Austen’s Regency World, the official magazine of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England and the ultimate Austen reading indulgence. Spotlighted in this issue is Bright Star, the 2009 movie based on the relationship of John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Here are the featured articles: ... Continue Reading →
Announcement and an apology to my readers regarding my RSS feed
Update: Thanks to the excellent Margaret and Crystal at the DWG (The Derbyshire Writers Guild who are also hosted  by Austen.com) for their immediate actions in contacting the domain host and convincing him to comply with my requests.  I know of this through their correspondence and not from the domain host who has not deigned to contact me... Continue Reading →
Small Island on Masterpiece Classic PBS Survives a Cold Embrace by the Mother Country – A Recap & Review
There is a lot of pride and prejudice in the story of Small Island, the new Masterpiece Classic two-part adaptation of Andrea Levy’s award winning 2004 novel. Not the Jane Austen kind of pride and prejudice, but the kind experienced by millions of people whose countries were colonized by Great Britain during the 18th and... Continue Reading →
Austen Tattler: News and Gossip on the Net: Issue No 9
“All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it.” Marianne Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31 April 12th - 18th, 2010 Hot News of the Week: New author Jenni James of Northanger Alibi, a modern retelling of Northanger Abbey influenced by Twilight, lands the Austenesque book publicity coup... Continue Reading →
Austen Film Locations: Longbourn – Pride and Prejudice 1995
Guest blog by Helen Wilkinson of P&P Tours Longbourn – the private house found by the BBC for the ultimate adaptation of Pride & Prejudice in 1995 – has become one of the most famous houses in the world. BBC location manager Sam Breckman knew he had to find a house that could withstand a... Continue Reading →
Chatting with Monica Fairview, author of The Darcy Cousins – and a glorious giveaway
Please welcome author Monica Fairview as she stops by to chat with us during her blog tour in celebration of the release of her new novel The Darcy Cousins, a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Thank you for having me here on your blog, Laurel Ann. It’s one of my favorite places to... Continue Reading →
Dawn of the Dreadfuls, by Steve Hockensmith – A Review
If you have not heard about the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, you must be from another planet. The break-out best seller of 2009 (and soon to be a major motion picture starring Natalie Portman) took the publishing industry quite unawares making its co-author Seth Grahame-Smith a hot property, oodles of publicity for its... Continue Reading →
My Top Ten Favorite Pride and Prejudice Covers Meme – Vote for Yours!
Jennie at The Bennet Sisters blog has started a meme that I could not resist. She asks which are your top ten favorite Pride and Prejudice covers? Lord knows there are hundreds of them out there. A search on Google images, Advanced Book Exchange, Good Reads and Barnes & Noble produced a plethora of selections.... Continue Reading →
Dearest Cousin Jane, by Jill Pitkeathley – A Review
From the desk of Virginia Claire Tharrington: In the new novel Dearest Cousin Jane, author Jill Pitkeathley paints a wonderful portrait of Jane Austen’s cousin Countess Eliza de Feuillide. Eliza seems to have had an intoxicating effect on most of the Austen family, but Henry, James, and Jane are the most taken with her. It becomes... Continue Reading →
Venetia, by Georgette Heyer, read by Richard Armitage (Naxos AudioBooks): A Review & Giveaway
Did you know that Georgette Heyer is British author and literary critic Margaret Drabble’s favorite historical novelist? I know! High praise from an author who has written eighteen novels, introductions to all of Jane Austen’s major and minor works, been awarded a Doctorate in Letters from Cambridge University and the CBE and DBE by the... Continue Reading →
A Bookselling Moment with Dawn of the Dreadfuls, or a Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Emergency Room
Happy Easter everyone. I received my Easter egg a day early. It is sitting on top of my head and is not the chocolate variety. Add to that a nice shiner and I feel quite the proper street ruffian. I joke about my enthusiasm to sell Jane Austen to the masses at my job at... Continue Reading →
The Darcy Cousins, by Monica Fairview – A Review
In The Other Mr. Darcy, last year’s debut Austenesque novel by Monica Fairview we were introduced to Fitzwilliam Darcy’s American cousin Robert Darcy. Now the story continues with The Darcy Cousins, a Pride and Prejudice sequel to a sequel when his two younger siblings Clarissa and Frederick Darcy arrive from Boston and join their brother... Continue Reading →