Your online source for Jane Austen and her legacy
Welcome to the 5th stop on the Elizabeth Gaskell 200th Anniversary Blog Tour! Please join me and other Elizabeth Gaskell enthusiast in honoring her on birthday today with a blog tour featuring a biography of her life and times, reviews of her books, novella’s and movies, reading resources, and a photo tour of her homes.... Continue Reading →
I had not read The Convenient Marriage before this new Naxos Audiobooks recording happily landed on my doorstep. I will confess all upfront. I did the unthinkable. I read the complete plot synopsis on Wikipedia before I delved into the first chapter. *horrors*  Don’t even think about following my example.  It will spoil the most... Continue Reading →
The Jane Austen book sleuth is happy to inform Janeites that many Austen inspired books are heading our way in August, so keep your eyes open for these new titles. Audio The Convenient Marriage, by Georgette Heyer, read by Richard Armitage In honor of historical romance novelist Georgette Heyer’s birthday this month, I am sure... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen Thus began one of the most beloved novels ever written. The popularity of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, 200 years after its publication,... Continue Reading →
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 →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: “One abandoned and the other uncompleted.” The Watsons and Sanditon may be fragments in Jane Austen’s literary canon, but they still deserve due deference. Composed over a decade apart in 1803-4 and 1817, each represents Austen’s desire to continue writing during two challenging times in her life. Written... Continue Reading →
Persuasion, Jane Austen’s last completed novel was written between 1815 and 1816, with final chapter revisions in August of that year. Published posthumously in late 1817 with her earlier work Northanger Abbey, each of the novels represents the alpha and omega of her writing career. Even though they are divergent in tone and topic, they each... Continue Reading →
Northanger Abbey is the exuberant lesser-known child of Jane Austen’s oeuvre. Even though it was her first novel to be completed and sold in 1803, much to Austen’s bemusement it was never published and languished with Crosby & Co for thirteen years until she bought it back for the ten pounds that the publisher had... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: Emma, Jane Austen’s fourth novel was published in 1815 and dedicated to the Prince Regent, later King George IV. The dedication was a request by the Prince and not Austen's idea. She privately abhorred the Regent for his treatment of his wife Princess Caroline, and his abhorrent dissipated... Continue Reading →
To prime myself for Return to Cranford, the new Masterpiece Classic sequel to last year's award-winning mini-series Cranford on PBS, I wanted to read Mrs. Gaskell’s original novel that it was adapted from. Since I am always short of reading time, I chose instead to listen to an audio recording, my favorite pastime during my commute to... Continue Reading →
Jane Austen’s epistolary novel Lady Susan has never received much attention in comparison to her other six major novels. It is a short piece, only 70 pages in my edition of The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Minor Works containing forty-one letters and a conclusion. Scholars estimate that it was written between 1793-4 when the young... Continue Reading →
Today, August 16th is author Georgette Heyer’s birthday. In celebration of the uncontested Queen of Regency Romance, I thought it quite fitting to read one of her novels this week and review it. However, what I ultimately selected was not based on a plot, or characters, or a recommendation by other Heyer aficionados such as Vic... Continue Reading →
