Your online source for Jane Austen and her legacy
Happy New Year Janeites! 2012 promises to be a glorious Jane-packed reading extravaganza for Austenesque and Regency fans. In the next few months we are looking forward to several novels: the debut of Austentatious, by Alyssa Goodnight (January 31), a new mystery, Midnight in Austenland, by Shannon Hale (Jan 31), and Jane Vows Vengeance: A... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laura A. Wallace: Georgette Heyer’s Sprig Muslin is one of her most entertaining Regency novels. It is a “road book,” full of adventures, comical situations, and fun characters. At the outset, I must beg anyone who leaves a comment to avoid spoilers. New readers should have the pleasure of discovering Amanda’s... Continue Reading →
Tis the season to ring in the holiday spirit, and what better way to do so with than with a Jane Austen-inspired Christmas story? Here is a selection of novels and short stories from the past year that you might consider cozying up to with hot tea and festive holiday cookies on a cold evening... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: One thinks of Jane Austen as a retiring spinster who writes secretly, prefers her privacy, and enjoys quiet walks in the Hampshire countryside. Instead, she has applied her intuitive skills of astute observation and deductive reasoning to solve crime in Stephanie Barron’s Austen-inspired mystery series. It is an... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Jeffrey Ward: Mary Bennet, that plain, pedantic, priggish, middle sister from Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice, who gave us deadpan lines such as, “I admire the activity of your benevolence…but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion... Continue Reading →
Here we are at the ninth novel in the Being a Jane Austen Mystery series, Stephanie Barron’s sagacious slant on “our dear Jane” as a sleuth! The spring of 1811 finds Jane in London staying with her banker-brother Henry Austen and his sophisticated wife Eliza at their residence on Sloane Street preparing her first novel,... Continue Reading →
Jane Austen’s personal life is a bit of an enigma. We know a bit about her day-to-day life from her remaining personal correspondence; of which a few snippets allude to her beaux and friends. Readers are often puzzled how a spinster wrote so perceptively about romance and the human heart. One would think that first-hand... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laura A. Wallace: I must acknowledge that it is well-nigh impossible for me to be objective when it comes to reviewing Jennifer Kloester’s new biography of Georgette Heyer which was released this month in the UK. Rarely have I looked forward so much to reading a biography. But be assured, gentle... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Christina Boyd: “It is only a novel… or, in short, some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Christina Boyd: In Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the famed seawall of Lyme is perilous to the heedless, naĂŻve Miss Louisa Musgrove, whose fall is a critical turning point in the original novel. But in award winning author Carrie Bebris’ new Austen-inspired mystery, The Deception at Lyme (Or, The Peril of Persuasion), the... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laura A. Wallace: The Unknown Ajax is one of Georgette Heyer's funniest Regencies. It is populated with some of her more memorable characters and ends with a protracted scene reminiscent of comic opera, with a dozen people coming in and fading out in a seamless composition that builds to a climax... Continue Reading →
Even though it has been two hundred years since the world was first introduced to sisters Marianne and Elinor Dashwood's financial, social and romantic trials, their story remains for me, as fresh and vibrant as any contemporary story you might read of, experience yourself, or hear tell tale of today. I give full credit, of... Continue Reading →
