Today is #JaneAustenDay, marking the online celebration of her birthday. Born on a stormy night in 1775, she was the seventh child of Rev. George Austen and his lady Cassandra of Steventon, Hampshire. Her modest beginning stands in strong contrast to her international fame today. In observance, I am participating in a blog tour organized by TLC Blog Tours for a new Austen book worthy of your consideration, The Lost Books of Jane Austen.
Scholar Janine Barchas and I share a passion for Jane Austen and book collecting. In the early 1990s, I started my search for illustrated editions of Jane Austen’s novels, while she was hunting for the early inexpensive editions of Austen’s works that were marketed to Britain’s working-class folk. At the time I was actively collecting I was unaware of Continue reading “The Lost Books of Jane Austen, by Janine Barchas — A Review”
“Fashions come and go; bad taste is timeless.” — Beau Brummell
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: 
For over two hundred years, Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy has been an enigma and an idol—prompting Pride and Prejudice fans to re-visit the novel, create books and movies, and inspire writers to model their own heroes after his noble mien to relive their time with him in the original novel.
Downtonites have been patiently awaiting the arrival of the Downton Abbey movie since its official announcement in the summer of 2018. The possibility of a feature film of the phenomenally popular British period drama television series had been rumored (and wished for) since the final episode of season six aired in the UK on Christmas day in 2015 on ITV and in the US on Masterpiece Classic PBS in March of 2016. We just cannot get enough of those posh upstairs Crawley’s and their devoted downstairs servants, can we? It took four long years to reach the big screen. Its premiere in the UK and the US this past September garnered major media attention and red-carpeted events.
From the desk of Tracy Hickman:
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: 
Every Jane Austen fan dreams of visiting her England – strolling through the Georgian streets of Bath in the footsteps of Catherine Morland; visiting Lyme Regis where Louisa Musgrove jumped from the Cobb seawall missing the arms of Captain Wentworth; picnicking on Box Hill like Emma Woodhouse and her party from HIghbury; touring Austen’s haunts of Regency London; and exploring her last home at Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. It is the ultimate pilgrimage to experience the rolling hills of her England, her fabled country homes, and the cities she frequented and wrote about in her novels.
In Jane Austen’s novels, we discover the plight of younger sons who because of the English primogeniture laws, could not inherit their father’s estate and must find their own way in the world. Colonel Fitzwilliam in Pride and Prejudice and Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey come immediately to mind. This father to first son inheritance tradition is the axis of the social structure of British society and is tightly bound to its restrictions. Historian Rory Muir explores this dilemma and the courses available to younger sons in his new history book, Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: How Younger Sons Made Their Way in Jane Austen’s England. Using Austen’s characters, her own family, and historical figures as examples, we are taken on a journey through the era to discover what options were available to younger sons of “good families” to find an acceptable profession and earn an independent living.
From the desk of Tracy Hickman:
From the desk of Katie Patchell:
Austenprose 