Your online source for Jane Austen and her legacy
Here's a little humor to brighten your Monday morning Janeites! Can you describe your life in six words or less? That was the question that Smith Magazine asked their online readers in 2006. What developed was an amazing array of comic, tragic and poignant mini life stories that are now available in the book Not Quite... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress:Â Take a controversial classic novel, mix in a liberal filmmaker's re-interpretation, amplify the slavery subtext, add in lesbianism and incest, and presto! you have Mansfield Park (1999), writer-director Patricia Rozema's provocative adaptation of Jane Austen's 1814 novel. I am not exaggerating when I say that Jane Austen's fans... Continue Reading →
THE NOVEL Fanny's last feeling in the visit was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to bring and put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford's quicker hand, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention. The Narrator, Chapter 25 Quick Synopsis Sir Thomas... Continue Reading →
THE NOVEL "You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out." Mary Crawford,... Continue Reading →
Movies This six part BBC mini-series was adapted from Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park by Ken Taylor and broadcast in 1983 in the UK winning a BAFTA for costume designs by Ian Adley. Sensitively directed by David Giles, this interpretation of Jane Austen's most complex and challenging novel is by far the most accurate attempt... Continue Reading →
THE NOVEL "Do not let us be frightened from a good deed by a trifle. Give a girl an education, and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without farther expense to anybody." Mrs. Norris, Chapter 1 Quick Synopsis Ten year old poor relation... Continue Reading →
Mansfield Park Madness at Austenprose August 15-31 Seventeen days of seventeen great give-aways and Fanny too!  Welcome Janeites and classic literature fans. I am pleased to announce that Austenprose will be hosting a seventeen day event in celebration and re-discovery of Jane Austen's most complex and often misunderstood novel Mansfield Park. Please join us on... Continue Reading →
"South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening." Mary Crawford, Mansfield Park, Chapter 22Â I am currently watching the 1983 BBC mini-series of Mansfield Park staring Sylvestra le Touzel as the famously insipid Fanny Price. Poor Fanny. Traditionally, she gets... Continue Reading →
From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: Mansfield Park, Jane Austen's third novel was published in 1814. It's reception by critics and readers has been mixed—not as light, bright, and sparkling as Pride and Prejudice nor as poignant and romantic as Persuasion. It is a complex story about identity, self-worth, and moral fortitude. It's heroine... Continue Reading →
 GENTLENESS The gentleness and gratitude of her disposition would secure her all your own immediately. From my soul I do not think she would marry you without love; that is, if there is a girl in the world capable of being uninfluenced by ambition, I can suppose it her;  Mary Crawford on Fanny Price,... Continue Reading →
MERIT With so much true merit and true love, and no want of fortune and friends, the happiness of the married cousins must appear as secure as earthly happiness can be. Equally formed for domestic life, and attached to country pleasures, their home was the home of affection and comfort; The Narrator on Rev. &... Continue Reading →
EARNESTNESS She (Fanny Price) told him that she did not love him (Henry Crawford), could not love him, was sure she never should love him; that such a change was quite impossible; that the subject was most painful to her; that she must entreat him never to mention it again, to allow her to leave... Continue Reading →
