Tag Archives: Jane Austen

Celebrating Jane Austen’s Bicentenary – #JaneAusten200

Posted in Jane Austen's Life & Times, Uncategorized by
Jane Austen memoriam in O. C. Register 18 July 2017

The world remembers Jane Austen today on the 200th anniversary of her death.

A celebration is in progress today in honor of one of the world’s most popular authors. July 18, 2017 marks the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death at Winchester, England in the arms of her sister Cassandra. She was only 41 years old. We have six novels, one novella and minor works to cherish. Her fandom has grown to millions.

There are many tributes in progress around the world, notably in England at Winchester Cathedral where she is buried, the Jane Austen House Museum where she resided the last 8 years of her life and at Chawton House Library, the manor house of her brother Edward Austen Knight where she was a frequent guest. The Jane Austen Society of North America’s annual general meeting is being hosted by the southwest region in Huntington Beach this year, a stone’s throw from my hometown of Newport Beach. They are dedicating the entire conference to celebrating Jane Austen in Paradise. They placed an add in the Orange County Register newspaper today in memoriam of Austen’s life and legacy. My sister kindly forwarded it to me. It gave me goosebumps. Jane is indeed everywhere today.

Jane Austen bobbleheads

Three Jane Austen bobblehead’s meet to discuss the merits of long sleeves this season! Courtesy of Julie Arnold c 2017

I have written a tribute to my favorite author for the Telly Visions blog featuring 10 reasons why we still admire Jane Austen’s writing after 200 years. The subject was so close to my heart that I struggled for weeks to write it, changing the topic and tone many times. It is so difficult to narrow down the reasons why I adore Jane Austen – so I just let her tell us.

Please join the celebration by leaving a comment at the Jane Austen Society of North America’s virtual Memory Book and by posting your favorite quote or image on social media. Use hashtag #JaneAusten200 to help her trend online.

In conclusion I will add this quote by Austen’s sister Cassandra from a letter she wrote to her niece Fanny Knight on the occasion of the death of her aunt.

“She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow, I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself.”

Cheers Janeites!

 

Giveaway Winners Announced for Love & Friendship: The Janeite Blog Tour

Posted in Austenesque, Austenesque Authors, Austenesque Books, Jane Austen Adaptations, Love & Friendship by

Love Friendship Blog Tour graphic sidebar x 200It’s time to announce the winners of the giveaway contest for the Love & Friendship Janeite Blog Tour. The three lucky winners of hardcover copies of the book drawn at random are:

Congratulations ladies! To claim your prize, please contact me with your full name and address by July 7, 2016, or you will forfeit your prize! Shipment is to US addresses only.

Thanks to all who left comments and to Little, Brown and Company for the giveaway prizes.

Cover image courtesy of Little, Brown and Company © 2016, text Laurel Ann Nattress © 2016, Austenprose.com

Q&A with Love & Friendship Writer/Director/Author Whit Stillman

Posted in Austenesque, Austenesque Authors, Austenesque Books, Austenesque Movies, Jane Austen Adaptations, Love & Friendship by

Love and Friendship Wit Stillman 2016 x 200Austen scholar Devoney Looser joins us today during the Love & Friendship Janeite Blog Tour to interview ‘Friend of Jane,’ writer/director/author Whit Stillman, whose new hit movie Love & Friendship, and its companion novel, are on the radar of every Janeite.

Welcome Ms. Looser and Mr. Stillman to Austenprose.com.

Devoney Looser: We Janeites know that you go way back as a Janeite yourself. (Would you label yourself that? I see you’ve copped elsewhere to “Jane Austen nut.”) You’ve admitted you were once dismissive of Austen’s novels as a young man—telling everyone you hated them—but that after college you did a 180, thanks to your sister. Anything more you’d like to tell us about that?

Whit Stillman: I prefer Austenite and I consider myself among the most fervent. Yes, there was a contretemps with Northanger Abbey when I was a depressed college sophomore entirely unfamiliar with the gothic novels she was mocking — but I was set straight not many years later.

DL: What made you decide that “Lady Susan” wasn’t the right title to present this film to an audience? (Most of Austenprose’s readers will be wise to the fact that Austen herself didn’t choose that title for her novella, first published in 1871.) I like your new title Love & Friendship very much, but clever Janeites will know you lifted it from a raucous Austen short story, from her juvenilia, Love & Freindship. What led you to make this switch in titles? (I do want to register one official complaint. You’ve now doomed those of us who teach Austen’s Love & Freindship to receiving crazy-wrong exam answers on that text from our worst students for years to come.)

WS: Perhaps it is irrational but I always hated the title “Lady Susan” and, as you mention, so far as we know it was not Jane Austen’s;  the surviving manuscript carries no title (the original binding was chopped off) and she had used “Susan” as the working title for “Northanger Abbey.”  The whole trajectory of Austen’s improved versions of her works was from weak titles, often character names (which I know many film distributors hate as film titles*) toward strong, resonant nouns — either qualities or place names.  “Elinor and Marianne” became Sense and Sensibility, “First Impressions” became Pride and Prejudice, “Susan” became Northanger Abbey. Persuasion and Mansfield Park are similarly sonorous. Continue reading →

The Janeite Blog Tour of Love & Friendship Begins June 13

Posted in Austenesque, Austenesque Authors, Austenesque Books, Georgian Era Books, Jane Austen Adaptations, Love & Friendship by

Love & Friendship (2016) poster 2016 x 200A new Jane Austen-inspired movie released on May 13th. Love & Friendship has received rave reviews from critics and Jane Austen fans alike.

  • “FLAT-OUT-HILARIOUS. Jane Austen has never been funnier.” – The Telegraph
  • “Whit Stillman and English novelist Jane Austen make for a delightful pairing in this comedy of manners.” – The Star.com
  • “Kate Beckinsale magnetizes the screen.” – Variety

Written and directed by renowned independent filmmaker Whit Stillman, (a big friend of Jane Austen with his previous movies Metropolitan and Last Day of Disco), the movie has been adapted from Austen’s comic gem, Lady Susan, and features an all-star cast reuniting Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny and featuring a string of British period drama acting royalty: Steven Fry, James Fleet and Jemma Redgrave. I saw it on Sunday. I was astounded to discover there were actually people in the theater laughing louder than me, inspired by Tim Bennet’s performance as the rattle, Sir James Martin, and the all-around witty banter and comedic timing!

Love and Friendship Wit Stillman 2016 x 200In addition, Stillman has written a companion novel to the film also entitled Love & Friendship with the added subtitle: In Which Jane Austen’s Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated. For those who have read Austen’s original novella, you will remember that Lady Susan Vernon is described by Reginald De Courcy as “the most accomplished coquette in England.” and by others as devious, wicked and “with a happy command of language, which is too often used, I believe, to make black appear white.” To vindicate her scurrilous behavior is an intriguing premise indeed!

Love & Friendship, the novel, is told from the perspective of a new character, Rufus Martin-Colonna de Cesari-Rocca, Lady Susan’s  nephew. His voice throughout the book is very Austenesque, with tongue-in-cheek humor and inside Austen jokes that will delight Janeites. Continue reading →

Giveaway Winner Announced for Love & Friendship Prize Pack

Posted in Jane Austen Adaptations, Love & Friendship by

Love & Friendship (2016) poster 2016 x 200It’s time to announce the winner of the giveaway of the Love & Friendship prize pack offered in honor of the new movie release. The lucky winner was drawn at random and is:

  • Amanda Mauldin who left a comment on May 11, 2016

Congratulations Amanda! To claim your prize, please contact me with your full name and address by May 25, 2016, or you will forfeit your prize! Shipment is to US addresses only.

Thanks to all who left comments and to Roadside Attractions for the giveaway prize package.

Cover image courtesy of Roadside Attractions © 2016, text Laurel Ann Nattress © 2016, Austenprose.com

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice, by Curtis Sittenfeld – A Review

Posted in 4 Star Book Reviews, Austenesque, Austenesque Authors, Austenesque Books, Book Reviews, Jane Austen Contemporary Inspired Book Reviews by

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfield 2016 x 200From the desk of Tracy Hickman:

Jane Austen is a tough act to follow and that is exactly what the Austen Project asks contemporary authors to do: reimagine one of Austen’s novels in the here and now. Curtis Sittenfeld, author of four novels including Prep and American Wife, was chosen to take on Austen’s best-known work, Pride and Prejudice. While P&P-inspired books and films such as Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bride and Prejudice demonstrate that the story and its themes have broad appeal, I wondered how Sittenfeld’s Eligible would handle the main plot points in a modern setting. Many of the issues that Austen’s characters grappled with are barely recognizable if they exist at all in modern daily life.

In Eligible, the tension between the original story and Sittenfeld’s inventions kept me turning pages. Brief, episodic chapters mirror the short attention span of a digital era audience. In contemporary Cincinnati, Mr. Bennet spends as much time as possible alone at his computer, while Mrs. Bennet’s life revolves around country club gossip and planning luncheons for the Women’s League. Jane and Liz have carved out careers in Manhattan: the eldest Miss Bennet teaches yoga while her sister writes features for a magazine. They return to Cincinnati when Mr. Bennet has a heart attack. Their practical assistance and support are needed because their younger sisters, while living at home, are little help to their parents. Socially awkward Mary is pursuing her third online master’s degree while Kitty and Lydia, as crass and self-absorbed as ever, are obsessed with working out at the gym and following trendy diets. Sittenfeld’s group portrait of the Bennet clan was one of my favorite parts of Eligible. It’s easy to picture Jane Austen smiling at this: Continue reading →

Jane and the Waterloo Map: Being a Jane Austen Mystery (Book 13), by Stephanie Barron – A Review

Posted in 5 Star Book Reviews, Austenesque, Austenesque Authors, Austenesque Books, Book Reviews, Jane Austen Sequels Book Reviews by

Waterloo cover x 200From the desk of Christina Boyd:

As a fan of the Being Jane Austen Mystery series, I have been all anticipation for the latest edition, Jane and the Waterloo Map. Author Stephanie Barron knows her Austen lore, as well as a being a masterful storyteller and researcher; writing in a most Austen-like style. She is also The Incomparable when it comes to Regency mysteries. Given that disclaimer, and holding the series in much esteem, I feel quite at liberty to share my impressions herein.

The novel opens with our dear Miss Austen attending her sick brother Henry at his London residence while editing the proofs of her latest novel, Emma, for her publisher John Murray. Summoned to Carlton House, the opulent London mansion of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, Jane meets his toady Historiographer, Mr. James Stanier Clarke, who not only arrogantly invites her to use the Royal Library to write her next novel, but welcomes her to dedicate her work-in-progress to the Prince Regent himself. As she holds the prince and his profligate ways in contempt, Jane cautiously makes no commitment and politely continues on with the tour. Upon reaching the library, they come upon a Colonel MacFarland, hero of Waterloo, collapsed upon the floor in an apoplectic fit. As Mr. Clarke finds help, the colonel utters his last words to Jane, “Waterloo map.” After a curious inspection of the colonel’s vomit, Jane speculates that the colonel may have been poisoned. The next day, word reaches her that the colonel did succumb, and it is not long before the royal physician confirms that the hero of Waterloo was murdered. Thus begins the intrigue—and danger—for our clever authoress as she exposes whodunit in this thirteenth of Stephanie Barron’s mystery series. Continue reading →