Austen on the Block!

Several interesting (and largely expensive!) items will be up for auction in the next month:

CHRISTIES: Sale 8952: Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts, 18 June 2013, London.

Lot 174: 

AUSTEN, Jane (1775-1817). Pride and Prejudice. London: T. Egerton, 1813. 3 volumes, 12° (173 x 115mm). (Lacking half-titles, P2 at end of volume one with small marginal repair, tiny orange marginal mark to L5v of vol. II and lighter mark on a few other leaves, some spotting occasionally heavier.) Contemporary calf (rebacked, extremities lightly rubbed).

Second edition. Pride and Prejudice was written between October 1796 and August 1797 when Jane Austen was not yet twenty-one, the same age, in fact, as her fictional heroine Elizabeth Bennet. After an early rejection by the publisher Cadell, Austen’s novel was finally bought by Egerton in 1812 for £110. It was published in late January 1813 in a small edition of approximately 1500 copies and sold for 18 shillings in boards. The present second edition is thought to have been published in October that same year. Gilson A4; Keynes 4. (3)

Estimate: £3,000 – £5,000 ($4,527 – $7,545)

 

Lot 175: 

AUSTEN, Jane (1775-1817). Sense and Sensibility, London: printed for the Author and published by T. Egerton, 1813. 3 volumes, 12° (176 x 105mm). (Lacking half-titles and without final blanks, occasional light spotting.) Contemporary calf, gilt spines (joints splitting, corners very lightly bumped, small blank stain to vol. II). 

Second edition of Jane Austen’s first published novel which grew from a sketch entitled Elinor and Marianne, written in 1795 in the form of letters; it was revised 1797-1798 at Steventon; and again in 1809-1810, the first year of Jane Austen’s residence at Chawton. Thomas Egerton undertook the publication of the first edition in 1813 on a commission basis, and Jane Austen ‘actually made a reserve from her very moderate income to meet the expected loss’. The price of the novel was 15 shillings in boards and advertisements first appeared for it on 30 October 1811. The present second edition is believed to have been printed in October 1813 as the first edition sold out in less than two years. Gilson A2; Keynes 2. (3)

Estimate: £3,000 – £5,000 ($4,527 – $7,545)

Lot 192:

SETS, English and French literature — AUSTEN, Jane. Works. Illustrated by C.E. Brock. London: 1907. 6 volumes, 8°. Contemporary red half calf, spines lettered in gilt (extremities rubbed). [With:] ELIOT, George. Works. Library Edition. Edinburgh: 1901. 10 volumes, 8°. Contemporary blue half roan, spine tooled in gilt (spines evenly faded, extremities rubbed). [And:] BALZAC, Honoré de. Oeuvres completes. Paris: 1869-1876. 24 volumes, 8°. Contemporary red half roan, spines lettered in gilt (extremities rubbed). And 5 related others [ie. Maupassant, Corneille, Rabelais, Macaulay] in 33 volumes, 12° and 8°. (73)

Estimate: £500 – £800 ($755 – $1,207)

Brock – P&P

[Image from Mollands]

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Other items of interest at this Christie’s auction (i.e., what I would love to have!):

Lot 75:

ACKERMANN — Microcosm of London. London: T. Bensley for R. Ackermann [1808-1810, plates watermarked 1806-1808]. 3 volumes, 4° (330 x 272mm). Engraved titles, engraved dedication leaves, and 104 hand-coloured aquatint plates by Buck, Stadler and others after Rowlandson and Pugin. (Lacking half-titles, light offsetting from the plates onto the text, some text leaves evenly browned.) Late 19th- early 20th-century red half calf, spine gilt in compartments, morocco labels (spines lightly and evenly faded).

ONE OF ACKERMANN’S FINEST BOOKS, the rumbustious figures of Rowlandson are the perfect foil to Pugin’s clear and accurate architectural settings. Printing continued for nearly 30 years but, as Abbey notes, the ‘original impressions of these splendid plates have a luminous quality entirely absent from later printings’. This copy is evidently bound from the original parts: with the first issue of the contents leaf in volume 1, and all the errata uncorrected in volumes 2 and 3, and 5 out of 6 errata corrected in volume 1. This copy shows 2 of Abbey’s first state points for the plates: at plates 8 and 11 in volume 1. Abbey Scenery 212; Tooley 7. (3)

Estimate: £3,000 – £5,000 ($4,527 – $7,545)

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BONHAMS: Books, Maps, Manuscripts and Historical Photographs 20752, 19 Jun 2013 London.

Lot 139: 

[AUSTEN (JANE)]. Sense and Sensibility: a Novel. In Three Volumes. By a Lady, 3 vol., first edition, without half-titles, final blank leaf present in volume 2 only, some pale foxing and staining, contemporary calf, sides with gilt and blind-tooled borders, rebacked preserving most of original backstrips and red morocco labels [Keynes 1; Gilson A1; Sadleir 62a], 12mo (173 x 104mm.), Printed for the author, by C. Roworth… and published by T. Egerton, 1811. FIRST EDITION OF JANE AUSTEN’S FIRST PUBLISHED NOVEL. According to Keynes, Egerton printed no more than 1000 copies, priced at 15 shillings in boards; all were sold by the middle of 1813.

Estimate: £15,000 – 20,000  US$ 23,000 – 30,000 €18,000 – 23,000

 

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Also of note in this auction: a first edition of Jane Eyre

Lot 147: 

[BRONTE (CHARLOTTE)]. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography, 3 vol., first edition, with all but two of the printing flaws listed by Smith, half-titles in each volume (but without the additional fly-leaf and advertisements), volume 2 with additional 8-page ‘Ready Money Price List of Drawing & Painting Materials… Alexander Hill’ tipped-in on front free endpaper (seemingly removed from other volumes), original price of “31/6″ marked in pencil on front paste-down of volume 1, a few leaves slightly creased, some light foxing and occasional soiling in margins, UNTRIMMED IN PUBLISHER’S GREY BOARDS with grey/brown diaper half cloth spine, rubbed, spine label to volume 1 chipped with loss of 2 or 3 letters, split to lower joint of volume 2, crease to upper cover of volume 3, [Sadleir 346; Smith 2; Grolier, English 83], 8vo (199 x 122mm.), Smith, Elder, and Co., 1847

 

Footnotes

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST BRONTE SISTERS NOVEL: AN EXTREMELY RARE VARIANT IN ORIGINAL BOARDS, ENTIRELY UNTRIMMED AND WITH THE ORIGINAL PRICE OF ’31/6′ MARKED IN PENCIL. The binding seems to correspond with Smith’s variant B (allowing for some fading of the cloth over the years), but with white rather than yellow endpapers and a further slight variation in the printed spine labels, those on the present set having no semi-colon after “Eyre” and the words “In Three Volumes” inserted above the volume number. We can find no trace of any other copy in original boards having sold at auction.

Provenance: the tipped-in small price list of drawing and painting materials suggests an Edinburgh connection at or soon after the time of publication. Alexander Hill (of Princes Street, Edinburgh, younger brother of the painter David Octavius Hill) was publisher, artists’ colourman and printer to the Royal Scottish Academy from 1830 until his death in 1866. In 1847 he was also appointed printseller and publisher in Edinburgh to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (see National Archives, LC 5/243 p.61). The price list tipped-in to this copy gives Hill’s address as 67 Princes Street, where he had a shop from 1839 until his death, and mentions the royal appointment, reference to which he seems to have dropped by 1853.

Estimate: £30,000 – 50,000  US$ 45,000 – 75,000 €35,000 – 58,000

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BONHAMS:  Fine Books and Manuscripts 20981: June 25, 2013, New York

Lot 3259: 

[Austen, Jane]. Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. With a Biographical Notice of the Author. London: John Murray, 1818. 4 volumes. 12mo (180 x 105 mm). [2], xxiv, 300; [2], 331, [2], 280; [2], 308 pp. Without half-titles. Period half calf over marbled boards, spines gilt. Extremities rubbed, typical light spotting and toning, pp 251-262 in vol 3 creased at outer margin, ffep. in vol 1 loose, volume 4 more so with a crack down spine, a little re-touching to vol 2 spine.

Provenance: T. Hope (early ownership stamps); purchased by the family of the current owner in 1960 from McDonald Booth. FIRST EDITION IN CONTEMPORARY BINDING of Jane Austen’s last published work, issued a year after her death. Persuasion was in fact her first novel, but its first appearance is in this set. This was also her only four-volume publication, all previous works were issued in “triple-deckers.” Gilson A9; Sadleir 62e.

Estimate:  US$ 5,000 – 8,000 £3,300 – 5,300 €3,900 – 6,200

 

Lot 3260: 

 

[Austen, Jane]. Emma: A Novel. In Three Volumes. By the author of “Pride and Prejudice” &c. &c. London: Printed for John Murray, 1816. 3 volumes. 12mo (176 x 112 mm). [6], 322; [2], 351, [1]; [4], 363, [1 ad] pp. Half-titles in vols 1 & 2. Old green marbled boards rebacked to style in calf, green morocco spine labels. Intermittent spotting and browning; vol 2 L8 with corner tear crossing a few letters.

FIRST EDITION. Emma is the only one of Jane Austen’s novels to bear a dedication, to the Prince Regent. It was her fourth novel to be published with a print run of 2000 copies. Gilson A8; Sadleir 62d.

Estimate:  US$ 8,000 – 12,000 £5,300 – 8,000  €6,200 – 9,300

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And finally, this letter from Frances Burney to her father comes to auction in just a few days:

Dreweatts / Bloomsbury auction: Important Books & Manuscripts – 30th Anniversary Sale,30 May 2013 London

Lot 171:  

Burney  (Frances [Fanny], married name D’Arblay, writer, 1752-1840) Autograph Letter initialled “FB d’A” to her father, Charles Burney, “My dearly beloved Padre”, 4pp. with address panel, 8vo, Chenies Street, 12th June 1813, lamenting that she had not been able to visit him, “but some Giant comes always in the way. Twice I have expected Charles [Charles Burney (1757-1817), schoolmaster and book collector; brother of Fanny], to convey me: but his other engagements have made him arrive too late”, social activities, “Yesterday I dined with Lady Lansdowne, & found her remarkably amiable. She is niece to a person with whom I was particularly acquainted of old, at the Queen’s house, Mr. Digby, who was vice Chamberlain; & that made a little opening to converse… Lady Anne was in high spirits, & full of sportive talk & exhilarating smiles. We had no sort of political talk. All was elegant, pleasing, & literary”, and Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of Dr Burney, “Every body talks of your portrait at Sir Joshua’s exhibition, & concurs in saying it is one of the best that greatest of English Masters ever painted. I have not yet, to my infinite regret, found time for going thither. Mrs. Waddington will positively take me once to Chelsea, to pay her respects to you; but she is prepared for being denied your sight, if you should be ill-disposed for company. Sally must see her at all events: besides she is a great admirer of Traits of Nature”, ink postal stamp, remains of red wax seal, folds, slightly browned.

*** Unpublished; not in The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay), edited by Joyce Hemlow & others, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1972-75.

Estimate: £3,000-4,000

[Images and text from the respective auction sites]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont

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Have to Share: “Uncommon and Expensive” – Edwards’s The British Herbal

Well now that Spring finally feels like it has arrived, one’s thoughts head into dirt and gardens and plants and herbs, so wanted to share this article from the most recent issue of Colonial Williamsburg:  “Uncommon and Expensive” by Mary Miley Theobald, on John Edwards’s The British Herbal   – you can read it online here:

There may be no better guide to the plants that grew in eighteenth-century gardens than The British Herbal, a rare collection of botanicals by artist John Edwards, published in 1770. “It’s one of the most valuable books we have,” said Wesley Greene, garden historian in Colonial Williamsburg’s historic trades department. “It lets us document the sort of plants that were available in the colonial era.” Edwards referenced Linnaeus for every plant, allowing Greene and others to identify species precisely. 

Continue reading

Edwards, John. The British Herbal, containing one hundred plates of the most beautiful and scarce flowers and useful Medicinal Plants which blow in the open air of Great Britain, accurately coloured from nature with their Botanical Characters, and a short account of their cultivation. London: Printed for the Author; and sold by J. Edmonson…and J. Walter, 1770.

You can see this slideshow of a number of the prints here:  
http://history.org/foundation/journal/Spring13/herbals_slideshow/#images/herbals4.jpg

[images from the Colonial Williamsburg article, photography by Barbara Lombardi]

The book is indeed quite rare: a quick look at auction records shows that one sold for $17,026 in 1993; for $25,300 in 1997 and for $36,000 in 2000.

One wonders if Jane Austen knew this work – there is no mention of it in her letters or novels, nor is it in Gilson’s bibliography as a work known to have been owned by her.

She may have been more familiar [as I was] with Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (London, 1739) – you can view this whole work online at the British Library at their “Turning Pages” site:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/blackwells/accessible/introduction.html#content

Blackwell’s illustrations are quite lovely as this one example of a male peony shows:

[image from Picturing Plants]

The story of Elizabeth Blackwell’s (1707-1758) creation and publication of this work is an interesting tale – she drew, engraved and colored all the illustrations to accompany the botanical descriptions of her doctor husband in order to pay his debts and effect his release from prison.  Many of the plant specimens were from the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. A copy sold at Christies in 2009 for $17,500, and various plates appear at auction periodically.

We do know that Jane Austen knew of Gilbert White, author of The Natural History of Selborne (1789), and whose house, now a museum, was near the Austen’s home in Chawton. The herb garden at White’s house is depicted in Kim Wilson’s In the Garden with Jane Austen [page 98] with a list of the herbs, and you can visit the house and garden site here.

So now into the garden and away from the computer … but will ask, What is your favorite herbal book?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Life without Jane (Austen, that is); Or, How To Survive Moving…

The Jane Austen in Vermont blog has been silent for the past month, for which I apologize, but as I have now returned somewhat to a “normal” life, I can begin again to obsess on “all things Jane” – blogging, twittering, facebooking, researching, writing, and best of all Reading!

Moving is a nightmare, no matter how organized one might be, and of all my various strengths and weaknesses, the will to organize has always been the driving force; so take the contents of one old house, pack it all up and put it all in storage, and six months later, move all into a new maintenance-free house, and spend the next 3+ weeks unpacking, overdosing on cardboard and paper, as 25,000 pounds (or so the mover tells me) of “stuff” (including my own book collection) finds a place in the new home … so bad back notwithstanding, the deed is done, my books are on the shelves (though alas! not yet fully alphabetized, she says shame-faced), all the drawers and closets are organized, the kitchen is in fine working order (surviving on take-out has become a very nice habit – whoever said I actually needed a kitchen in this new place?), and all the pictures are hung – so “normal” returns in a fashion, and time to get back to real life…

What have I done these past 3+ weeks for my sanity? – the quick break from unpacking, organizing and hammering? I have existed, not only on take-out, but also on the comfort-food of reading mysteries and romance novels – my mind might now be a tad mushy, as I fear the worst in trying to get my head around “game theory” in reading the grandly enlightening Jane Austen, Game Theorist (I promise an author interview shortly, but see in the meantime Michael Chwe’s website here:
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/austen/
 ) – but it has been great fun – so here is my list, all highly recommended as just great reads, and even Jane might approve, as they are each and every one, “only a novel”!

Georgette Heyer: I should add here that for the packing-up part last fall, I re-read all my favorite Georgette Heyers – hard to choose, but I read at least ten all in a row, and can now safely say that I can barely tell one from the other, but the joy of the moment of reading is nearly perfection!

[Image courtesy of Jane Austen Today, with thanks]

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Charles Todd, the Bess Crawford mysteries:  I am a fan of the Jacqueline Winspear Maisie Dobbs series , largely because I love the time between the two World Wars, so was happy to discover that the Charles Todd mother-son duo (of Ian Rutledge fame) had started a similar series a few years ago – have read the first three and have just started the latest. The titles in order:

• A Duty to the Dead
• An Impartial Witness
• A Bitter Truth
• An Unmarked Grave 

- all featuring Bess Crawford, a nurse during WWI, who seems to forever be stumbling headlong into murder and mayhem, as well as the very-helpful-in-a-murder-mystery-plot-device of  having veritable strangers tell her the most amazing things – great fun – you must read them in order… and the fact that there is a very close family friend who seems to always be there when needed adds a little spice and anticipation – his name is Simon Brandon, so nice to know that Jane Austen, as always, is in the mix somehow… [I think Knightley would have been too obvious…]

See their website at
http://charlestodd.com/
 for more information.

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Julie Klassen’s The Tutor’s Daughter:  I have read a few of Klassen’s books and find them to be the perfect read, so was happy to take on her latest The Tutor’s Daughter. It does not disappoint: raging Cornwall weather; two brothers with opposite personalities and each with a history with the lively heroine, the nearly-on-the-shelf daughter of the live-in tutor to the two younger sons of the new wife of Sir Giles; add in an old-rambling castle-like home with a wing one is to stay out of and some ghostly goings-on, and you have a fine historical romance that combines Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre into one delightful confection……

For more information on this and other books by Klassen, see her website here: 
http://www.julieklassen.com/index.html

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Candice Hern: Thanks to Laurel Ann and her mentions of Ms. Hern, I have read most of the books in the Reading Challenge at Austenprose (though I did not sign up, didn’t think I would have the time! – no matter, it is the reading that counts!): again, each tells a fine regency-era tale with the requisite heroines, rakes, fashions, and settings you will be sure to savor:

• A Proper Companion
• A Change of Heart
• An Affair of Honor
• A Garden Folly
• The Best Intentions
• “Desperate Measures”
• “Lady Ann’s Excellent Adventure”

For more information, visit Hern’s website here:
http://candicehern.com/
 - and be sure to click on the “Regency World” section of her website for a wealth of information about the times of which she writes.  And for those attending the Jane Austen JASNA AGM in Minneapolis this year, you will be fortunate to see Ms. Hern’s collection of Regency artifacts on display – she wrote an article on vinaigrettes for the Mar/Apr issue of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine.

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Ok, so all of this made the joys of moving more than bearable – I am almost disappointed to have to return to real life after all – but I am not quite done yet: I will be moving all my Bygone Books business back into the house in the next 2 weeks, so I can keep reading these delightful escapist tales after all – Hern’s Miss Lacey’s Last Fling and Todd’s Unmarked Grave await! and then I shall return to Austen and celebrating Pride and Prejudice, so stay-tuned…

What do you like to read when going through a stressful, energy-intensive time?

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Austen on the Block! ~ Affordable Jane

The Leslie Hindman Auctioneers sale on April 10, 2013 in Chicago: Sale 239 – Fine Books and Manuscripts  [preview starts April 6] has three items of interest to collectors and readers of Jane Austen, and this time a pleasant surprise to see them in a more affordable range…

1.  Lot 319:

* JANE AUSTEN.  Mansfield Park. London: J. Murray, 1816.

3 vols. 12mo, modern quarter morocco, renewed endpapers. Second edition. Lacks half-titles; 2-inch tear to title page vol. 2 restored; spines deteriorating and hinges cracked; otherwise the interior is in near fine condition with very little brownspotting.

Estimate $ 1,000-2,000.

 

2.  Lot 320:

* JANE AUSTEN.  Fragment of a Novel, written January-March 1817. Now First Printed from the Manuscript [Sandition]. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925.

8vo, publisher’s cloth-backed blue boards, printed spine label, facsimile frontispiece. Limited edition facsimile, one of 250 copies on handmade paper. Boards lightly soiled with some loss to spine label; otherwise very good.

Estimate $ 100-200.

 

3. Lot 434A:

JANE AUSTEN.  Works (COLLECTED WORKS). London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1882.

6 vols. 8vo, 3/4 maroon morocco over decorative boards, title in gilt to black leather spine labels, t.e.g. Light edgewear; otherwise fine.

Estimate $ 100-200.

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My note:  this last item does not offer a very comprehensive description, so I would suggest an inquiry to the auction house for more information.  This is likely the Steventon Edition that Bentley published in 1882, limited to 375 sets; size is 20.5 cm, or a small octavo (8vo), obviously rebound here; there are illustrations (those that appeared in Bentley’s original Standard Novels of 1833, and a few additional woodcuts and a facsimile of Austen’s letter to Anna Lefroy (29 Nov 1814)) – full information on the edition can be found in Gilson at D13; but again, please check with the auction house to verify that it is this edition (there was a reissue in 1886).  The interest in the Steventon Edition is that it was the last complete edition of Jane Austen’s works to be published by Bentley, her major publisher in England from 1833 to 1882, and holder of the copyrights until their various successive expiry dates.

[Images from the Leslie Hindman Auctioneers website.]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Winner announced in Giveaway of Claire LaZebnik’s The Trouble With Flirting!

Claire LaZebnik, the author of The Trouble with Flirting, a modern-day re-telling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, wrote here on this blog about ‘updating Jane‘. The publisher HarperTeen graciously offered a giveaway, and a random drawing reveals that the winner is:   junewilliams7 who wrote:

So in my version, Franny learns that the guy who makes you wait while he pants after someone else just isn’t worth waiting for.

Wow! That’s great, I was never crazy about him anyway. But did you put her with a reformed Henry? That’s what I would like, except for all my friends who insist that Henry is too naughty.

Will you take on Sense & Sensibility next? That story needs a modern update!

and in a second comment June wrote:

Sense and Sensibility is such a dark story — it starts with widowhood, greed, and eviction and goes to statutory rape, unwed teen pregnancy, the tale of a forced marriage by an unethical guardian and a type of kidnapping (sending Brandon to India and Eliza’s tale), two marriages for money, Marianne being near death…. none of this is bright or funny or witty. Whoever writes fanfic about Elinor and Edward? Few write fics about Marianne and Brandon. Jane Austen’s couples in this book are NOT favorites of many. If you could translate this into a modern story, it would be challenging and remarkable indeed.

Ahem, please note that I am not willing to undertake the challenge myself. TOO difficult!

Congratulations June! please email me with your mailing contact information as soon a possible – the publisher will send you the book directly.

And again, my thanks to Claire LaZebnik for writing her delightful book and for sharing it on this blog, and to HarperTeen for the giveaway, and to all of you for your comments!

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Want List: A Miniature Pride and Prejudice from Plum Park Press

I posted several months ago about a miniature Emma, published by the bookbinder Tony Firman at his Plum Park Press. Since then I have received my very own Emma and am delighted with it:

Miniature ‘Emma’ from Park Plum Press

And now doubly delighted to hear from Tony that he is planning a similar miniature edition of Pride and Prejudice – perfect timing for this bicentenary year.  It will be another triple-decker, as was the original, in the same format and size as Emma with the same typeface. Each of the three volumes is to be published separately, in April, June, and August; the third volume will include a slipcase for the set.

Volume I and II will contain 240 pages, and 260 pages for Vol. III, all bound in a lovely soft faux leather, in a pretty butterscotch color. The endpapers will be decorated with colored illustrations from the 1907 Dent edition, four different pictures in each volume. The slipcase will be decorated with some of the same illustrations. It will be a limited edition of 15 copies. [no image is yet available]

C. E. Brock – ‘Pride and Prejudice’ – Dent 1907 – Mollands

The first volume will be available near the end of April; price is $35. / volume, the complete set with slipcase, $105.  You can order either by volume as they become available or wait for the complete set in August, but with only 15 sets available, you best get your order in soon!  [There was a second edition of Emma, and there are copies still available.]

Other titles that Tony has published in this miniature format: [see his website for more information on each]

• Priestley: Experiments and Observations of Different Kinds of Air
• Curtis: The Botanical Magazine
• Housman: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems
• Davenport: English Embroidered Bookbindings
• Hubbard: William Morris
• Crane: A Floral Fantasy
• Huygens: Treatise on Light
• Morris: A Dream of John Ball
• Higgin: Handbook of Embroidery
• Browning: The Last Ride
• Blades: The Enemies of Books
• Geikie: Geology
• Einstein: Relativity
• Austen: Emma
• Wells: The Time Machine
• Carroll: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry
• Fitzwilliam: Jacobean Embroidery

Tony Firman Bookbinding
205 Bayne Road, Haslet, TX 76052
www.TonyFirmanBookbinding.com

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Further reading: and if you have any questions, please comment below…

• Tony Firman’s Plum Park Press
• The Miniature Book Society, whick defines a”miniature” book as:

In the United States, a miniature book is usually considered to be one which is no more than three inches in height, width, or thickness. Some aficionados collect slightly larger books while others specialize in even smaller sizes. Outside of the United States, books up to four inches are often considered miniature.

 c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Austen on the Block! ~ Jane Austen’s Emma Sells High

The first edition Emma that I wrote about here, the one with the interesting John Hawkshaw bookplate, sold yesterday (March 19, 2013) at Bonham’s London for £8,125 (inc. premium) or about $12,312. –  about in line with the original estimate at the November 2012 auction of £6,000 – 8,000  (€7,400 – 9,900;  US$ 9,500 – 13,000), and substanitally higher than the estimate for this auction: £4,000 – 5,000 (€4,600 – 5,800;  US$ 6,100 – 7,700).

• More information here at the Bonham’s website:
  http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20751/lot/6/
  
• And my original post here:
  http://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/austen-on-the-block-a-first-edition-iemma-or-where-an-interesting-bookplate-might-take-you/
  

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Guest post and Book Giveaway! ~ Claire LaZebnik The Trouble with Flirting, a Jane Austen for the Modern Teenager

Please see below for information on the book giveaway!

Gentle Readers: Today I welcome Claire LaZebnik as she shares with us her thoughts on her newest book, The Trouble with Flirting, a Jane Austen for young adults.  Loosely based on Mansfield Park, it tells the tale of Franny Pearson and her summer of friendship and romance with the likes of Edmund Bertram, his sisters, and Henry and Mary Crawford, all updated to the 21st-century. There is even a rather demanding, you-shall-never-please-me Aunt Norris in the mix!

In one of my former lives I was a children’s librarian and with the added plus of having children of my own, I’ve have read a good amount of children’s and young adult literature – I can honestly say that some of the works for young people still rate as my favorite reads [Bridge to Terabithia by Vermont’s own Katherine Paterson remains my number one]. Now if I pop Jane Austen into the equation [which I do whenever possible], I have been delighted to discover a treasure-trove of titles that take her tales and adapt them to the world of the 21^st century teenager – Polly Shulman’s Enthusiasm and Rosie Rushton’s series spring immediately to mind – indeed there is even a blog out there!: From JA to YA: Adapting Jane Austen for Young Adults! [And most of my Jane Austen friends agree that Clueless might well be the best of all the Austen adaptations...]

I have just found out about Claire [thank you Diana Birchall!] and have not read her first book Epic Fail based on Pride and Prejudice, but am nearly finished with The Trouble with Flirting – a thoroughly enjoyable read that whether you are 14 or 40 or even 64 you will find something to savor in the young love so beautifully rendered by Jane Austen 200 years ago as now transported to a modern day summer theater camp, where even Shakespeare takes a bow.

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UPDATING JANE

By Claire LaZebnik

How do you stay true to the spirit of an author who wrote two hundred years ago? 

When you sit down to write a modernization of a Jane Austen novel, you get hit by a jumble of emotions. There’s terror—how dare you tinker with perfection?—and dread—no matter how good a book you write, it will never compare to the original—and excitement—you get to spend the next few months of your life thinking about an author you love!—and, mostly, perplexity—how do you bring an early 19^th century text into the 21^st century? You can’t simply switch “ball” to “prom” and “tea” to “diet Coke” and call it a day. (Not that some haven’t tried.)

My first YA novel, Epic Fail, is loosely based on Pride and Prejudice.  For the most part, updating the story went smoothly. The emotions in P&P feel as true today as they ever did: we all know what it’s like to be embarrassed by members of our families and we’ve all at some point given our respect to someone who didn’t deserve it and withheld it from someone who did.

My challenge was figuring out how to give a modern day Darcy a reason to be so guarded that he comes across as a snob: our class distinctions aren’t as clearcut as they were back in Austen’s day and country. But then I figured it out: children of celebrities get fawned over and hounded pretty much everywhere they go in L.A., and, just like Darcy, they learn to be wary of strangers who may want too much from them. So Darcy (now Derek) became the son of two movie stars in my novel.

One thing I never worried about was how to make Elizabeth Bennet accessible to my readers: Lizzie’s about as modern as a nineteenth-century heroine can get. She’s funny, intelligent, wellread, outspoken, and prefers even potentially insolvent independence to life with someone she can’t respect. She transplants beautifully into our modern world.

That project finished, I turned my attention to Mansfield Park.

Vintage Classics

I love Mansfield Park. It’s like a combination of Cinderella and the Ugly Duckling. Plain and poor Fanny Price pines quietly for her kind, wealthy cousin Edmund, but has to watch from the sidelines as he falls in love with the dazzling and witty Mary Crawford. Mary’s equally charming brother Henry decides he’ll steal faithful little Fanny’s heart, just for the hell of it, then surprises himself by falling more in love with her than she with him. He’s an attractive guy, but morally flawed and conscientious Fanny doesn’t trust him. So she rejects his courtship and waits patiently for Edmund to come to his senses or for senility to descend on her–whichever comes first. (And, trust me, it’s a bit of a toss-up.)

Devout, patient, deeply moral, quiet . . . Fanny Price is about as modern as a whalebone corset.

So there lay my challenge with Mansfield Park: finding a way to make Fanny accessible to modern readers. I still wanted her to feel like an outsider, so in my version she arrives at the Mansfield College Theater Program for a job sewing costumes, while all the others teenagers are enrolled in the summer acting program. But she’s not meek, submissive or embarrassed by her position: she takes some pride in the fact she’s earning her way, and when she’s given a chance to participate as an actor, proves she can hold her own against the more privileged set.

Nor does my Franny (I added an “r”) sit around waiting for Edmund/Alex to notice her once he’s clearly crushing on someone else. She still carries a torch for him, but it’s summertime and she knows she might as well have fun.

So there I was, writing my update of MP, feeling pretty good about how I’d made Fanny more modern and brought the plot into this fun summer acting program setting, and everything was falling into place–and then I got to the ending.  In Austen’s version, morality triumphs. The two people who’ve acted in a conscientious and thoughtful way end up together, while the morally lax ones ride off into the sunset.  Actually, let me correct that. First the morally lax ones ride off.  Then Edmund spends some time moping around because he really really liked Mary and is so bummed she didn’t come up to his high moral standards. And then he remembers about faithful little Fanny who’s still watching him hopefully from the sidelines.

Times were different when Austen wrote Mansfield Park. Young women of no means didn’t have a lot of power. Sitting around waiting—and turning down the occasional wrong suitor—was pretty much the only option for someone as poor and dependent as Franny.

But I couldn’t make that ending work. Not today. Not with a more modern heroine. I found it hard to respect a 21^st century girl who sits around passively waiting for the guy she loves to appreciate her, especially when that same man has made it clear he preferred someone else pretty much all along.

I tried to make it work.  I wanted to be true to Austen and true to the novel I’d read so many times and loved so very much. But it wasn’t working. No matter how wonderfully romantic I tried to make the moment when Franny and Alex came together in my book, I felt resentful toward him. He didn’t deserve her.

So I sent an email to my editor. “May I please just try changing the ending?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

So in my version, Franny learns that the guy who makes you wait while he pants after someone else just isn’t worth waiting for.

I love Austen—madly, passionately, deeply.  That’s why I’ve wanted to pay homage to her with these modernizations: if you’re going to steal, steal from the best. But I wouldn’t be faithful to her legacy of capturing universal human truths and emotions and setting them in a very specific time and place, if I didn’t recognize that times change and women are much freer now than they were back then—and give my readers a Fanny Price for our time.

About the author:

Claire LaZebnik

Claire LaZebnik’s most recent novels, Epic Fail and The Trouble with Flirting (HarperTeen), are loosely based on two of Jane Austen’s classic works. She’s currently finishing up The Last Best Kiss, which is due out in summer 2014 (also from HarperTeen) and is inspired by Austen’s Persuasion. Her first novel, Same as It Never Was (St. Martin’s, 2003) was made into an ABC Family movie titled Hello Sister, Goodbye Life. Her four other novels for adults, Knitting under the Influence, The Smart One and the Pretty One, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now, and Families and other Nonreturnable Gifts, were all published by Hachette’s Grand Central Publishing imprint. LaZebnik co-authored two non-fiction books with Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel (Overcoming Autism and Growing Up on the Spectrum) and contributed a monologue about having a teenage son with autism to the anthology play Motherhood Out Loud.

Further reading:

Claire’s website

Claire’s facebook page

An interview with Claire at L. S. Murphy’s blog

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The Trouble with Flirting
by Claire LaZebnik
HarperTeen 2013
$9.99
ISBN-10: 0061921270
ISBN-13: 978-0061921278
Find it at your local bookstore, or at Amazon

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Book Giveaway! Please enter into the random drawing for a copy of The Trouble with Flirting by commenting below: either by asking Claire LaZebnik a question or telling us why you would like to read this YA novel based on Mansfield Park and how you might fashion the ending.  Deadline is Monday March 25, 2013 11:59 pm; winner will be announced on Tuesday March 26^th. Domestic eligibility only [sorry all, our postage rates make international mailings impossibly expensive]. Good luck all, and thank you to the publisher HarperTeen for donating the book for the giveaway, and to Claire for her posting here today [and her delightful book!]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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Hot off the Presses! ~ Jane Austen’s Regency World Magazine No. 62

The March/April issue (No. 62, 2013) of Jane Austen’s Regency World magazine is published this week!

In it you can read about…

• Austentatious: the theatre group that is improvising Austen themes
• What Jane did next: life at Chawton Cottage after the publication of Pride & Prejudice
• Secrets of a happy marriage: the Leigh-Perrots were a devoted couple
• Portraits of perfection: miniature paintings were fashionable in Georgian drawing rooms
• Lonely as a cloud: the life of William Wordsworth, Jane’s contemporary
• Plus News, Letters, Book Reviews and information from Jane Austen Societies in the US, UK and Australia

To subscribe click here.

[If you would like the magazine delivered to your tablet, visit the JARW partner magzter and subscribe there.]

William Wordsworth

[Image: The Guardian]

 

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Happy Valentine’s Day! ~ Giveaway of Elsa Solender’s Jane Austen in Love!

What a strange thing love is!

[Emma, vol. I, ch. XIII]

[Please see below for book giveaway instructions]

What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than to think of Love in Jane Austen terms.  I think we can say that it is a “truth universally acknowledged” that Captain Wentworth’s letter to Anne in Persuasion* is the grandest expression of Love in all of literature – who would not want to receive such a letter as this?  But what of Love in Jane Austen’s own life? – we know so little; where did Mr. Darcy come from, or any of her other heroes?  What of True Love in her own life? We can only imagine… so I lead you to a fine imaginative rendering of ‘Jane Austen in love’ in Elsa Solender’s Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment.  When published last February, it was only available as an ebook, delightful to read but nothing to put upon the shelf.  We had to wait until this past December to see it finally published in real book form at Amazon.com.

book cover

At the time of its release as a kindle book, Elsa graciously “sat” for an interview here at Jane Austen in Vermont – you can read that here. And as my review was to be published in the JASNA News (just out in the Winter 2012 issue), I did not post a review of the book on this blog; Diana Birchall very graciously did so for me here.  But as my review is now published and available online, I append it here in part and then direct you to the JASNA site for the remainder [Note: all book reviews in the JASNA News are available online from 1998 to the present: click here.]  – and Elsa has offered a copy for a book giveaway [see below] in celebration of Valentine’s Day!

kindle cover

 “The Many Loves of Jane Austen” 

Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment, by Elsa Solender.

Review by Deborah Barnum

Imagine a young Jane Austen reading aloud her History of England, Cassandra sketching Henry as Henry V, their Mother as Elizabeth I, and Jane as Mary Queen of Scots; or young Jane at school nearly dying of typhus; or hearing Jane’s thoughts on first encountering Madame Lefroy; or sparking a laugh from the intimidating Egerton Brydges. Imagine the suitor you might like your Jane Austen to meet by the seaside, she falling madly in love but destined to suffer the pangs of lost love, forever irreplaceable. If your mind tends to such as you try to fill in the many blanks in Austen’s life, you might find that Elsa Solender, in her Jane Austen in Love: An Entertainment, has done a wondrous job of doing it for you.

Ms. Solender, former president of JASNA and a prize-winning journalist, has taken her story “Second Thoughts,” runner-up in the 2009 Chawton House Library Short Story Contest, and expanded this one moment in Austen’s life to other places and times, all through the lens and voice of Cassandra Austen—it is part real, part imaginary, and part Austen’s own fiction, dialogue and story all beautifully woven together in this tribute to love in the life of Jane Austen—her love for her sister, her family, her cousin Eliza, and her mentor and friend Madam Lefroy; her flirtation with Tom Lefroy; the proposal from Bigg-Wither; and her Mysterious Suitor of the Seaside.

This is Cassandra’s story…

Continue reading… 

Amazon Digital Editions, 2012. 319 pages. Kindle. $6.99
Amazon Create Space, 2012. 368 pages. Paperback. $12.99

About the author: Elsa A. Solender, a New Yorker, was president of the Jane Austen Society of North America from 1996-2000. Educated at Barnard College and the University ofChicago, she has worked as a journalist, editor, and college teacher in Chicago, Baltimore and New York. She represented an international non-governmental women’s organization at the United Nations during a six-year residency in Geneva. She wrote and delivered to the United Nations Social Council the first-ever joint statement by the Women’s International Non-Governmental Organizations (WINGO) on the right of women and girls to participate in the development of their country. She has published articles and reviews in a variety of American magazines and newspapers and has won three awards for journalism. Her short story, “Second Thoughts,” was named one of three prizewinners in the 2009 Chawton House Library Short Story Competition. Some 300 writers from four continents submitted short stories inspired by Jane Austen or the village of Chawton, where she wrote her six novels. Ms. Solender was the only American prizewinner, and she is the only American writer whose story was published in Dancing With Mr. Darcy, an anthology of the twenty top-rated stories of the contest.

Ms. Solender’s story “A Special Calling” was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Short Short Story Competition. Of more than 1,000 stories submitted, Ms. Solender’s story was ranked among the top fifty and was granted Honorable Mention. She has served on the boards of a non-profit theater, a private library and various literary and alumnae associations. Ms. Solender is married, has two married sons and seven grandchildren, and lives in Manhattan.

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For Valentine’s Day, Elsa has graciously offered a copy of her book [as she did with her ebook] to the winner of a random drawing – please comment below on what reading Jane Austen has taught you about Love.  Or you can pose a question to Ms. Solender. Deadline is Thursday February 21, 2013 at 11:59 pm; winner will be announced the next day. Domestic mailings only [sorry global readers, but our postal service has skyrocketed their overseas prices!]

Thank you Elsa, and good luck everyone!

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‘Placed it before Anne’

[Image: C. E. Brock, Persuasion, vo. II, ch. XI; from Mollands.net]

*Captain Wentworth’s letter: [because I cannot resist]

‘I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. – Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? – I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. – Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in 

F. W. 

‘I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.’       [Perusasion, Vol. II, ch. XI]

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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