Please Join Us! ~ JASNA-Vermont Meeting – June 2, 2013 ~ Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice, with Sheryl Craig

You are Cordially Invited to JASNA-Vermont’s June Meeting 

 “Trickle-Down Economics in Pride and Prejudice;
Or, Why ‘Mr. Darcy Improves upon Acquaintance’!”

 with Sheryl Craig* 

Sheryl Craig

What Jane Austen’s first readers did not need to be told was that a man named Fitzwilliam Darcy had to be a moderate Whig, one who supported Tory Prime Minister William Pitt’s tax and Poor Law reform proposals, and that Darcy’s home county, Derbyshire, paid high wages, provided generous welfare benefits, and funded the best system of poor houses in England.  Thus, Darcy, and moderate Whigs like him, were worthy of both Elizabeth Bennet’s and the reader’s esteem and served as role models to be emulated throughout Georgian Britain and, as it turns out, throughout time.   

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Sunday, 2 June 2013, 2 – 4 p.m. 

 Champlain College, Hauke Conference Center,
375 Maple St Burlington VT  

~Free & open to the Public~
~Light refreshments served~ 

For more information:   JASNAVermont [at] gmail [dot] com
Please visit our blog at: http://JaneAustenInVermont.wordpress.com

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* Sheryl Craig has published articles in Jane Austen’s Regency World, Persuasions, Persuasions On-Line, and The Explicator.  She has also written film reviews for the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.  Sheryl was JASNA’s International Visitor in 2008, is the editor of JASNA News, and was JASNA’s Traveling Lecturer for the Central region in 2012.   She has a Ph.D. in Nineteenth-century British literature from the University of Kansas, has taught at the University of Central Missouri for over twenty years, and is a life member of JASNA.

 

Workhouse at St. James’s Parish – from The Microcosm of London, 1810, [wikipedia commons]

c2013, Jane Austen in Vermont

“What Jane [Austen] Saw” ~ Launching on May 24, 2013 ~ by Janine Barchas

“We have been both to the Exhibition & Sir J. Reynolds’, – and I am disappointed, for there was nothing like Mrs. D. [Darcy] at either. – I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any Picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye. – I can imagine he w’d have that sort [of omitted] feeling – that mixture of Love, Pride & Delicacy.- Setting aside this disappointment, I had great amusement among the Pictures…”

[Jane Austen, Letter 85, Monday 24 May 1813]

Those who have read Jane Austen’s letters are familiar with her comments on visiting London. It has been an ongoing project of mine to figure out where she went and what she did and how she uses the pieces of her London treks in her novels.  One of the more interesting and frustrating is her reference to the art exhibit of Sir Joshua Reynolds – what did she see there, other than not finding a portrait of Mrs. Darcy? It has been revealed today that we will now have a chance to see exactly that, sort of following Jane herself around the galleries, as Professor Janine Barchas of the University of Texas at Austin launches What Jane Saw - a complete reconstruction of that exhibit. You will surely want to bookmark this new website and mark your calendars to view the happening on May 24, 2013!

From the website:

On 24 May 1813, Jane Austen visited an art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall, London. The popular show was the first-ever retrospective of the works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), England’s celebrated portrait painter.  On 24 May 2013, two centuries to the day that Austen viewed the 141 paintings in that exhibit, this site will open its doors as a public e-gallery, offering the modern visitor a precise historical reconstruction of that long-lost Regency blockbuster.

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• You can visit the website here: http://www.whatjanesaw.org/
• Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/WhatJaneSaw#!/WhatJaneSaw
• Professor Barchas on youtube about “What Jane Saw“:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPy4f77idLo
• Professor Barchas wrote about this project here at the Aphra Behn Journal Online: http://www.aphrabehn.org/ABO/?p=1245#more-1245
• See a blog post here with Professor Barchas on her recently published Matters of Fact in Jane Austen [Johns Hopkins 2012]

I will be posting more on this as we near the launch date – this is very exciting, so stay tuned!!

[image from What Jane Saw]

Self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds

c2013 Jane Austen in Vermont

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

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

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

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

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