Category Archives: Recommended

January 3, 2024 · 2:51 am

Jane Austen’s Wardrobe – Hilary Davidson

This book is a beautiful object. The pages are thick, there are illustrations and photographs.

Dr Davidson went through Austen’s letters and then found examples of similar clothing and accessories (or in the case of the Brown Silk Pelisse – the real thing).

The book explores Austen’s garments and adornments by grouping together items in the way Regency clothing would have been stored, as a virtual wardrobe.
Introduction, page 9

Not only is there information on Austen’s clothes, but there is information on customs of the time, fabrics, laundry etc. It is truly fascinating.

A review

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September 14, 2023 · 4:32 am

Reading Jane Austen – Jenny Davidson

I am not sure how I first became aware of this book, but when I was looking for a non-fiction book to read, I had this as a sample on my Kindle. It’s fabulous.

Here’s the blurb …

Whether you’re new to Austen’s work or know it backwards and forwards already, this book provides a clear, full and highly engaging account of how Austen’s fiction works and why it matters. Exploring new pathways into the study of Jane Austen’s writing, novelist and academic Jenny Davidson looks at Austen’s work through a writer’s lens, addressing formal questions about narration, novel writing, and fictional composition as well as themes including social and women’s history, morals and manners. Introducing new readers to the breadth and depth of Jane Austen’s writing, and offering new insights to those more familiar with Austen’s work, Jenny Davidson celebrates the art and skill of one of the most popular and influential writers in the history of English literature.

There are seven chapters and a very comprehensive Notes and Further Reading section. The Chapter titles are:

Letters
Conversation
Revision
Manners
Morals
Voice
Female Economies

In each chapter, Davidson refers to specific parts of all of the texts (and the letters). She has clearly read all of the novels extremely closely and her insights are interesting and thought-provoking. I need to go back and read the novels again.

For example, in the chapter on Morals, this passage is taken from Pride and Prejudice

Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever, on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment, as to refuse his daughter a privilege, without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all that she could believe possible. She was more alive to the disgrace, which the want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter’s nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham, a fortnight before they took place.

And then, Davidson writes this

Mrs. Bennet’s shallowness is mocked in this passage, but the novel reserves a more profound indictment for strict exertions of conventional moral judgment that aren’t tempered by the humility and humanity – the empathy, we might call it – that should properly accompany verdicts on other people’s wrongdoing. Austen herself, in her letters as in her fiction, would probably have phrased this point in more explicitly Christian terms, invoking forgiveness rather than sympathy or empathy and resolutely condemning the hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness of Christians unwilling to comprehend and forgive transgression.

If you’re interested in Austen, or reading critically or literature in the Georgian era, then this book is for you.

A review

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August 31, 2023 · 5:11 am

The Regency Revolution – Robert Morrison

I have two paper copies and one Kindle copy, so clearly I was keen to read it. It did still take me a while to get to it. This is the story/history of regency England.

Here’s the blurb …

The Regency began on 5 February 1811 when the Prince of Wales replaced his violently insane father George III as the sovereign de facto. It ended on 29 January 1820, when George III died and the Prince Regent became King as George IV. At the centre of the era is of course the Regent himself, who was vilified by the masses for his selfishness and corpulence. Around him surged a society defined by brilliant characters, momentous events, and stark contrasts; a society forced to confront a whole range of pressing new issues that signalled a decisive break from the past and that for the first time brought our modern world clearly into view.

This book is divided into five chapters with a prologue and epilogue;

Prologue – The Regent and the Regency
Chapter 1 – Crime, Punishment and the Pursuit of Freedom
Chapter 2 – Theatres of Entertainment
Chapter 3 – Sexual Pastimes, Pleasures, and Perversities
Chapter 4 – Expanding Empire and Waging War
Chapter 5 – Changing Landscapes and Ominous Signs
Epilogue – The Modern World

It is a fascinating book, without any obfuscating academic jargon. And it has some lovely illustrations (both colour and black and white).

Some of the quotes about Austen

Austen knew that our biggest hopes sometimes rest on the smallest events, and that tragedy can be played out not just on the national stage or a foreign battlefield but also is a drawing room conversation or on a country walk.

His [Byron] reputation as a handsome ,brooding, anti-social elite stands clearly behind Austen’s portrait of Darcy in Pride and Prejudice

Austen was the great master of the technique that used social constraint to heighten rather than reduce sexual tension.

This book is great if you are interested in history, or Jane Austen, or Byron (not to mention Shelley and Mary Shelley).

Another review

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August 20, 2023 · 2:38 am

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies – Alison Goodman

Check out my review here.

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July 7, 2023 · 12:10 am

Interesting JASNA Article

I am not sure where I first saw a mention of this article – Instagram perhaps?

Why was Jane Austen sent away to school so early?

https://jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol26no1/walker.htm

Essentially the girls (Cassandra and Jane) were sent away to school to create space for paying students. But this article is full of information about the houses that could be Steventon (there are two possibilities), number of students at any time, number of servants (because some of them have to be housed too) and number of family members (remember two of the boys were also sent off to the naval academy).

I have read a lot of Austen biographies and I have never noticed the two different Steventon houses.

Both of the below images are from the article.

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July 1, 2023 · 3:24 am

Emma, Annotated by David M Shapard

Emma – Jane Austen, Annotated by David M Shapard

It has been an enormous length of time since I have written a blog post (7 years!). It’s not that I stopped reading everything relating to Jane Austen, or watching adaptations, etc. I think it was a time thing – it takes time to read the book, watch the movie and then write a review, but I am hoping that now I have made a start I will keep going.

I came across David M Shapard from Page Girl’s blog – she was doing a close reading of Sense and Sensibility – definitely worth reading. As Emma is my favourite Austen, I thought I would start my re-reading with it. Such a joy to be back in Austen’s world.

Here’s the goodreads blurb …

From the editor of the popular Annotated Pride and Prejudice comes an annotated edition of Jane Austen’s Emma that makes her beloved tale of an endearingly inept matchmaker an even more satisfying read. Here is the complete text of the novel with more than 2,200 annotations on facing pages, including:

–Explanations of historical context
-Citations from Austen’s life, letters, and other writings
-Definitions and clarifications
-Literary comments and analysis
-Maps of places in the novel
-An introduction, bibliography, and detailed chronology of events
-Nearly 200 informative illustrations

Filled with fascinating information about everything from the social status of spinsters and illegitimate children to the shopping habits of fashionable ladies to English attitudes toward gypsies, David M. Shapard’s Annotated Emma brings Austen’s world into richer focus.

The annotations are fabulous, I have read Emma countless times, and there was still things that I learnt or hadn’t ever noticed.

I wouldn’t recommend reading the annotated version for your first reading (to be well-annotated means spoilers), but for subsequent readings definitely read this version. It was fascinating just noticing the evolution of words.

It is possibly geared more towards an American audience – I thought some of the things annotated were obvious, but perhaps only to English or commonwealth readers.

A review.

Re-reading Emma made me realise how isolated, and possibly, lonely Emma was. Her social circle is extremely limited; the Westons, Harriet, Mr Knightley, and the Eltons and the Bates (and she doesn’t like them). Also, there is not a lot to keep her busy; looking after her father and managing the house, no wonder she’s a bit of an imaginist.

And Mrs Elton is like an extreme form of Emma without the elegance and good breeding.

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October 13, 2015 · 12:55 am

Bitch in a Bonnet – Robert Rodi

I have to say this blog is in a decline a bit like Mrs Bennet after Lydia runs off with Wickham. Time, content and motivation are all my problems. Anyway, Bitch in a Bonnet, was recommended by one of the members of my Jane Austen group – I bought the Kindle version.

Here’s the blurb …

Novelist Rodi (Fag Hag, The Sugarman Bootlegs) launches a broadside against the depiction of Jane Austen as a “a woman’s writer…quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzily, swooningly romantic — the inventor and mother goddess of ‘chick lit.’” Instead he sees her as “a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century… She takes sharp, swift swipes at the social structure and leaves it, not lethally wounded, but shorn of it prettifying garb, its flabby flesh exposed in all its naked grossness. And then she laughs.” In this volume, which collects and amplifies two-and-a-half years’ worth of blog entries, he combs through the first three novels in Austen’s canon — Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park — with the aim of charting her growth as both a novelist and a humorist, and of shattering the notion that she’s a romantic of any kind (“Weddings bore her, and the unrelenting vulgarity of our modern wedding industry — which strives to turn each marriage ceremony into the kind of blockbuster apotheosis that makes grand opera look like a campfire sing along — would appall her into derisive laughter”).
“Hilarious…Rodi’s title is a tribute. He’s angry that the Austen craze has defanged a novelist who’s ‘wicked, arch, and utterly merciless. She skewers the pompous, the pious, and the libidinous with the animal glee of a natural-born sadist’…Like Rodi, I believe Austen deserves to join the grand pantheon of gadflies: Voltaire and Swift, Twain and Mencken.” Lev Raphael, The Huffington Post.

I loved this book – it was like chatting to a rather acerbic friend about Austen. Although, I do disagree with his take on Fanny Price (I have a soft spot for Miss Price) I thought the rest was excellent – funny, insightful and easy to read. What’s more it made me want to go back and read the books again (surely that is the highest praise for a book on Austen?). I’ve bought the second volume and will get onto it as soon as I’ve cleared some of my (enormous) to be read pile.

If you are an Austen fan, then you will definitely enjoy this book (particularly if like me you think most people who write sequels etc have completely missed the point – they’re not romances people!).

http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/bitch-in-a-bonnet-by-robert-rodi/

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February 6, 2015 · 3:22 am

Jane Austen’s Country Life – Deirdre Le Faye

Jane Austen’s Country Life -Deirdre Le Faye

This is a beautiful book – thick pages and stunning illustrations. It is worth owning for the illustrations.

Here is the blurb …

Jane Austen lived for nearly all her life in two Hampshire villages: for 25 years in her birthplace of Steventon, and then for the last 8 years of her life in Chawton, during which she wrote and published her great novels. While there are plenty of books describing her periods of urban life in Bath, Southampton and London, and the summer holidays in Lyme Regis and other West Country seaside resorts, no book has given consideration to the rural background of her life. Her father was not only the rector of Steventon but a farmer there as well, managing a property of some 200 acres. Her brother Edward, in addition, was a large landowner, holding the three estates of Godmersham in Kent, Steventon and Chawton in Hampshire. Agriculture, in all its aspects, was even more important to Jane than clerical life or the naval careers of her younger brothers. This book fills a gap in the Austen family background, discussing the state of agriculture in general in the south of England during the wartime, conditions which lasted for most of Jane Austen’s life, and considering in particular the villages and their inhabitants, the weather conditions, field crops, farm and domestic animals, and the Austens’ household economy and rural way of life. Apart from these obvious sources, there are other Austen family manuscripts, as yet unpublished, which provide particular and unique information. Richly illustrated with contemporary depictions of country folk, landscapes and animals, Jane Austen’s Country Life conjures up a world which has vanished more than the familiar regency townscapes of Bath or London, but which is no less important to an understanding of this most treasured writer’s life and work.

There are seven chapters – Hampshire (as I mentioned in a previous post, I needed a map to understand the relationships between the places), A Year in the Country Side, The Hardships and Pleasures of Rural Life, Crops, Livestock and Pleasure-Grounds, Urban Interlude and Life at Godmersham and Chawton. This isn’t an academic book it is really to help a modern audience understand and appreciate life in Austen’s time. For example, peas at Christmas is quite an extravagance! Not something that I had thought about, but it reveals information about the characters that a contemporary reader would appreciate.

It was a very easy read and makes me want to go back and read Austen’s novels again taking notice of the time of year, the weather and the food.

More reviews …

http://austenprose.com/2014/08/28/jane-austens-country-life-uncovering-the-rural-backdrop-to-her-life-her-letters-and-her-novels-by-deirdre-le-faye-a-review/

http://www.chawtonhouse.org/?library_blog=jane-austens-country-life-book-review-by-mary-besada

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September 30, 2014 · 3:56 am

Persuasion 1971

I bought this adaptation at the same time as this Sense and Sensibility. Once you get past the 1970s fashion (and hairstyles) it is a great adaptation. It follows the plot of the novel closely – although some bits are left out (like little Charles’s accident and Anne missing the dinner party). There is a lot of ‘projecting to the back row’ acting (particularly by Sir Walter), but I think that is more about direction and the style of acting at the time – it feels like theater rather than a naturalistic film.

Sir Walter Eliot

Anne (with Wentworth in the background) – check out the hair!

Elizabeth and Sir Walter

Lady Russell

Mary, Charles and Anne

Mr Elliot and Anne

Mrs Clay

This isn’t a beautiful adaptation and it is certainly showing its age, but still worth watching if you love Persuasion and its quiet tone.

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March 29, 2014 · 1:47 am

Austenland

I was really keen to see this movie based on Shannon Hale’s novel, but it wasn’t played in any cinemas near me. I bought it as soon as it was released on DVD. It has had some poor reviews, but I thought it was hilarious. An over-the-top romp through most of the conventions that make up Austen adaptations. The actors appeared to be having a ball over-playing their parts – I suspect the critics were expecting something more literary.

In case you don’t know the plot …

Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.

Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen;or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It’s all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?

Jane’s Bedroom – A life Sized Mr Darcy

Arriving at the Manor House

Jane could only afford the Copper package (rather than the Platinum package) and hence no seat inside the carriage for her. Doesn’t Jane sit in this spot in Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice adaptation?