July 13, 2009 · 6:40 am

Jane’s Fame – Authors Too Ourselves (Chapter One)

This post is a bit delayed because I’ve been away (for school holidays) anyway …

Chapter One of Claire Harman’s Jane’s Fame provides some biographical detail, but more interestingly focuses on the writers in her family and amongst her acquaintance.

We read about her brothers James and Henry who produced The Loiterer (every Saturday from January 1789 to March 1790). James was considered to be the the writer of the family …

His seniority, his sex and his choice of the art of poetry over prose meant that even after his sister had become a highly praised novelist, he was still in all important respects still regarded as the writer of the family.


James Austen

They briefly had as a neighbour Samuel Egerton Brydges (the younger brother of Mrs Anne Lefroy) who published a book of poetry (poorly received) and later had some success as a novelist. He was the first published author with whom Austen came into contact – although she wasn’t that impressed with him as an author …

[after reading Arthur Fitz-albini] My father is disappointed – I am not, for I expected nothing better. Never did any book carry more internal evidence of its author. Every sentiment is completely Egerton’s. There is very little story, and what there is is told in a strange, unconnected way. There are many characters introduced, apparently merely to be delineated.

Her mother’s first cousin Cassandra Cooke wrote Battleridge but more importantly lived in the house opposite Fanny Burneyf or several years. Austen must have been intrigued by stories about Burney’s publishing dilemmas. There is some speculation as to whether Austen ever meet Burney, but she at least must have seen her from a distance. Austen was a fan of Fanny Burney and Harman believes ‘Pride and Prejudice is an elaborate homage to Camilla’ – having never read Camilla I couldn’t say.

Harman also believes that the delay in Austen getting published contributed to her brilliant novels…

Frustrating though this must have been for the author, the benefit to posterity could hardly have been greater […]The longer Austen remained unpublished, the more experimental she became, and the more licence she assumed with bold, brilliant moves.

Next chapter Praise and Pewter.

My local Jane Austen group (jasaperth.com) have an Emma movie challenge – check it out.

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July 1, 2009 · 6:54 am

Jane’s Fame – Part One

I’ve read the Preface in which Ms Harman states her goal for this book

This book charts the growth of Austen’s fame, the changing status of her work and what it has stood for, or been made to stand for, in English culture over the past two hundred years.

In her own lifetime Austen’s books were not particularly successful – the editions were small and remaindered or pulped after her death. Henry Austen wrote what he thought was a definitive biography of Austen when he published Persuasion and Northanger Abbey in 1818.

A life of usefulness, literature and religion was by no means a life of event.

In the 1820s her novels were out of print considered too restrained and old fashioned for Victorian tastes. Critics had mixed responses; Charlotte Bronte hated the novels, G H Lewes liked them, etc. However, by the end of the century ‘all the reading world is at Miss Austen’s feet’.

And now her fame has reached all parts of the globe. Just to place her name in a book title seems to generate sales (The Jane Austen Book Club, Lost in Austen, etc). Since the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice there has been 15 adaptations (and a new Emma in the making).

Ms Harman observes that there have been two surges of popularity; the first after the publication of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s Memoir of Jane Austen and the second of the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice.

How did a young woman writing in the late 18th and early 19th Century become a ‘pivotal figure not simply in literature of all sorts but in the heritage and multimedia’?

I look forward to reading more…

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June 30, 2009 · 8:30 am

Everything Austen Challenge – Jane’s Fame

My first selection in the Everything Austen Challenge was Jane’s Fame – How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman.

I found my copy (under a pile of to-be-dealt-with magazines and books) and I have planned my reading for the month. The book has seven chapters – I plan to read two chapters a week.

In a completely unrelated aside I just finished watching the latest version of Little Dorrit. It was fabulous – if you like a period drama, then you’ll definitely want to see this (and let’s face it you’re reading a blog about Jane Austen so you must like period dramas). You can buy it from the BBC Store and it is in regions 2 and 4 (that means you can watch it in Australia).

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June 23, 2009 · 4:41 am

Everything Austen Challenge

Stephanie’s written word is offering an ‘Every Austen Challenge’. In this challenge you have to read or watch six Austen related items in six months (July to December 2009).

Now my six Austen things are…

Jane’s Fame by Claire Harman

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Lost in Austen by Emma Campbell Webster

The Absenteeby Maria Edgeworth – Possible influence on Austen (does that count?)

Lesley Castle by Jane Austen

Mansfield Park BBC (1983)

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May 3, 2009 · 6:09 am

Fanny Burney A Biography – Claire Harman

I had 500 spam comments! – must remember not to leave such a big gap between posts. I did discover a new plug-in that got rid of them.

My local Jane Austen group had a very interesting discussion about Fanny Burney – when we discussed Evelina – so I decided to find out more about her. This biography by Claire Harman was the one recommended by my group.

It was a really easy read – Ms Harman has a lovely almost conversational style. And what a life Fanny Burney had! She was at court when King George 111 went mad (the first time) and in Paris when Napoleon escaped from Elba. She knew Garrick and Dr Johnson.

If you’re at all interested in Fanny Burney (or Jane Austen), then I recommend reading this biography. I’m almost motivated to read some of Fanny Burney’s novels.

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January 14, 2009 · 6:59 am

The Reluctant Widow – Georgette Heyer

Reading too much Heyer is a bit like eating too much sugar in one sitting – I feel slightly sick and usually get a headache. I like Heyer (and sugar), but a little goes a long way. I think this is one of her best romances.

Here’s the blurb on the back …

A fateful mistake…

When Elinor Rochdale boards the wrong coach, she ends up not at her prospective employer’s home but at the estate of Eustace Cheviot, a dissipated and ruined young man on the verge of death.

A momentous decision…

His cousin, Mr Ned Carlyon, persuades Elinor to marry Eustace as a simple business arrangement. By morning, Elinor is a rich widow, but finds herself embroiled with an international spy ring, housebreakers, uninvited guests, and murder. And Mr Carlyon won’t let her leave …

This novel combines intrigue and romance in a compelling page turning manner (and there is not too much regency slang, which I always find a tad annoying). It is light and sparkling and very easy to read.

Elinor is on her way to her new post as a governess and steps into the wrong carriage – she ends up at Highnoons where it is thought she has answered an advertisment to marry Eustace Cheviot. The advertisment was placed by Mr Ned Carlyon – Eustance’s cousin – as a way of not inheriting Highnoons (the Grandfather’s will was unusual). Mr Carlyon thinks Elinor should marry Eustace despite the mistake because Eustace won’t live for long – he is a disolute young man – and once he is dead she can live a life of relative comfort with than drudgery as a Governess. They then hear (Via Mr Carlyon’s younger brother Nicky) that Eustace has been accidently stabbed (By Nicky) and probably won’t live out the night. They rush to the inn where Elinor and Eustace are married, Eustace writes his will in Elinor’s favour and dies before morning.

Elinor is settled at Highnoons and receives a visitor late at night who claims to have let himself in the side door (not being aware that Eustace is dead). How did he get in? All the doors and windows were locked and what was he looking for? Hence the mystery.

I enjoyed reading this novel. If you haven’t read any Georgette Heyer this would be a good one with which to start.

Here are some links …

http://janitesonthejames.blogspot.com/2008/11/reluctant-widow-by-georgette-heyer-book.html

http://www.georgette-heyer.com/

http://www.heyerlist.org/

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December 28, 2008 · 2:11 am

Evelina – Frances Burney

I’ve has this book in my classics section ‘for this age’, but have never managed to get beyond the first few letters. This time, however, I managed to finish it. Mostly because I need to discuss it at my next Jane Austen meeting.

Here’s the blurb from the back

Written in secret, the manuscript copied for her publisher in disguised hand writing, Frances Burney’s first novel Evelina appeared anonymously in 1778.

It was a sequel to Caroline Evelyn, the novel burned by its author when she was fifteen; Evelina the apparently illegitimate daughter of vanished Caroline, happily enters a society much more dangerous than she realises.

Subtitled The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World the novel records in letters its young heroine’s encounters with society, both high and low, in London and at fashionable watering places.

The novel explores representation and performance, social mores and masks, in a world full of distractions, from overturned coaches to golden automata, from opera to malevolent monkeys. Evelina is also a ‘family romance’, and, as Margaret Anne Doody’s Introduction indicates, it is acutely observant of the social laws regarding power, authority and authorship, which the author herself had to subvert, at least in part, like her naive letter writing heroine.

I liked it. I think it conveys the social mores of the time in an accessible manner (did you know that at a ball you can’t reject one young man and then dance with another?). Also, unlike Austen, we get so see how the middle class live (the Branghtons). The Branghton sisters (Poll and Bid) reminded me of the Steele sisters in Sense and Sensibility. Lord Orville is the perfect here – he treats everyone with polite kindness.

I found the letter thing a bit frustrating – how could she possibly remember conversations so exactly? I don’t think this book is for a general audience, but if you’re a keen reader of Austen and want to read the novels she read, then I would definitely recommend Evelina.

Here are some links …

http://www.blogapenguinclassic.co.uk/site/pcReadReview.php5?review_id=76

(a review of Evelina)

http://librivox.org/evelina-by-fanny-burney/

(audio book)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Burney

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November 17, 2008 · 1:01 am

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet – Colleen McCullough

What can I say? If you think about this and Pride and Prejudice as being completely independent – different characters with the same name etc, then you might just like it. If you can’t do that, then you will hate it (and rightly so – Darcy does not have a hired thug who does his dirty work!).

The best I can say is that it’s not bad as a trashy regency novel – no where near as good as Georgette Heyer, but I can see that a bit of research had been done. Although as Austen did say

while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her uncle Philip’s clerks, and was content to be considered a star in the society of Meriton

Taken from  A Memoir of Jane Austen

I’m not sure why McCullough felt the need to alter the story.

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October 30, 2008 · 7:06 am

Northanger Abbey – Final Thoughts

Why is Northanger Abbey my least favourite Austen novel? I have been thinking about this for a few days.

Henry Tilney is charming and witty and the authorial voice is, at times, wickedly funny, …

Mrs Allen was one of that numerous class of females, whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at their being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them.

Austen’s treatment of Catherine Morland is sympathetic – we as readers like her and want to follow her on her adventure to find a hero.

So, why despite all of its good points do I not like it as much as the other novels (even Mansfield Park).

I blame Catherine Morland she is no Elizabeth Bennet or Anne Elliot. She is young, inexperienced and a bit silly. This novel is as much a protest against the lack of female education as it is a love story.

Also, unlike other Austen novels (apart from Persuasion) there is no charming rake – no Henry Crawford, or Mr Willoughby – I like the rogues.

However, Henry Tilney and Isabella Thorpe are brilliant – is Isabella and early version of Lucy Steele?

From a social history point of view, I enjoyed the descriptions of day to day life in Bath – going to the pump room and the upper and lower rooms and the theatre.

I’m glad I read this again slowly and I hope there will be a group read of Udolpho (it’s the only way I think I’ll manage to read it).

Next Austen related book in my pile is The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (by Colleen McCullough).

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October 20, 2008 · 2:28 am

Northanger Abbey Cross Word

I’ve finished reading Northanger Abbey and I plan to write a proper post later, but in the mean time I’ve whipped up a cross word .. just follow the link.

Northanger Abbey Crossword

I have no idea how to get the crossword into my blog post, so I linked to it instead.

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