Back to Top

Tag Archives: Jane Austen

Next week–February 9th from 12:30-2:00, to be exact–I’ll be signing books, along with
Eloisa James, at Waldenbooks in Rockefeller Center in New York City. It’s my first bookstore signing, and I’m pretty psyched (and yes, I will be wearing all black. I mean, did you expect taupe and teal?).

Which led me to think about meeting authors, and what you’d say to them, or if you even like meeting authors (or musicians, or artists, or actors), or if you prefer to keep your distance. And if you did meet someone whose work you admire–an author, specifically–what would you ask?


If I could ask Jane Austen a question, it would be: ‘Can I be you?’ No. Maybe not. How about ‘Do you like people, or do you just like making fun of them?’ Or ‘Were you trying to be so obvious in naming Mr. Knightley?’

If I met the Bronte sisters, I’d have to ask just what they felt about their brother, and were they really as nutty as their writing makes them seem.

If I met Jorge Luis Borges, I’d ask him–oh, I dunno. It wouldn’t be possible to ask him how his mind works, so I think I’d just gawk (I thought of Borges because in addition to Groundhog Day, yesterday was also the date of the founding of Buenos Aires, and Borges was Argentinean).

So–do you like getting to meet creators in person? Which authors would you most like to meet, and what would you ask them? Whom have you met already?

And, if you are in NYC next week, come say hi!

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

How I’d love to see that sentence in a regency. Since music was such a major part of Jane Austen’s life–and that of her heroines–I thought I’d blog about that today, as we recover from the rigors and excitement of our contest (congratulations, winners!). Some soothing piano music might help, too.

Jane Austen’s music books–copied by hand–are at her house in Chawton, Hants, as is her piano (left), made in 1810 by the composer Clementi, who owned one of the major piano manufacturers in London. One of Clementi’s rivals was the firm of John Broadwood & Sons, still in business, and serving as providers of pianos to royalty ever since George II’s time. The gorgeous instrument above was made by Zumpt & Buntebant of London and taken by Johann Christian Bach (son of the great J.S.) when he and the young Mozart visited France in 1778.

Jane’s favorites included Clementi, Haydn and lesser-known composers Pleyel, Eichner and Piccini. Here’s a recollection from her niece Caroline:

Aunt Jane began her day with music – for which I conclude she had a natural taste; as she thus kept it up – ‘tho she had no one to teach; was never induced (as I have heard) to play in company; and none of her family cared much for it. I suppose that she might not trouble them, she chose her practising time before breakfast – when she could have the room to herself – She practised regularly every morning – She played very pretty tunes, I thought – and I liked to stand by her and listen to them; but the music (for I knew the books well in after years) would now be thought disgracefully easy – Much that she played from was manuscript, copied out by herself – and so neatly and correctly, that it was as easy to read as print.

Jane’s piano is a square fortepiano–the term used for early pianos. The great technological breakthrough of the piano (or whatever you want to call it!) is that unlike its predecessor the harpsichord it offered dynamic control–hence it’s name, Italian for loud-soft, and used a hammer action, not a plucking action, on the strings. Fortepianos were first produced in the mid-eighteenth century and were built entirely of wood (modern pianos are held together with a large steel band to hold in the formidable tension of the strings), and have a more delicate, subtle sound than modern pianos. To hear the instrument go to this recording of Mozart and Schubert on amazon, where you can listen to excerpts. The artist is Melvyn Tan, who performed the fortepiano music heard on the movie Persuasion.


Here are a couple more recordings available from the Jane Austen Museum in Bath. A Very Innocent Diversion features selections from Jane Austen’s music collection while the other features music from Jane Austen’s time performed in Bath.

Would music–daily piano practice– feature in your Regency fantasy or nightmare? Or, like Mrs. Elton, would you gratefully become a talker (although not totally devoid of taste, of course) and not a practitioner once you succumbed to the rigors of married life? And as (Cara, I think?) said, it might be interesting to see how truly accomplished those young ladies were…hopefully none of us would be like Mary Bennett, plucked from the keyboard by her embarrassed papa. And do you think that if you were magically transported back to Regency times, you might miss being able to summon music at the push of a button, or do you think the comparative rarity of a live performance (a good one, that is) might heighten your appreciation?

Janet


It’s really intimidating to be the one who posts on the actual birthday, after celebrating most of the week. And, as usual, I’ve taken the wimp’s way out (have I mentioned ‘conflict-averse’ is my middle name? I didn’t? Oh, I must’ve been scared to).

(With much thanks to Myretta Robens, Regency author and webmaster of Pemberley.com, an incredible site devoted to Jane Austen and the people who love her.)

It’s Jane’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Jane! Instead of speaking about her, though, let’s let Jane speak for herself (click here to read all this, and much, much more).

Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?”

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and ill-informed female who ever dared to be an authoress.”

“. . . But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.”

Ah, as in her writing, Jane’s own musings are self-deprecating, wryly funny, and deliberately obfuscatory. As poking around the Pemberley site will reveal, Jane was as shaded as her writings. I bet, if she were around today, she’d be a blast to hang out with, too, delivering her Special Snark in dulcet tones. I wish she were here, so I could buy her a beer to celebrate.

Megan Posted by Picasa

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged | 4 Replies


The world of Jane Austen scholarship was shaken to the core by the recent discovery of a “lost” excerpt from Pride and Prejudice. Currently undergoing rigorous handwriting, paper, and ink analysis, the fragment reveals a daring stylistic experimentation that has already created fierce controversy in academic circles. The short scene depicts Jane Bennett, who, while waiting for Lizzie to return from Derbyshire, seeks outside help in rescuing Lydia from ruin. With the violent rejection of the classical style,what was Austen intending? One cannot help but wonder, had she pursued this course, how the introduction of a new character, a possible rival for either Bingley or Darcy, would have influenced the romantic element of the novel; and certainly it seems, in its revelation of the seamy underbelly of Meriton, to indicate a possible bloody gang shoot-out as the book’s climax.

It is with great pleasure and the deepest honor that the Risky Regencies Blog presents the world debut of this important addition to the Austen canon.


She’s cool as a cucumber, this Miss Bennett. Not what I expected, not after what I’d heard in the village about the family. She receives me in a drawing room furnished with old-world stuff–nothing fancy, old pieces, the whole set-up breathing respectability and solidity.

“Thank you for coming, sir.” She gestures to a chair, one of those spindly English things. The old dame who took my hat and gloves stays with us in the room, picking away at an embroidery frame to preserve the decencies, I guess.

When Miss Bennett leans to pour tea her gown slips up revealing a pretty good ankle. Not bad, not bad at all, but this is business, and I let her mess around with the teacups while keeping an eye on her. She’s too genteel to offer me a Scotch, but for the moment I’m playing on her terms.

“The weather has been quite remarkably good,” she offers, and the slight tremor in her hand reveals her agitation. “I think, however, we can expect some rain later this week.”

I decide to help her out. “Sure. Say, Miss Bennett, you didn’t call me here to talk about the weather.”

“You are correct, sir.” She produces a small, lace-edged handkerchief and gives a genteel sniffle. “I daresay you have heard…how could you not have…the disgrace that has fallen upon our family. Forgive me, it is dreadful indeed. My youngest sister, Lydia, has…has fallen into the hands of an adventurer and has been persuaded to elope. I think he does not intend to marry her. Sir, you must help us find them.”

“Wickham?” I ask. Things had gotten too hot for him in London, after he’d fallen out with the boys at White’s, and the whole set up stinks of him. He’d tried to set up a rival operation to Bingley and Darcy, but they were too clever for him, and they’d left town after they’d sucked the neighborhood dry. Even so, they’d forced Charlotte Lucas to throw in her lot with the de Bourgh Gang and last I’d heard she was engaged in a struggle for power with Collins.

“I fear so.” She plies the handkerchief, a picture of bewildered innocence. “My Papa and Mama are prostrated with grief, and I do not know to whom I can turn until Lizzie comes home.”

Right, her father operating some sort of scam from his study and her hophead of a mother high as a kite most of the time from all I’ve heard, continually sending her daughters into town to buy more of the stuff at that fake haberdasher’s. “Lizzie?”

“My sister. She will know what to do. She is in Derbyshire, and on her way home even as we speak.”

“Up north?” This stinks more and more. If the Wordsworth siblings, that cold-hearted team of killers, are part of the scheme, there’ll be blood all over this polite drawing-room before we’re finished.

“It is dreadful indeed.” She dabs at her eyes.

“You’re good, sister. Real good.”

“I beg your pardon?” She draws herself up and looks at me with disdain.

“You’re good, real good, all that fake innocence, but I’ve been made a sap of one too many times by dames like you. It’s time to come clean, dollface.”

“Sir!” She leaps to her feet, doing the heaving bosom thing. “I regret we will have no need of your services. Please leave this house immediately, Mr. Spade.”

I just saw the recent P&P a second time. This time I heartily enjoyed it, having gotten over some of the surprises in this new adaptation. I was also with several people who had not read the book who thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It really made me think about some of the vehement debates that have gone on over the various artistic choices made in this movie re the costuming, adapted dialogue, changed settings, etc… It also made me think of how upset some people are when Jane Austen is said to be the first chick-lit author, or over broader reinterpretations of her work like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Clueless.

I have to admit part of me sympathizes. It can be fun to have special, esoteric interests that not everyone else understands. But more and more, I’m open to sharing Jane with the world, and happy that her stories are reaching broader audiences through all these new incarnations. This is why they’re classics.

Let’s not put Jane in a box, please. She was a woman of many interests, from the serious to the frivolous, and able to laugh at herself as well as at others. Here are some favorite Jane anecdotes and quotes.

Jane the Literary Diva

“I remember that when Aunt Jane came to us at Godmersham she used to bring the manuscript of whatever novel she was writing with her, and would shut herself up with my elder sisters in one of the bedrooms to read them aloud. I and the younger ones used to hear peals of laughter through the door, and thought it very hard that we should be shut out from what was so delightful…I also remember how Aunt Jane would sit quietly working (at needlework) beside the fire in the library, saying nothing for a good while, and then would suddenly burst out laughing, jump up and run across the room to a table where pens and paper were lying, write something down, and then come back across to the fire and go on quietly working as before.” (recollections of Marianne Knight, Jane’s niece)

Jane the Fashionista

“My black cap was openly admired by Mrs. Lefroy, and secretly I imagine by everybody else in the room.” (letter to Cassandra December 1798)

“I am amused by the present style of female dress;–the coloured petticoats with braces over the white spencers and enormous Bonnets upon the full stretch, are quite entertaining.” (letter to a friend in September 1814)

“I learnt from Mrs Tickars’s young lady, to my high amusement, that the stays now are not made to force the Bosom up at all; — that was a very unbecoming, unnatural fashion. I was really glad to hear that they are not to be worn so much off the shoulders as they were.” (September 1813)

Jane the Domestic Goddess

“My mother desires me to tell you that I am a very good housekeeper, which I have no reluctance in doing, because I really think it my particular excellence, and for this reason—I always take care to provide such things as please my own appetite, which I consider as the chief merit in housekeeping. I have had some ragout veal, and I mean to have some haricot mutton to-morrow. We are to kill a pig soon.” (letter to her sister Cassandra Austen, Saturday 17 Nov. 1798)

Jane, Queen of Snark

“Mrs. Hall, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, owing to a fright. I supposed she happened unawares to look at her husband.” (letter to Cassandra, October 1798)

“…I am very proud to say that I have a very good eye at an Adultress, for tho’ repeatedly assured that another in the same party was the She, I fixed upon the right one from the first… She is not so pretty as I expected; her face has the same defect of baldness as her sister’s, & her features not so handsome; she was highly rouged, & looked rather quietly and contentedly silly than anything else.” ( letter to Cassandra, May 1801)

“Miss Blachford is agreeable enough. I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal” (letter to Cassandra, Dec. 1798)

I don’t see Jane spinning in her grave about the screen adaptations of her stories. So undignified, don’t you think? Instead she might have some witty snark about changes she doesn’t agree with. Overall, though, I think she’d be flattered by all the attention. And poke a little fun at herself for being flattered.

Happy birthday, Jane!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, an RT Top Pick!
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged | 9 Replies
Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com