The Scotsman.com, reeling from the news that Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh found inspiration in the works of Jane Austen, examines “Austen’s Art of Persuasion.”

Why does this woman who lived in a Hampshire rectory in the early 19th century, and who wrote just six novels, hold such an influence on our creative consciousness? Why are her stories still cinema blockbusters, to such an extent that one North American newspaper recently suggested it was time she got a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars?

Oooh! We’ll accept on Jane’s behalf! Do we get a former Oscar winner as our escort? (A lady can dream, can she not?) Dorothy, please call Vera Wang and ask her to reserve us a lovely gown.

One academic says that Mr. Welsh’s choice for a muse makes a lot of sense.

“In addition to reflecting a way of life, she analysed it and suggested improvements at the same time, which is also what Trainspotting does. Also, like Welsh, she took liberties with structure, she experimented, pushed the envelope, not just in what she said but how she said it. Those novels are nowhere near as old-fashioned as they look.”

We recommend reading the entire article. It’s quite good. And for the record, we look forward to a Second Age of Austen, though in the grand scheme of things the Age of Austen never really ends.

THE REAL JANE AUSTEN will be shown on the Knowledge Network in British Columbia, Canada at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 11, 2005.

This program paints a vivid portrait of one of the greatest talents in English literature - Jane Austen. Viewers discover the woman behind the acclaimed works, revealing her as part of a society much crueler in its treatment of women and harsher in its economic realities than her novels convey. We also see a woman with a tragic love life who did not enjoy the ‘happy ending’ that she often bestowed upon her female characters. Filmed in locations associated with Austen, including her birthplace, this documentary provides a wonderful reconstruction of her life from a young child to her death in 1817.

We’d love to publish your review of the program!

At least in Scotland! Inspired by Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh’s recent confession that Jane Austen was among his main literary inspirations, the Edinburgh Evening News asked several local authors about their literary influences. Two of the authors, Isla Dewar and Alexander McCall Smith, took Welsh’s cue and cited Jane Austen.

EDINBURGH-BORN Scots author Isla says that she shares Welsh’s love of Austen: “My biggest influence was Jane Austen as well. I’m very fond of her. I think she was very witty and elegant. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite books, I return to it a lot. I think it is timeless. It’s a very modern story, there is still a lot in it today for people.”

Alexander McCall Smith, author of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency mystery series, and whose work is often compared to Jane Austen’s, said:

Like Irvine Welsh, I am a great admirer of Jane Austen - and also her modern-day successor Barbara Pym.

And though the article doesn’t mention it, we can’t forget one of Edinburgh’s most famous literary residents, J.K. Rowling; definitely a Friend of Jane. (We suggest that you do not get the Editrix started on her comparison between James and Lily Potter and Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Really.)

The St. Petersburg Times reports that a new musical based on Pride and Prejudice is opening tonight in St. Petersburg. Crossing the Bay, produced by LiveArts Peninsula Foundation, is set in 1880’s Florida against the backdrop of railroad construction and Civl War aftermath.

Instead of Elizabeth Bennet and her sister, Jane, the middle-class heros of Pride and Prejudice whose mother is determined to marry them off to aristocrats, Crossing the Bay has Lizzie and Jane Tippetts, daughters of a citrus farmer. Their beaus - Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley in the novel - are fictional characters from local history, Frederic Disston, a member of a pioneering Pinellas clan, and Colin Plant, nephew of Henry B. Plant, the railroad magnate and founding father of Tampa.

“There’s more Pride and Prejudice than there is history in my mind,” Leavengood said. “I’m such a fan of it. I love the characters, and I love the story line. There are certain small sections where it’s absolutely verbatim” from the novel.

The article continues….

The musical’s plot turns on the railroad crossing Tampa Bay to Pinellas, and whether its destination would be what was to become Gulfport or St. Petersburg, where it ultimately ended up.

“The most interesting show is one where the most people or things change,” Leavengood said. “And this was the greatest change for this area. Without the railroad, we wouldn’t have downtown St. Pete as it is today.”

The class theme of Pride and Prejudice has been given a North-South twist in Crossing the Bay. The Tippetts patriarch is a Civil War veteran, a former Confederate officer fallen on hard times. There’s also a Pinellas-Hillsborough conflict, with the Tippetts and other Pinellas residents portrayed as Southern rustics and the Plants and their set as Northern industrialists settled in Tampa.

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