Writing a story in the first person is the purest form of character study. The writer does not even have the comfort of authorial omniscience to fall back upon; she must soldier on with telling the story despite her protagonist’s personal quirks (such as pride and vanity) through which the events of the story must filter.

Amanda Grange is not the first intrepid author to shoulder the task of retelling Pride and Prejudice from Mr. Darcy’s point of view, nor is she the first to employ first person or even the journal format. Previous such attempts have resulted in works that ranged from quite good to puerile nonsense, but Darcy fans may rest easy, for Darcy’s Diary is an enjoyable journey into the mind of one of the most popular characters in literary history. (more…)

Paul from KeiraWeb.com writes to tell us that the screening of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE at the Toronto International Film Festival will take place on September 11 at 6:30 p.m.

Debbie Jordan writes a column about Jane Austen’s novels for TriValleyCentral.com. Ms. Jordan is clearly attempting to lure nonJaneites into reading her novels, an endeavour we heartily applaud, but we were a trifle startled when the author refers to Mr. Knightley by his Christian name!

The element that sets “Emma” apart from Austen’s other novels is the fact that there is no class conflict between the wealthy neighbors who’ve known each other since Emma was born. The book tells the story of Emma’s often comic meddling in other people’s lives as George gently tutors her in the responsibilities she will one day assume as lady of the manor-his manor!

Brave indeed!

The Ellsworth, Maine American tells us that the first recorded mention of sponge-cake is in a letter written by Jane Austen in 1808.

No one seems to know exactly when sponge cakes first appeared on the dessert table — the first mention recorded was in a letter written by Jane Austen in 1808 (and yes — she liked them).

The full quote, if anyone is interested, is: “You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me.”

Several readers have sent in Jane sightings that are small, but prove that she is a permanent and important part of the cultural landscape.

Alert Janeite Sarah wrote to tell us:

Someone at the New York Times must be an Austen fan. The inside headline on a talent developer in today’s arts section was “The Force Behind the Fresh Faces of “Lizzie’ and ‘Darcy’”. (The person profiled created the shows “Lizzie McGuire” and “Darcy’s Wild Life”). You
can’t see this on the web, since it is the inside headline, but it’s in the print edition.

In a similar story, the Editrix has a friend who, like many P&P2 fans, often watches her tapes of that film. One day her toddler son repeatedly asked to see a “Lizzie” tape, then protested when she put in a Lizzie McGuire tape. Turned out he wanted “Lizzy”–P&P2!

Alert Janeite Allison also wrote to tell us about a Jane Austen reference in a mystery, It’s a Mod, Mod, Mod, Mod Murder by Rosemary Martin (Signet, 2005). Here is Allison’s description:

It’s 1964, and a young innocent, Elizabeth Bennett, is shortening her skirts and putting on her go-go boots to impress her boss, top executive in a recording company.

“You see, my mother, a true Jane Austen fan, had taken advantage of marrying a man with the last name of Bennett and had named me Elizabeth after the main character in Pride and Prejudice. Being a thoroughly modern woman [the joke is, of course, that she isn’t], I had gone by Bebe since I turned twelve,” says the heroine, who rooms with a swinging stewardess and is clueless about the latter’s activities in the Mile-high Club. “You mean you got together with a group of people who’d all been to Denver, the Mile-high City?” Bebe asks.

There’s no other reference to Austen in this cute murder mystery, and no apparent reason to drag dear Jane into it, except that perhaps it gives an aura of wholesome innocence to Bebe as she races to solve the murder of the front singer of a British pop band.

It sounds to us a little like the “Jaine Austen Mysteries;” we only read the first, but it really had nothing to do with Jane (no I) Austen except for some bad jokes about the main character’s name and an echo of the plot of P&P that we are not entirely sure was intentional.

Jane Austen truly is everywhere!

Alert Janeite Alison wrote to tell us that Classic FM radio in the U.K. is giving away tickets to a special preview screening of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE on September 4 at various locations across the U.K. See details at the link above.

Alison warns that one must present oneself at a cinema on the list in person with the printed voucher from the Web site. They will not give out the tickets via e-mail or phone and each person will only be issued two tickets. Also she said that it took her a while to explain what she was talking about, so be prepared to deal with uninformed personnel, and be polite, as Jane would wish you to be!

We suggest that you take advantage of this great offer as soon as possible, as the tickets will be distributed on a first come, first served basis.

In other P&P3 news, Alert Janeite Erandika sent a link to an article in the Telegraph about the stately houses used as locations for the film. We confess to being a trifle taken aback by the comments about Longbourn:

And what we get is not, as expected, the flower of England wrapped in celluloid. We get houses on Viagra - Chatsworth as Darcy’s Pemberley, Burghley as Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s country seat - but we also see the Bennet family and its surfeit of unmarried daughters squawking and giggling in an intimate, wonderfully chaotic, atmospheric house. This is a place where dresses are made in the kitchen, ducks and pigs snuffle in a muddy farmyard, old retainers look almost too arthritic to work, the paint is scuffed and the daughters’ bedroom walls are daubed with découpage, the 18th-century equivalent of the bedroom poster. A modern-day estate agent surveying the scene would raise an eyebrow and note: “In need of renovation.”

[. . .]

So while the Bingleys and Darcy inhabit houses of immense sophistication, Groombridge becomes the home of a family on the slide. The property had to be mussed up to reflect the shabby chic of the book’s Longbourn. “I would describe it as faded grandeur,” says Jill Todd, the house manager. “It took a number of weeks to change the house for gentry who were falling on hard times.”

We were amused by the commentary on Chatsworth:

Chatsworth, Derbyshire, as Darcy’s estate, Pemberley. A perfect choice, as the house - still owned by the present Duke of Devonshire - is designed to be seen across the Capability Brown parkland, its classical stone finery sitting in the bosom of the Peak District National Park. The 175 rooms are stuffed with marble, gilt, painted ceilings, alabaster carvings and statues, which Elizabeth Bennet ponders (lingering longer than she should on the naked male statues). Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, one of the Mitford girls, has always believed that Jane Austen modelled Pemberley on Chatsworth.

Many thanks, as always, to our alert readers for sending in these links.