Oh, to be in Chicago in the autumn!

There are lots of activities going on related to the “One Book, One Chicago” selection of Pride and Prejudice, including a chance to win free tickets to an advance screening of P&P3. There will also be public screenings of P&P0, P&P2 and BRIDE AND PREJUDICE, as well as an ensemble reading of selections from the novel at the Steppenwolf Theatre and a stage production at the Northlight Theatre and book discussions and book club meetings all month at various locations throughout the city.

(Today’s post title is an homage to our favorite Law and Order show and to our girl Mariska Hargitay, who occasionally reminds us of Lizzy Bennet and was robbed, ROBBED WE SAY! of an Emmy.)

The Bucks Free Press has a thoughtful review of the film that we think does the best job we’ve seen yet of making a case for a more “modern” adaptation.

The settings feel earthier than many prim and proper period films; the Bennett household especially has a convincing grubbiness to it. Wright also makes the most of some lovely scenery, never missing an opportunity to set the characters against beautiful sunsets or impressive rainstorms.

Even the society sequences have more vibrancy than most, as the camera sweeps fluidly through corridors and ballrooms to offer a real sense of place and occasion. The dance scenes themselves are boldly filmed, sending the audience spinning amongst the social high-flyers. These touches work well, giving the film a modern feel without unnecessarily updating the material.

We still think that it is no bad thing to challenge an audience to maybe try to enjoy the old-fashioned boring historical rectitude thing. You never know; they might even like it.

Music From the Movies has a review of the soundtrack.

There is so much to enjoy on this album, despite its relatively short running time and each listen immediately takes you back to the world of the film. Pride and Prejudice is definitely an album for many repeated listens.

The Australian tells about a cinema in Gloucestershire that discovered a squatter had been living in the cinema behind the screen.

It may have been a cut above sleeping in a doorway, but only just. The mysterious squatter in his comfortable, secret burrow will have had to endure three showings of Pride and Prejudice every day, plus Wedding Crashers, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of Were-Rabbit, The Dukes of Hazzard and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory - and all of them back to front.

Oh, those crazy P&P fans; what won’t they do next?

After an article from the Telegraph arrived in our mailbox today, we conquered our horrified astonishment, picked our slackened jaw up off the desk and immediately called in an expert: Supernanny.* Take it away, Jo-Jo!

You’ve been very, very naughty!

What sort of person takes preteen boys who have already expressed a complete lack of interest in the proceedings to a grownup’s film in a crowded cinema, and then allows them to comment aloud and carry on throughout the film as though they’re sitting in your own living room? Don’t you know that the other people in the cinema paid nine or ten pounds, which translates to nearly twenty dollars U.S., for one ticket mind you, to see the film, and would prefer to enjoy it in the peace and quiet that the social contract demands in a public cinema?

If it was so important that the children see their little cousin, perhaps a private screening could have been arranged? A DVD screener, perhaps, that could be watched as home, and little Dave’s brush with greatness rewound as much as desired, and boring talking scenes skipped entirely? When one writes for the papers, one should have the wherewithal to arrange such things. Does Jo-Jo need to make up a schedule for you?

Mummy, your behaviour is unacceptable. You must go to the naughty chair for…how many minutes is that now? One minute for every year of your age, and Jo-Jo will know if you’re lying.

*Legal Disclaimer: This post was not really written by the Supernanny. It was written by Mags pretending to be the Supernanny. Just in case anyone is confused.

Miranda Sawyer asks in the Observer: is there too much Shakespeare, Austen, etc.?

But is it audiences that clamour for such well-worn tales or the powers that be? Are Mr Darcy, Anne Boleyn and Macbeth so much more interesting than what’s going on today? In this turbulent time of war and money, of natural disasters and manmade destruction, are our contemporary stories so dull, so unfabulous, so irrelevant?

Not at all; but it does not necessarily follow that relevancy of modern stories makes older stories irrelevant. If Shakespeare has survived to this day, and Austen, and the Brontës, it is because their work speaks to succeeding generations. There were other playwrights in Shakespeare’s day whose work has not been staged in 500 years. There were other authors in Jane Austen’s time whose books have crumbled into dust on forgotten shelves. Every generation has its classics. Will succeeding generations speak so of Hemingway and Joyce? Most likely.

And we maintain that even halfway decent Shakespeare, like halfway decent Austen, is better than none at all.

Sort of. We found a restaurant review in the Sydney Morning Herald that invoked Jane Austen’s characters rather hilarious.

I was never into Jane Austen, but I know enough from watching Sunday night bonnet dramas to realise that being labelled Wickham by my friends Darcy and Elizabeth is not entirely a good thing.

“But I don’t want to be Wickham,” I protest.

“You’re so Wickham.”

“No, I’m not. Why can’t I be Bingley?”

“Too affable. You’re Wickham.”

“Yeah, get us another beer, Wickers.”

Days pass. Darcy remains uptight and aloof. Elizabeth is continually heartsick though headstrong. I continue to be a scoundrel and a cad. “Let’s get a burger,” I suggest when Darcy’s out of earshot.

Poor guy. Anyone who begs to be Bingley should be allowed to be Bingley, don’t you think?

As we sometimes reach up to the top shelf (next to Grandma’s cookie jar, as the hockey game announcers say) for an Austenian metaphor, especially on a slow news week, we could appreciate the following:

Had Wickham ever taken Miss Bennett into town for a burger their carriage might have pulled up at an address not unlike 332-334 Kent Street. Or not. This last sentence may read like a winning transition but, sadly, it’s historically inaccurate. The building wasn’t completed until 1884. It has a carriageway, however.

Care to have a chat with a couple of film adapters and directors, O Anonymous Reviewer?

Once again, the title says it all. The film also opened strong in the Netherlands.

Not much other P&P3 news at the mo’, so we will pass on a link that came to our attention recently. Several of the reviews of P&P3 mention that the film evokes the Brontës rather than Austen, which might not be the best thing for an Austen adaptation; however, we enjoy the Brontës’ work very much and know that many of our readers do as well. Thus, we present BrontëBlog, which the editors tell us was created in imitation of AustenBlog. AustenBlog, in its turn, was created in imitation of The Leaky Cauldron, so we are delighted that the idea of a literary subject weblog continues to be passed on.

icSouthLondon has a story about Carey Mulligan, who plays Kitty in the new film, and how appearing in a big-name film production has jumpstarted her acting career.

Although she admits she was terrified when they first started filming, at Groombridge Place in Kent, she soon took to it like a duck to water.

Carey said: “We were like one big family. We took over the house. It was so much fun. Brenda Blethyn (Mrs Bennett) mummied us all - when we had days off she took us on day trips to a llama farm.”

Those in the U.K. who want to see more of Carey’s work, check out the adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House that will be out this autumn, adapted by Andrew Davies.

Alert Janeite Christine, who describes herself as “an avid reader of austenblog.com,” kindly sent us a detailed list of the new P&P clips on the U.K. and Ireland official site and where the clips can be found.

• Under “Prejudice,” Darcy: a clip of Lizzy and Darcy meeting at Pemberley.
• Under “Prejudice,” Lizzy: a clip of their conversation during the dance at Netherfield, about Wickham, Darcy’s character, etc.
• Mr Bennet: the scene where Mr. Bennet tells Lizzy that “you must be a stranger to one of your parents” if she says yes or no to Mr. Collins’ proposal.
• Lady Catherine de Bourgh: the dinner scene. Lizzy tells Lady Catherine that she never had a governess, all her sisters are out before the oldest is married and etc.
• Mr. Wickham: actually this clip is about the adapting of the novel.
• Kitty Bennet: the scene where Mr. Collins requests an audience with Miss Bennet (previously posted on AustenBlog)
• Mary Bennet: the scene where Lizzy arrives at the parsonage, then she’s sitting with Charlotte in the parlor and Lady Catherine de Bourgh arrives to give an invitation for dinner. (Christine tells us the scene really has nothing to do with Mary.)

Many thanks to Christine for such a complete list!

Lastly, Sheffield Today tells us that if you’ve a yen to follow in Darcy and Lizzy’s footsteps, there are some tourism packages put together with you in mind.

Now moviegoers can re-live the magic and step back in time to a hidden England of stunning stately homes and dramatic landscapes.

A new package of short breaks has been launched allowing visitors to discover their own piece of Pride & Prejudice perfection in the Peak District and Lincolnshire. Prices start at £80 per person for a two night break.

Visitors can choose their own Pride & Prejudice Country break based around ‘Pemberley’ or ‘Rosings’ with a host of added extras available from antiques to pampering.
The Pemberley Package includes:

• Two nights or more accommodation in choice of Peak District hotels, B&Bs and self-catering;
• Entry to Chatsworth House for a self-guided tour of film locations, see the bust of Mr Darcy and a first edition of Pride & Prejudice;
• Entry to Haddon Hall to explore the real life set of the movie’s inn at Lambton and Elizabeth’s bedroom. Guided tours are available.
• Red House Stables and Working Carriage Museum to see carriages used in the film. Guided tours and carriage rides are available by request.

The article says to visit www.visitprideandprejudice.com for details, but www.visitprideandprejudice.co.uk will actually work. There’s even a contest to win a two-night break in “Pride and Prejudice Country.”

It is not difficult to determine the premise that Rosemarie Santini had in mind for her novel Sex and Sensibility, subtitled “The adventures of a Jane Austen addict”: an American version of Bridget Jones, a singleton Jane Austen fan dealing with the modern New York dating scene, heavily influenced by the adventures of Carrie Bradshaw and her friends in the television series SEX AND THE CITY. Not a book for every Janeite, certainly, but a book that, were the premise successfully executed, many would no doubt enjoy immensely.

Unfortunately (and you knew there was an “unfortunately” coming, didn’t you?), the story does not succeed as an Austen homage. We are not really sure if it succeeds as generic chick lit, either. We found it difficult to warm up to the heroine Lizzie (of course) Parsons. It is unclear how she is a “Jane Austen addict,” although she reads Jane Austen’s novels (in a weekend!) when she needs to figure out her tangled love life, drawing conclusions that made little sense to us, either as related to Jane Austen or the plot at hand. One suspects Miss Parsons confuses being a “Jane Austen addict” with being a “Hugh Grant addict.”After all, Lizzie supposedly is a freelance film reviewer. Like Carrie Bradshaw, Lizzie has no visible means of support except occasionally tapping out a short piece for the papers, and yet has a fabulous apartment and designer wardrobe (though always complaining about how she cannot afford such things). Heck, we’ve blogged bigger than that just in a P&P3 Daily News Roundup!

Ms. Santini’s writing style is competent, though we found her cutesy affections such as using the word veree (in italics) instead of “very” (not unlike Bridget Jones’ “v.”) more annoying than endearing. The reliance upon CAPITALS! and EXTRA EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! were, in our opinion, amateurish, and should have been excised in the editing process, along with the heroine’s propensity to describe all of her outfits in excruciating detail, including her underwear. Lizzie could call herself an “Austen Girl” all she liked, but we found no emotional or textual connection with Jane Austen’s work. The references to Austen seemed pasted on.

The premise of this book could have produced a really interesting and fun result, but the story presented needed a great deal of work on the plot and character development to truly fulfill the author’s intentions.

Alert Janeite Cinthia wrote to tell us that P&P3 will be shown at the New Montreal FilmFest, replacing the originally scheduled showing of DOMINO, which was withdrawn for technical reasons. The film will close the festival on Sunday, September 25 (that’s tomorrow!). It is unclear if tickets are still available for the showing. As Cinthia pointed out, presumably this will be the Smoochy Ending Version.

Alert Janeite Jennite also wrote to tell us about an article in the Brisbane Courier-Mail that compares several P&P adaptations (P&P3 opens in Australia on October 20). The author of the piece has clearly been keeping up with the press so far.

One British reviewer has suggested that “only a snob, curmudgeon or someone with necrophilic loyalty to the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle could fail to enjoy Keira Knightley’s performance”, but even snippets of the new film, available on the website, make it clear that the 20-year-old British actor owes a great deal to Ehle. There’s something in her air, in her bearing, and indeed in her timing, that is so like Ehle that the necrophiliacs among us are hopeful this homage will revive the joy of that production, not frustrate it.

And the true fanatics are welcoming the new film with the verve of Mrs Bennet embracing her new son-in-law Mr Wikham – no matter his flaws, it’s always good to see him.

Huzzah for the Naughty Necrophiliac Nerds™!

Michael Sraglow, writing in the Baltimore Sun, talks about the many book adaptations being presented this autumn, including PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, and shows that he knows his P&P adaptations.

Still, the content of live-action films will get the most sizable upgrade — often thanks to the novels or plays that preceded their scripts.

Movie critics like to sneer “Masterpiece Theatre!” as a putdown whenever a filmmaker gets a costume picture on the screen. It’s become a hilariously wrongheaded piece of hipster snobbery. For one thing, no adaptation of Austen has matched Masterpiece Theatre’s 1980 Pride and Prejudice, written by Fay Weldon — certainly not the later A&E bodice-buster starring Colin Firth.

Don’t know if we agree with his opinion but the “hilariously wrongheaded piece of hipster snobbery” part makes us want to cheer.

Just so everyone knows, our excellent webhost is located in Houston. They don’t anticipate having any problems at their facility, and they have a disaster recovery plan in place, but you never know what will happen, so if the site is down for a time, you will know why.

We are keeping a good thought for everyone’s safety.

Alert Janeite Maureen wrote to remind us about the “Turning the Pages” site at the British Library, which includes a virtual copy of Jane Austen’s hilarious parody, A History of England, “by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian.” The site allows visitors to “turn the page” of the book as if they were reading the original copy. Cassandra Austen did the illustrations, incidentally.

Titiola Bakare, writing in the Daily Pennsylvanian, writes about how the procedure of learning about a gentleman’s fortune and expectations has changed since Jane Austen’s day.

Back in the day, a formal introduction was a necessary prerequisite for romantic involvement.

Take the classic Jane Austen novel. Before a man even entered the drawing room of a woman’s home, she was well informed of his social standing, economic status, and professional occupation.

Well, times have changed for better and for worse. Though we no longer need or want men to “provide” these markers of success, we often know very little about the people we choose as companions. These days you’re lucky to get a guy’s last name over the noise in a crowded bar. Alas, technology has provided an answer. We may not have a drawing room, or Mr. Darcy, but we do have access to the 21st century remix of the formal introduction: www.google.com.

Hee! (Private to Ms. Bakare: there’s more than one classic Jane Austen novel. Just saying.)

GASP! Mentioning Henry “Da Man” Tilney and Tom “Da Loonytunes” Cruise in the same sentence?

DOROTHY! Bring the Tullamore Dew, d— your eyes!

JANE AUSTEN: Henry Tilney, the hero of Northanger Abbey, is charming and rich, yet isn’t looking for a wife. But Catherine Morland is too young and naive to hide how mad she is about him.

She seeks him out at dances and for walks and has no interest in other men when he’s about. And Henry likes her all the more for her honesty, and is flattered by her attention.

CELEBRITY LOVE: Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s sofa and declaring his love for fiance Katie Holmes sparked speculation that he was either faking his love for the young Dawson’s Creek star, or had lost his marbles.

The couple’s habit of snogging and groping in public is considered over-the-top even by Hollywood standards.

LAUREN HENDERSON ADVISES: Make your preference clear, like Catherine Morland but don’t make a show of yourself (like Tom Cruise). Show the object of your desire that you’re happy to hear from him.

Return his calls within at least a couple of days, and if you like the sound of an invitation, accept it without holding back or trying to look cool. It’s about being honest rather than being pushy or an exhibitionist.

They have no compassion on our poor nerves.

We are delighted with all these stage productions of Jane Austen novels lately; we just wish they were being staged somewhere closer to AustenBlog World Headquarters!

Tucson Weekly reviews the Arizona Theatre Company production of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. One thumb up, sort of.

This would be a fabulous production if it weren’t for one thing: The depiction of the central character is absolutely wrong.

Yikes!

The Tucson Citizen also gives the play a mixed review.

Curiously, the actor who makes the strongest impression has the least to say. He is tall and stately Anthony Marble as the reticent Mr. Darcy. With his striking profile straight from an ancient Greek coin, Marble can dominate a scene just by standing there - which he does a lot.

*swoooon* and *giggle*

We received a note from Martin Millar to tell us that his stage adaptation of EMMA (different from the post below this one), originally staged at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999, will be staged by the Arkle Theatre Company at the Wynd Theatre in Melrose, Scotland on October 6-8 and by Amicus Productions in Toronto, Canada on December 8-11.

The production seems to be modern in tone but not setting. Martin’s Web site has more information about the play (click on “Film/Theatre” and scroll down a bit), including reviews from previous stagings.

This irreverent but affectionate adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, by actress and comedian Doon MacKichan and novelist Martin Millar, is so speedy you could call it an Austen Allegro. Several hundred pages of snobbery, wit, heartbreak and romance are skimmed over in just 100 minutes, accompanied by contemporary visual gags, sardonic asides, and music from bands as diverse as the Jackson Five and the Prodigy.

As always, if you go, we would love to publish your review.

An original musical adaptation of EMMA will be performed by the ELATE theatre group at the Lincoln Stegman Theatre in North Hollywood, California. The show opens on October 29 and runs four weekends, closing on Sunday, November 20. For more information, call 818-509-0882.

As always, if you go, send us your review!

(via a posting on the Janeites mailing list)

The title says it all.

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” has once again been successfully adapted to film, with Keira Knightley’s new movie entering the UK charts in first place, Screen International said on Tuesday.

The film, based on the 1813 novel, stars Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew MacFadyen as Mr Darcey (sic) and has received strong reviews since it opened in cinemas across the country.

The Beeb has the numbers.

The Hampstead and Highgate Express has an article about Deborah Moggach, the screenwriter.

She loves Austen, but not excessively, which allowed her a coolness and distance which seems to have stopped her work being too reverential, unlike some.

“Those Jane Austen people are so nerdy” she said, describing some critics’ trainspotting obsession with period detail. “But just because they were a Regency family didn’t mean everything was exactly of its time - they were very old-fashioned, like me,” she said, waving a hand round her sitting room.

Well, the Editrix is one “Jane Austen person” who is proud of her nerdiness, and waves it like a flag. And is it just us or is there a whiff of Mary Sueishness in the article author’s comparisons between Ms. Moggach’s house and Longbourn?

Alert Janeite Erandika wrote to tell us that there are some new clips up on the U.K. P&P3 site. We’re unclear exactly where they are (she said they are the ones formerly marked “coming soon”) but will post that information when we find out.

Meanwhile, the Bridget Droopy Drawers late reviews are still straggling in. Wakefield Express likes the film even though it’s “one for the ladies.”

Pride and Prejudice has been adapted so many times, from the 1940s film starring Lawrence Olivier, to Gurinder Chadha’s Bollywood version, I didn’t believe anything new could be brought to the film, but director Joe Wright has picked up on his audience’s need for gossip and fashion and thrust these elements with force.

The film is like a copy of a Georgian Heat magazine brought to the big screen – the audience are treated to a sneaky peek into the class, gossip and scandal of the period, and also get an insight into who’s wearing what this season. For these reasons I was hooked.

“My Kinda Place” reviews the film favorably! With lots of exclamation points! Lots!

Period dramas are always a bit iffy! It’s all corsets, flowing skirts and what sounds to us like a whole load of people talking in funny code. But somehow, by taking a classic story and adding the hottest Brit actress around, its magic has simply been magnified. Packed with talent and nostalgia, it’s an absolute must-see! We dare you to not to blub!

We TRIPLE DOG DARE YA not to blub!

The Edinburgh Student Newspaper is unclear if it likes it or not.

Ultimately, Wright’s Pride and Prejudice is a rather sobering experience – some would say entirely contrary to the spirit of Austen’s original. But its beautiful filmic exterior is often overwhelming, and more than compensates for its shallow interior substance.

Huh?

Lastly, USA Today says that, despite many hints dropped, nay, hurled at the media with the velocity of a Billy Wagner fastball, that P&P3 would be raking in the Oscar gold, there were no obvious Oscar contenders among the offerings at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Toronto Film Festival closes Saturday with no Oscar film coup in the works like American Beauty achieved in 1999.

The overall tone of the festival is that the disappointing movie year will not be salvaged by the fare found here.

“While there’s a lot of good stuff here if you look for it — not so much in the gala section (films that get the red-carpet treatment) -it’s carrying over what’s been sort of a rotten year in general,” says Liam Lacey, film critic for the Toronto Globe and Mail. “And right now I don’t think that the overall feeling from critics was that Toronto is going to be the year’s savior.”

The Arizona Daily Star gives it a big thumbs up.

We are most seriously pleased.

Arizona Theatre Company’s production of “Pride and Prejudice” is a lush jog through Jane Austen’s story. Many of Austen’s words are kept intact - a fine thing indeed, given her considerable wit - and the passions that rule the story spill over.

As a reminder, this production, currently in Tucson, will also be staged in Phoenix and Mesa, before moving to San Jose in November and December and Atlanta in January and February.

Alert Janeite Kirsty wrote to tell us that the BBC has profiled Jane Austen as one of its “Faces of the Week.”

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that every man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife,” begins Pride and Prejudice. Austen knew only too well about the economic necessity and convention of her class that women must also secure a husband. But Austen’s heroines hold out for a union of equals; they will marry only for love.

Casting Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet has confirmed some critics’ fears that Austen has now become a chick flick, but it shouldn’t surprise us that Jane Austen has become a phenomenon with a myriad of marketing opportunities.

Skilfully exciting the reader’s imagination about the unseen, smouldering passions beneath the surface, her “iceberg” novels have a timeless appeal to generations of romantics.

Why? Because the Editrix says so. Besides, it’s about time that somebody pointed out that NA is a great book too and that Henry Tilney is way cooler than that moody Darcy fellow. The great coat! The curricle! The large and drooly Newfoundland puppy! And the snark, fellow Janeites, the delicious snark! Can anyone listen to Henry’s nonsense about muslin and not fall in love? Or to Jane Austen’s defense of the novel and not nod energetically? Or think about Henry riding ventre-a-terre to Fullerton so he could know that Catherine was safe and offer her his hand without going all wibbly?

Dorothy? Dorothy! Our vinaigrette and a strong pot of tea, directly!

We also declare it Northanger Abbey Day because Alert Janeites Heather L and Chris wrote to let us know that BBC radio is broadcasting a dramatization of NA today! In fact, it has already been broadcast; however, one can listen to the radio play on the BBC Web site. They usually leave them up for a week or so.

The broadcast has an all-star cast, including Amanda Root as Jane Austen (WOW!), John Shrapnel as General Tilney (the Hornblower fans who hang around here suddenly snort and mutter about bad wigs), Saskia Reeves as Eleanor Tilney, Claire Skinner as Isabella Thorpe, and Jenny Agutter as Mrs. Thorpe. Emily Wachter plays Catherine Morland and David Harewood is Henry Tilney (swoooon). More information, including photos of the leads, here (scroll down to Page 4). We like that Henry. He has the proper spark of mischief in his eye.

That is only part 1 of 3, so we suppose there will be two more parts broadcast. Now we have to figure out how to listen to the bally thing without downloading Real Media…

In addition, we have a further treat for Northanger Abbey fans. Joey McGarvey, an incoming junior at Stanford University, has engaged in a complex online project about Janeites and Northanger Abbey. We’ll let Ms. McGarvey tell you about it in her own words:

I’m an incoming junior at Stanford University and for the last few months I’ve been working on a research project– that’s a very liberally-defined name– on Jane Austen. It’s particularly focused on Janeites and the Austen tourist industry. My work was divided into three stages. First, I went to Bath and Chawton and a few other places of interest, did the typical Austen-related things there, and blogged my experiences. Then I did a tutorial on Austen at Oxford, and posted all of my papers online in a second blog. I’m trying to complete the third part of my project now. It’s a fictional blog where the blogger and heroine is a devoted Janeite who travels to England to worship Austen and surprises herself when her life assumes some rather Northanger Abbey-like qualities.

Basically, it’s an excuse for me to indulge my love of paraliterature and to write bad fanfic.

She says that like it’s a bad thing!

But I’ve almost entirely finished the project now and very few people have looked at it. If anyone might enjoy it, I think it would be readers of your site.

We think so, too.

The main site is http://bloggingausten.blogspot.com. There’s more information posted there and links to the different parts of the project.

We loved the bit of modern-set NA fanfic, though as we are about to embark on our own Janeite tour of Bath and London (with a sidetrip to Portsmouth to satisfy our Royal Navy jones), we were a little taken aback by some of the heroine’s reactions to Bath and other Jane Austen-connected places in the U.K. However, these were needed to dampen down our excessive enthusiasm, which has affected our ability to concentrate on anything besides obsessively re-reading Rick Steves’ guidebook.

Enjoy Northanger Abbey day, AustenBloggers, and remember: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. Henry Tilney said so, so it must be true.