A really interesting resource for those researching Bath in the time of Jane Austen has gone online.

A database of newspaper articles from the Bath Chronicle from 1770 through 1800 is available online. The archive is still in the process of completion, but in the meantime “You can search the Georgian Newspaper Project database on many subjects, including art, fashion, crime, punishment, pets and politics, to find out about life in Georgian Bath.” Sounds good to us!

(Oh, if only one could go to Bath! A little spa-bathing would set us up forever. But then the spa is not open yet anyway.)

Thanks to Alert Janeite Marmee for sending us the link!

Ugh. This is what happens when the ignorant watch “creative” adaptations.

To fans of Austen, who wrote Sense and Sensibility, adapted for the screen by Emma Thompson, whose hand is in this script, too, this is worth the fuss. For the rest of us, it is a ponderous soap opera.

Pride and Prejudice? Ponderous soap opera? Ye God and all the little fishes.

Austen’s female-dominated universe is intolerable, to borrow a term from the story.

Son, if you had even a nodding acquaintance with the story, such a comment might be permissible. As such, stand still while we wield the Cluebat of Janeite Righteousness upside your melon. *WHACK!*

Dang, that’s a thick one. Better take another swing. *WHACK!*

The story’s focus is the Bennets, a family with many daughters parented by a bystander father (Donald Sutherland) and an overbearing mum (Brenda Blethyn at her creakiest). They flit, sniff and tromp about–rarely without the music
blaring–as they play with ribbons, gossip about others and yammer on at the dining table.

Not Jane’s fault. Not her fault. NOT. JANE’S. BALLY. FAULT!

This is the late 18th century and, since the family farm doesn’t make much money,

It makes two thousand pounds per year, actually. In today’s money, roughly a hundred grand–or $175,000. Do you make that much, Mr. Big Shot Movie Reviewer? Hmm?

Director Wright lavishes this adaptation with glimmering touches of color, luminous lighting and graceful movements, and the pictures are breathtaking.

Oh, fine, say nice things about Mr. Throw Gritty Realistic Mud All Over Jane Austen And You Stuck-Up Prissy Janeites Can Go Jump In The Lake If You Don’t Like It. We tried to tell him, but nooooooo.

Macfadyen and Dench are notably underrepresented though Knightley, Blethyn and screenwriter Deborah Moggach are featured in location interviews, which lend themselves to the spirit of the movie.

“I was just trying to capture the spirit of the thing.” (And the first person who can name that movie reference gets a thousand points that don’t mean anything.)

Elizabeth Garvie, who played Elizabeth Bennet in the 1980 television adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, will take part in “A Celebration of Jane Austen” at the Court Theatre at Pendley Tring in (fittingly) Hertfordshire.

A celebration of the life and works of one of England’s most popular authors presented by one of the country’s best-loved actors. The fascinating and enigmatic Jane Austen is revealed in her own words and in those of her admirers; accompanied by music.

As always, if you go, post a review.

Alert Janeite Carol wrote to tell us that the Manolo for the Brides blog is running a contest, the prize for which is a P&P3 DVD package with tea and other goodies. Entrants have to submit a “bizarre or hilarious” wedding story by February 27.

There is much that could be snarked in the blog entry–wandering spelling, perception of 18th century modes of cleanliness–but the Editrix has been in every secondhand shop in Southeastern Pennsylvania today looking for a nice dresser with drawers that might actually hold something (in other words, what modern furniture makers are NOT making) and does not have the energy. Besides, they’re giving away a lovely prize, it seems rather churlish.

The Scotsman.com reports that the Heritage Lottery Fund has acquired the John Murray Archive, including manuscripts and letters from authors including Jane Austen. A second article reports that a new exhibition area will be created in the National Library of Scotland to house the collection. Time to plan that trip to Edinburgh!

An article about Julie Walters on MuggleNet reports that Ms. Walters said in an interview that she will begin work on BECOMING JANE in April. Still no news on her role.

Hmmm! After we reported a contest to win a P&P3 DVD sponsored by a newspaper in West Virginia, it was won by someone living in South Dakota. Emily Feekes, could you be an AustenBlog reader? Come, confess!

Emily wrote a very nice essay on the film, btw; check it out!

The University of Wisconsin’s theatre group is staging an adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE beginning tonight and running through March 11. Tickets are $16, $12 for UW students.

“It’s a lovely adaptation. The undergraduates in the play love it and the story stands up very well in the theater,” says director Barbara Clayton, who teaches theater at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The novel is written in such an energetic style that much of the dialogue is just lifted right out of the novel.”

As always, if you get to see it, post a review in comments!

ETA: A review in the Capital Times.

Paging Frank Fontana: the Editrix is in Investigative Journalist mode! Dorothy, fetch the safari jacket that Christiane Amanpour sent us! We need to get in the spirit.

Janeite Martyr Allison (we are always grateful to those who read Bad Austen Paraliterature so we don’t have to) posted a review of the first book in what apparently is a planned quartet by one “Jan Austen,” about which we posted previously. Allison’s delightfully snarky review is worth repeating here in its entirety.

This is the tale of “the scion and the slut,” and, knowing that, you are forewarned. It is the tawdry tale of the rich Mathew [sic]Bennet-Towne, who, while a tiny tot in pre-WWII Monte Carlo, sees his mother kills his father (dad was running away with the governess) and then herself. Things just go downhill from here. Some years later, Mathew falls for Zola, a nymphomaniac circus artiste (by this time I was skimming & trying not to comprehend) and they have a doomed marriage. Zola has an affair with a younger man–Wickham (!)–and Mathew attempts to commit suicide by running his Rolls Royce into a cement truck, but one advantage of great wealth is that Rolls Royces have superior structural integrity so Mathew (at least) will be around for the remaining 3 volumes in this planned 4-volume set.

Even the frequent and sleazy sex scenes could not hold my attention, and I was left completely uninterested in the future fates of Elizabeth & Jane (Mary and Kitty are dropped as characters–lucky them!), though I do confess to a mild curiousity as to whether, and if so, how, Lydia will get herself out of the Turkish prison where she faces execution by firing squad for drug smuggling.

I cannot dis-recommend this book too strongly.

(Good heavens: Dorothy, hide the sporks before the poor girl does herself a harm.)

Well done, Allison; a review in the finest tradition of AustenBlog, and perfectly in accord with our initial suspicion. (Yes, we know we said the other day that the Editrix is a glass-half-full kind of girl, and that is very true, but she’s not exactly Jane Bennet, either.)

Re-reading the original post, we became interested in the author information quoted therein:

‘Better than 1,000 Cosmos and Playboy Advisors.’

–William Wingate, author.

About the Author
Under a different pen name, Jan Austen has written five novels. One became a major Hollywood movie; others were translated into major foreign languages. Austen lives in Monaco.

So who is this William Wingate person, who was so delighted with Ms./Mr. “Austen’s” work, anyway? we wondered. Bringing forth our superior Googling skills (and esoteric knowledge of various Internet databases), we discovered that William Wingate has written five novels, one of which became a major Hollywood movie, and another of which has been translated into a major foreign language. What a coincidence! How fitting that he should blurb “Jan Austen’s” books! (she said in a tone of heavy irony.)

This isn’t the first time we’ve come across Austen paraliterature authors engaging in sockpuppet behavior, either. Our consolation is that the vast majority of that group are grownups and engage in straightforward marketing activities, and we are always happy to assist in getting the word out about their books to those who wish to read them; also that the authors who engage in such immature and foolish behavior don’t write books worth reading, anyway.

The moral of this sordid little story? Don’t mess with the Janeites. We’re way smarter than you, have mad Googling skillz and will be delighted to mock you. It is a small community, and we do talk to each other.

Historian Trevor Fawcett gave a talk in Bath last night (sorry for the lack of notice, we’re just getting this) and told This Is Bath that Jane Austen’s books set in Bath did not represent “real life” in Bath.

Austen’s characters keep within their social spheres and her books pay no real regard to those outside it. Mr Fawcett, who lives in Lansdown, said: “Jane Austen wrote very selectively. She was not making a record of everything about Bath and its people, she was writing about her characters, and they were from a very narrow social group.”

This is not a revelation. Jane kept her cast of characters small. Please don’t confuse her with Charles Dickens. That’s not a slam on Dickens; we like Dickens; but his books were sprawling epics. Jane Austen’s books were small but exquisite slices of life. Different, but both enjoyable in their way.

Alert Jane/Brontëite Brontëana wrote to tell us that Paul Gordon, who wrote the JANE EYRE musical, posted to a fan forum for that show that his latest project, a musical adaptation of EMMA, will be part of Theatreworks New Works Festival in San Francisco in April and May. The dates are not yet known, but it seems to be late April and early May.

An updated version of the book After Jane by Jennifer Scott, a review of completions and sequels of Jane Austen’s novels, which has been out of print for some time, is again available via Lulu.com.

Paul from KeiraWeb.com has kindly made two clips from older film versions of P&P available online.

1967 P&P, starring Celia Bannerman and Lewis Fiander

1980, starring Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul

(At the time of this posting the storage site was closed for maintenance, but it should be up again in the morning.)

Comments, please….

Karen Joy Fowler’s Web page has a fun quiz related to her book, The Jane Austen Book Club.

Who’s Your Jane Austen?

When the Editrix took the test, her results were:

Like Bernadette, your Austen is a comic genius whose characters and dialogue are genuinely funny. You may be thought unreasonably attached to Pride and Prejudice. You will not be afraid to wear purple in old age.

All true, except our favorite would be Persuasion. (And for those who are new to the blog, we adored JABC, even to the point of hoping that Mr. Adrien Brody, Our Sweet Babboo, would be cast in the role of Grigg if they ever make a film of it. We are not sure there is a higher accolade we can bestow.)

The Julia Rogers Library at Goucher College in Maryland will sponsor a lecture by Rachel Brownstein, Goucher College’s Burke Scholar-in-Residence for spring 2004, on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 at 7 p.m. in Merrick Lecture Hall.

Titled “Dearest, Loveliest Elizabeth: Jane Austen’s Romantic Myth,” Brownstein’s presentation will explore readers’ ideas about the famous 18th-century novelist and her works. The lecture is free and open to the public.

As always, if you go, we would love to hear all about it.

Little D-fects Physical Theatre company is staging a play called CRUSH, a modern take on Sense and Sensibility, which is about to go on tour in the U.K.

Based on Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ Crush follows two sisters as they join the craziness of 1980’s London. Marianne wants to be in a band, Elinor is starting university. Together they find out that being young and in love is never easy - but what’s the best way to cope with a broken heart?

little d-fects bring their “fresh, easily accessible style” (Hairline 2004)to this classic tale, combining theatre, dance and music to make this an exhilarating and extraordinary version of a well-loved story.

The tour begins February 23 (that’s this week!) in Fareham and runs through March. Send us a review if you get to see it!

The New York Times reports that Doris Lessing’s new collection of essays contains an essay on Jane Austen, though the review says nothing specific about it.

Alert Janeite Joan wrote to alert us to a new book deal from Publisher’s Weekly:

Newbery Honor winner for YA novel Princess Academy Shannon Hale’s AUSTENLAND, about a young New York woman named Jane who can never seem to find the right man — perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy as played by Colin Firth — who goes on a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, to Amanda Katz at Bloomsbury, in a two-book deal, by Nadia Cornier at Firebrand Literary (NA).

We suppose it is better than Yet Another navel-gazing essay on whether Jane Austen wrote ChickLit, though we are not sure whether to be amused or appalled. This could be really fun, but let’s face it, there is SO much scope for sheer eye-sporking suckage here that it really is quite breathtaking.

We’ll cross our fingers and hope for fun, because despite the popular apprehension the Editrix really is a glass-half-full kind of gal, and besides we are fresh out of sporks.

Krysten Appelbaum writes about her “minimester” studying in Jane Austen’s England.

The one object that truly had an impact on me, was Austen’s writing table - seeing it in her house in Chawton, situated in the same place as it was in her day.

It reminded me that her novels did not suddenly appear for me to enjoy, but that her writing was a process, just as anyone’s is. I stood there imagining her sitting at the little table contemplating her characters, working through bouts of writers block, and then pouring out long passages onto paper after sudden inspiration.

Her writing table, as small and insignificant as it might have seemed to any other person, made me realize my connection with her was not only an author to a reader, but a writer to a writer.

We hope they got to go to Steventon. That was the place that resonated with “Janeness” the most in our experience; probably because it is so retired that it seems to be very much like it was in Jane Austen’s day. The yew tree in the churchyard might be rather bigger, however.