The Times reports that a wax portrait has disappeared from a historic house used as a filming location for BECOMING JANE.

The 18th-century painting is of the family of Richard Chapell Whaley, who built Newman House. It was on loan from the Whaley family to University College Dublin, the owner of the building.

Ironically, the family is believed to have given the wax portrait to UCD for safe keeping. The university has insured the work, but its value was probably as much sentimental as economic to the Whaleys.

Mystery surrounds why this particular painting was targeted. Although not large, 40cm by 58cm, it is in a heavy frame and an ebonised oak case.

The thieves ignored other valuable paintings in the building, which has its own security.

*coughsouvenircough*

The film was inspired by the little-known romance between the teenage Austen and Tom Lefroy, who were driven apart by their mothers. It portrays her as a romantic who was inspired to write great novels by the thwarted love affair.

So, so, so many things wrong in two sentences. So many.

Maybe they should make a movie about this guy instead:

Richard Whaley built 86 Stephen’s Green in the late 1700s and it contains some of the finest plasterwork of that era in Dublin.

The missing painting shows him with his family, including six children. One of these is Buck Whaley, best known to Dubliners for giving his name to a Leeson Street nightclub, but a notorious rake and gambler in his day.

He is said to have incurred gambling debts of £14,000 in one evening, and was forced to leave France when banks refused to honour his cheque.

Among his notorious capers was to jump from the couchant lion over the door of Newman House into the box of his carriage below, a feat usually undertaken after he had imbibed quantities of port.

An explanation of the title of this post: For those who don’t know, Jane Austen’s Aunt Leigh Perrot was once arrested for shoplifting some lace, though it seems that she was set up to be blackmailed. She refused to pay up, was put on trial and, fortunately, acquitted; had she been convicted, she could have been hanged, though most likely she would have been transported to Australia. Some scholars have written that despite her acquittal, Mrs. Leigh Perrot really was enamored of the ol’ five-finger discount, but we remain unconvinced; nevertheless, we could not resist the cheap and obvious joke.

Get out your workbags, Janeites! We heard from Stephanie, one of the admins of Knit the Classics, a blog community that chooses to read a different classic novel each month and knit, crochet, sew, or otherwise create a project inspired by that novel. May’s novel is Pride and Prejudice, so get knitting (and reading)!

We think this might be a good time to revisit some links we posted previously: the Pemberley and Elizabeth Bennet shawl patterns.

The Editrix cross-stitched a bookmark a few years back (hmm…it’s dated ms ‘98, so more than a few we guess) with the legend, “…and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” It has a handmade crocheted edging…goodness, we’re clever when we put our mind to it.

Alert Janeite Paola wrote to tell us that an article in Le Monde (which is, naturally, in French) has a tidbit about the late New Zealand author Janet Frame, which Paola helpfully translated.

D’une pile posée par terre, Janet Frame a tiré un livre de Jane Austen et a fait ce commentaire : “Un village lui suffisait pour écrire. L’Antarctique, il ne faut pas aller y voir.”

During a visit to her home (in 2002), Janet Frame picks up a book of Jane Austen and says: “A village was enough for her to write. Antartica, there’s no need to go seeing.”

Lovely.

Ha ha! Alert Janeite Marinell sent us a rather hilarious link to an entry in All About Romance’s Purple Prose contest by Amanda Grange (the author of Darcy’s Diary) in which Jane Austen pitches Pride and Prejudice to a modern romance novel publisher.

‘Yes, yes, at the end of the book,’ he said impatiently,’ but we haven’t got there yet. So tell me, Miss Austen, how do they meet?’

‘They meet at a ball. He —’

‘ — drags her into the window embrasure, draws the curtains round them, then whilst the music plays and duchesses dance a few inches away, he ravishes her. She’s driven to ecstasy, a loud chord from the orchestra masks their cries, she straightens her dress, he reties his cravat, and they join the other dancers, waltzing together as though nothing has happened. I love it.’

‘ — says she’s not very beautiful,’ finished Miss Austen weakly. He looked startled. Then excited.

‘Yes, I see what you mean. They meet, he says she’s no beauty, she’s annoyed - a woman scorned. SHE drags HIM into the window embrasure and SHE teaches HIM the meaning of hot, naked lust. Go on!’ he said.

‘Well, her little sister teases his friend to give a ball —’

‘Ah! A minx! Long legs, pert breasts. She teases the friend beyond endurance, he takes her —’

‘No, no, no! He falls in love with her sister. Her other sister. Jane.’

He rubbed his hands together. ‘What, there are THREE of them?’

‘Five, actually.’

‘FIVE sisters. This is HOT. You’re going places, Austen. I can see the sequels already.

Suddenly several sequels and three film adaptations make a lot more sense to us. (And so much for all those chick-lit authors who claim that Jane’s books are Just Like Theirs!)