Make haste, Midwestern Janeites! ELLIE AND MARIANNE, a student film that is a modern take on Sense and Sensibility, will premiere TOMORROW NIGHT in Muncie, Indiana.

“Hopefully Jane Austen won’t roll over in her grave,” she says, betraying one of few times some anxiety about the premier.

A production of Ball State’s Department of Telecommunications, the film was funded by the school and used student cast and crew. It’s their first time doing a feature-length film and part of its Summer High Def Project, training students in high definition film technology.

As Thurber describes her fledgeling writing career and interests, it appears she’s a Janeite (a devotee of all things Austen), although the word never crosses her lips.

“I first became a fan after visiting the Jane Austen Centre in Bath (England),” Thurber says. In her early teens at the time, she’d traveled with family to trace their heritage. She was enchanted by the genteel sense of high society Austen conveyed through her work, plus her observational humor and sly wit.

Since it’s filmed in HD, one hopes there might eventually be some kind of limited DVD distribution…if any AustenBlog readers get to see it, send us a report!

Alert Janeite Erika wrote to tell us that the BBC’s radio show Excess Baggage this past week featured Caroline Sanderson, author of A Rambling Fancy: In the Footsteps of Jane Austen.

From Kent in the east to Bath in the west, from London down to Southampton Jane Austen could scarcely be considered a globe trotter. But Sandi Toksvig meets Caroline Sanderson a modern traveller who wanted to see the places Jane Austen lived in and wrote about, and compiled them in a new book entitled ‘A Rambling Fancy’.

You can still listen to the show at the link (but probably should do it soon; we cannot guarantee that it will stay up there).

Alert Janeite Julie spotted a Jane Austen mention in the January 2007 issue of Consumer Reports magazine, in an article comparing the cost of books at various book and mortar stores and online.

Page 6 - Money wise box; Biggest Bargains B&N vs. Borders vs. Online

“We shopped for 23 titles, new and old, best-selling and not. A hard cover suspense novel, a classic self-help paperback, a cookbook companion to a TV show, and Jane Austen’s “Emma” were in the mix. The list price for our list was $565. Internet prices were usually lower. Note that standard shipping adds about $ 3 per online order plus $1 per book, but shipping fees are often waived if you spend more than $25.”

Julie said in her e-mail, “The only author and title is Austen.” (We wonder if the writer compared the same edition of Emma from each retailer, though?)