Happy Birthday, Jane!
She looks pretty good for 231, doesn’t she?
Since we had out Caroline Austen’s memoir of her aunt for a posting and have not yet put it away, we think that Jane Austen would appreciate, on her birthday, a remembrance of one who knew and loved her. Caroline was the daughter of Jane’s eldest brother, James, and Mary Lloyd Austen, sister of Jane’s friend and housemate, Martha Lloyd. James Austen was, like his father, the rector of Steventon parish, near enough for Caroline to make frequent visits to her grandmother and aunts at Chawton.
My visits to Chawton were frequent–I cannot tell when they began–they were very pleasant to me–and Aunt Jane was the great charm–As a very little girl, I was always creeping up to her, and following her whenever I could, in the house and out of it–I might not have remembered this, but for the recollection of my mother’s telling me privately, I must not be troublesome to my aunt–
Her charm to children was great sweetness of manner–she seemed to love you, and you loved her naturally in return–This as well as I can now recollect and analyse, was what I felt in my earliest days, before I was old enough to be amused by her cleverness–But soon came the delight of her playful talk–Everything she could make amusing to a child–Then, as I got older, and when cousins came to share the entertainment, she would tell us the most delightful stories chiefly of Fairyland, and her Fairies had all characters of their own–The tale was invented, I am sure, at the moment, and was sometimes continued for 2 or 3 days, if occasion served–
As to my Aunt’s personal appearance, her’s was the first face that I can remember thinking pretty, not that I used that word to myself, but I know I looked at her with admiration–Her face was rather round than long–she had a bright, but not a pink colour–a clear brown complexion and very good hazle eyes–She was not, I beleive, an absolute beauty, but before she left Steventon she was established as a very pretty girl, in the opinion of most of her neighbours–as I learned afterwards from some of those who still remained–Her hair, a darkish brown, curled naturally–it was in short curls round her face (for then ringlets were not.) She always wore a cap–Such was the custom with ladies who were not quite young–at least of a morning but I never saw her without one, to the best of my remembrance, either morning or evening.*
We lift our glass in a virtual toast to our favorite author. To Jane!
Tell us in comments what you are doing to commemorate Jane’s birthday today!
*Excerpt from My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir by Caroline Austen, published by the Jane Austen Society in 1952, new edition 1991.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
I will be celebrating with a miniseries marathon, including the Jane Austen Collection (BBC miniseries from 1970s and 1980s) and of course the wonderful Ehle/Firth adapatation of P&P!
Happy Birthday Jane!!
December 16th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
An afternoon tea at Alice’s Tea Cup in NYC ;).
December 16th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I didn’t even know it was her birthday. Guess I have to bake a cake
December 16th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
I’ll be doing a very special blog post in a moment. And finishing Sanditon, the only work by Jane, not counting some of the Juvenilia, that I haven’t read yet. And I’ve been telling people “Happy Jane Austen’s Birthday!” all day.
December 16th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Thanks for the reminder from that particular memoir, Mags. I would have loved to hear her fairy stories, wouldn’t you?
December 16th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
On Jane Austen’s 231st Birthday I decided to watch ‘Austen country’ early afternoon. It being a dull foggy day, I even lighted the candles on the Christmas tree, and their glow added to the nice cozy atmosphere.
Now I am going to watch an adaptation. BBC1s are what I normally watch as they are all my favourites, but it’ll have to be NA1 which is one of my favourite adaptations, and also short enough to watch without a break, before I go to bed.
Have fun doing whatever you are planning to celebrate this day
December 16th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
I’m just finishing watching P1 for the very first time. I’m absolutely delighted by it. I guess I had an unfair opinion of the 70s and 80s BBC productions from what little I had seen of them before, but P1 is a pure treat.
Happy Jane Austen’s Birthday!
December 16th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Lamenting yet again that my mother couldn’t have made a bit of an effort so that I might have been born on this date instead of the seventeenth. A brisk walk. Spicy foods. Something!
December 16th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
I forgot all about it…!
I watched a bit of P2, dressed my Yahoo avatar up as 1815 Girl in Bath (all right, the outfit was labeled “Juliet” - a little more Italian Rennaisance than Regency; and the background was a Spanish deck. But it’s convincing).
I very much enjoyed reading that excerpt, thanks for posting it.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:21 am
I got a group of people together, and we sang Happy Birthday to Jane in quite a few languages: Arabic, English, Hebrew, German, Russian, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Korean, and Papiamentu.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:53 am
December 16 also happens to be the birthday of another artistic giant, Ludwig van Beethoven. So all day, with Beethoven playing in the background I finished reading Nokes’ Jane Austen, A Life and then reread The Watsons. I’m falling more in more in love with Emma Watson. I think she is Anne Elliot’s equal for strength of character. I really believe that this would have been one of Jane’s greatest novels if she had not given up on it at the time… when her father died. There were just too many autobiographical elements in it, including the impending death of Emma’s own father. It must have been simply too difficult to continue the work afterwards.
With my eyes now too tired to read further, I think I will put on one of my Austen audiobooks. Probably Persuasion. Yes! Persuasion it is.
Requesting Mag’s indulgence, I would like to provide a link, for those interested, to my tribute to Jane Austen (part 1) at the Scotch and Sirens message board.
http://www.scotch-and-sirens.waw.pl/cgi-bin/forum.pl/read/574
I hope to post the second part sometime tomorrow (Sunday).
December 17th, 2006 at 6:08 am
I totally forgot about it!!! *BLUSH* I thought about it Friday, and I did visit AustenBlog yesterday (like always!), but because I’m from Europe I read the birthday post (which was probably posted when I already turned off my computer) only today… But there’s no day that I’m not talking, writing or reading about JA, so yesterday was no exception.
Thanks for posting those lovely comments by Caroline, Mags!
And last, but not least, I’m finally going to say: HAPPY JANE AUSTEN’S BIRTHDAY!!!
December 17th, 2006 at 11:16 am
I was unable to celebrate Jane’s birthday as I ought, but I just might pop P2 or P&P3 into the player later this evening. I need something beautiful in my life right now.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I celebrated THE DAY in the happiest way possible — I attended the annual Jane Austen birthday luncheon given by JASNA-Wisconsin. I shopped at the book bazaar (found some delightful gifts), enjoyed quiche and English trifle, joined my fellow revelers in a champagne toast “To Jane!” and learned a great deal from Vicky Hinshaw’s talk, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Divorce in the Regency Era” (focus was what could have happened to Maria, post-MP).
Fab!
December 18th, 2006 at 11:15 am
I forgot about her day on Saturday as well…
But I had been preparing for it all last week by watching P2, P&P2, S&S and Emma2. It was quite nice!
Perhaps this week I’ll watch MP1 and NA1 (*groan*) to make it a round 6!
December 20th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Alas! I spent most of Austen’s Birthday travelling by plane and being “out of it” as a result of taking Dramamine. I suppose I will have to have a JA-day celebration sometime this week to make up for it!