Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a blog entry from NBC reporter Lisa Daniels, who did a report on the Rice Portrait auction this morning on the Today Weekend show, in which Ms. Daniels claims to be a big Jane Austen fan. We wonder why she has never heard the term “Janeite” then? And we were further amused at the broadcast, in which the reporter and the JASNA members interviewed talked about Jane’s wonderful writing, illustrated by scenes from various films, all containing dialogue that Jane Austen never wrote (thankfully!). We will keep an eye on the Today Show site, hoping that they put up the video of the piece.

The Guardian also weighs in on the controversy with a more in-depth discussion of the provenance of the portrait than we have seen in the press to date. (more…)

With all the excitement this week over the auction of the Rice portrait, we were intrigued when Alert Janeite Rob Hardy sent us a link about an upcoming title that really has nothing much to do with Jane Austen specifically, but can be a sort of visual interpretation of her time period. A Picture History of the Grenville Family of Rosedale House by Mary Yelloly, “Eight and a half years old,” is a collection of watercolor paintings by a very young lady painted in the 1820s, and seems like a charming volume indeed.

David Shapard, editor of The Annotated Pride and Prejudice (a review on AustenBlog, and other comments), talks about how his book, originally self-published, found a publisher.

If you have a Sony Reader e-book device, free downloads of four of Jane Austen’s novels are available at mobileread.com, including the Charles Brock watercolor illustrations, though of course the Reader renders the illustrations in grayscale as it is strictly a B&W device. (Gee, wonder where they got the illustrations? ) One hopes that the other two are on their way (ETA: the Big Six are now available)…even though we’re sticking with our Treo for reading e-books for now!

The Times reports that Orion Books is publishing edited (that is, shorter) versions of many classic novels–so far, not including Jane Austen’s. In fact, they claim that Jane Austen’s novels are so popular because they are shorter than several of the novels planned for surgery.

Research confirmed that “many regular readers think of the classics as long, slow and, to be frank, boring. You’re not supposed to say this but I think that one of the reasons Jane Austen always does so well in reader polls is that her books aren’t that long”.

We suggest that such readers won’t find the books any better because they are shorter.

An article in the El Paso Times claims that the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters is “curiously inspired by” Northanger Abbey.

Huh.

The article also says “Should we see it? Only for die-hard fans of the show. Most human beings should stay away.” If any die-hard fans out there care to report in, we’d love to hear from you.