Alert Janeite Marybeth let us know that Masterpiece Theatre has a sneak peek of some of the Jane Austen adaptations it will be broadcasting in 2008. (The link is on the right side.)

The sneak peek includes longish bits of MP, NA, and Persuasion, all new to American audiences, presumably.

The OC Register also has an article about various past film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels, including a handy (and amusing) chart. Of MP99:

Jonny Lee Miller as Edmund gets too little screen time, and Alessandro Nivola as Henry Crawford is ruined by goofy sideburns

Hee!

Alert Janeite (and Brock enthusiast) Cinthia let us know that an original illustration by C.E. Brock from Pride and Prejudice is currently being auctioned on eBay. It’s VERY original–we were not previously aware of this particular drawing, as it does not appear in any of the editions of P&P illustrated by Brock that are included in the Molland’s archive. If anyone knows of an edition containing this particular image, please let us know!

This is kind of last-minute, but for anyone in the Taos, NM area, tomorrow there will be a performance of a musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s “The Beautifull Cassandra” at the Taos Public Library Meeting Room at 1 p.m. Joanne Forman, the author of the piece, has promised more information after the performance.

…but that doesn’t stop us costume geeks from getting all obsessed, does it now?

Syracuse University English instructor Amy Leal discusses her obsession with period costume and how it does not always quite mesh with her academic pursuits.

It doesn’t do to admit to such activities in academic company. Kipling popularized the term “Janeites” in a story about an Austenite Masonic Lodge created by soldiers to get them through the horrors of the Great War. Being a member of what one critic called the “frilly bonnet brigade” is a bit like joining that secret society. In her book on Austen fandom called Janeites, Deidre Lynch cautions “the career-conscious critic against letting the wrong people know of her desire to, for instance, wear Regency costume and dance at a Jane Austen Literary Ball.” Making replicas smacks too much of scholarly dilettantism, of playing dress up with the canon like a little girl or boy tottering around in mother’s gigantic heels with a slash of forbidden carmine on the lips.

She comes up with an excellent reason (which also will do for the study of history in relation to literature, as well):

I make clothing reproductions because I am fascinated with the “felt life” (to appropriate a Henry James term) of past eras. What did Regency hair smell like? What did cheddar cheese taste like back then — tangy from some subtle differences in soil and fodder two centuries ago that we would be hard pressed to define? What was it like to wear Charlotte Brontë’s silk traveling dress (pattern available from the Northern Society of Costume and Textiles) after wedding Arthur Bell Nicholls? How might such considerations have influenced the writing of the period? I want to know how Emma combated bad breath and what the bristle of a muffin seller’s cheap linsey-woolsey felt like on the wrists.

Works for us.

Regency corsets (when daring misses wore them at all) were designed to push up and smooth down (except for a horrifying contraption known as a “steel divorce,” which separated the breasts into distinct pointed silos) and accentuate the high waistline.

Weren’t we just saying that?

Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.

For those who would like to know more about the clothing of Jane Austen’s time, Serena Dyer of Pemberley Designs will be publishing a free quarterly e-newsletter on period costume, Dressing Jane. The first edition, concentrating on the dress of the 1790s (the period in which Becoming Jane takes place, if you are interested) will be mailed on August 10, so make haste and sign up!

The New York Daily News has an article about Becoming Jane, and the opening line, well…

If Jane Austen had looked like Anne Hathaway, would she have remained single and become the beloved author she did?

They aren’t seriously suggesting that Jane Austen didn’t marry because she wasn’t “pretty,” are they? Does the Editrix have to Cluebat a bi…journalist?

Hathaway rolls her eyes at the question: “There’s no way I could answer that without sounding like a jerk,” she says with a dismissive chuckle.

That’s got to be the smartest thing we have ever heard her say.

Austen’s writing provided inspiration for Hathaway, but it was Austen’s riding that truly clued the actress into what the writer’s interior life might have been like.

“She loved horseback riding,” Hathaway says, adding with a smile. “There’s a certain sort of girl who rides horses.”

Jane Austen loved horseback riding? Where in the blue heck did that come from? Anyone have a citation? We cannot recall such a fact, but would be pleased to learn it is true. After all, according to Julian Jarrold, Anne Hathaway is a Jane Austen Expert!

“We wanted somebody young and feisty. Annie had such qualities, and happened to be a complete expert on Jane Austen.

See? It’s on the Internets, it must be true.

“I hope [the film] enriches their understanding of Jane Austen,” Jarrold offers to the audiences who’ll see the movie in theaters. “I just hope people will go back to the books and read them again and again.”

So do we; if the motivation for doing so is perhaps akin to diving under the covers during a thunderstorm, as Stuart Smalley would say, that’s okay.

Alert Janeite Kay wrote to tell us that the Minneapolis Star Tribune had an interesting description for the film:

Becoming Jane (PG) The life of Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) before she achieved wealth as a novelist.

Wealth? She socked a little money, away, true, but…oh, wait, you have to be wealthy to enjoy horseback riding! How silly of us.