Just as Canada celebrates Thanksgiving a month ahead of the USA’s Thanksgiving, the North American premieres of ITV’s Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion can be seen on TVOntario (TVO) in December 2007, a month before PBS’ Complete Jane Austen begins:

16 December ….. Northanger Abbey
23 December ….. Mansfield Park
30 December ….. Persuasion

All three films will air Sunday nights starting at 9:00 p.m.

JASNA president and Friend of AustenBlog Marsha Huff has been profiled in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The article points out that she brings many talents to the position along with her affection for Jane Austen’s work.

And then there are the spinoffs and merchandising, everything from an action figure to sequel novels to movies such as “Becoming Jane.”

All of which makes a Milwaukee lawyer with a pixie haircut and impish grin quite happy, and a bit chagrined.

“Right now she needs an agent, but all of her stuff is out of copyright,” said Marsha Huff, the lawyer in question.

Imagine that book deal! Though we suspect that not nearly so many films would be made of Jane’s novels if the studios actually had to pay her royalties.

“The thing that sets (Jane Austen’s heroines) apart is their mind,” she said.

They usually are “brighter and more insightful” than other women in her books and “question the system they are in,” she said.

“It is a miracle to me that Jane Austen thought that way at a time when women had an inferior place in society,” she said.

Isn’t it grand?

Theater Ten Ten will stage a production of “Innocent Diversions, A Christmas Entertainment with Jane Austen and Friends,” written and directed by Lynn Marie Macy, from November 16 through December 16, 2007.

December 1803, Miss Jane Austen, her family & friends have arrived at Manydown Park, the Hampshire estate of the Bigg-Wither family for a Christmas celebration. At the persistent urging of her hosts, Jane has consented to be Mistress of Ceremonies and preside over their Holiday theatricals, which are to highlight her own outrageously funny early writings. Jane leads her friends and loved ones through comedic interpretations of various fictional characters, novels, short stories, plays and poetry. Friendship and family ties are put to the test when romance “erupts” within the ranks of the players and it is up to Jane to dry the tears, mend the broken hearts and save their Christmas performance from disaster.

If Innocent Diversions is as good as Ms. Macy’s stage adaptation of Northanger Abbey, then it is very good indeed.

Dates of performances are November l6-19, 30, December 1-3, 6, 8-10, 13-16, and there will be no performances on Thanksgiving weekend. All Friday, Saturday, and Monday performances are at 8 p.m. All Sundays have two performances at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. There are two Thursday performances on December 6 & 13, both with an early 7 p.m. curtain. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission.

Tickets are $20 and may be purchased by calling 212-352-3101 or online at www.theater1010.com. Theater Ten Ten is located at 1010 Park Avenue, between 84th & 85th Street in New York City.

The Salisbury Theatre’s production of Tim Luscombe’s adaptation of Northanger Abbey will be on stage at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham from Monday, November 5 to Saturday, November 10. Tickets are £9 to £24 and are available at the Everyman Theatre box office or by phone.

Alert Janeite Rob Hardy sent us a link to an article in the Virginia Quarterly Review in which author and Austen scholar Emily Auerbach examines whether Mark Twain really disliked Jane Austen as much as we have been told. It’s not a new article, but certainly interesting!

Here suspicion turns to surmise. Although Twain had boasted earlier in “Jane Austen” that he was doing “the first third” of Sense and Sensibility and not for the first time, he quotes here from the final third of her three-volume novel.

Was Mark Twain a closet Janeite, a fake who read and appreciated far more of Jane Austen than he admitted?

Twain shows his understanding of Austen through his apt description of Lucy Steele as “coarse, ignorant, vicious, brainless, heartless, a flatterer, and a sneak.” Despite his usual admiration for down-to-earth speech and manners, Twain clearly does not prefer the uneducated, “ignorant and illiterate” Lucy with her bad grammar and “want of real elegance” to the well-bred Dashwood sisters. Lucy’s “insincerity” and “artfulness” make her vicious—for both Austen and Twain.

Twain clearly shows an appreciation for Austen’s work–though almost in spite of himself. We know there is a school of thought that Twain was mostly tweaking his friend William Dean Howells, a dedicated Janeite; but if he set out to write an essay lambasting her work, there does seem to be some enmity there–but as Prof. Auerbach points out, it doesn’t quite work out.

Twain and Austen would have been hard pressed to decide who was the more irreverent of the two. Both took on clergymen, aristocrats, and “superiors” of all sorts, skewering them in just a few ironic words. Austen observed of some tedious neighbors, “I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow” and pronounced her clergyman Mr. Collins “favoured” with stupidity. Twain noted of a clergyman, “He charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it too,” and he quipped that doctors need but two things: ignorance and confidence.

Despite their pose as “mere” comic writers, both believed deeply in the power of their humor to reveal deeper truths about human behavior. Austen argued in Northanger Abbey that a work dismissed as “only a novel” was in fact “only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.”

Do read the whole article, it’s very good.

Jane on a rock!

Just in time for Christmas…or Halloween, if Charlie Brown lives on your block. “I got Jane Austen on a rock.”

Thanks to Alert Janeite Laurel Ann for sending this link!

Quite a bit, as our Gentle Readers already know!

The Gonzaga University student newspaper reported on the double lecture on Jane Austen recently held at the university.

Fowler said the Austen myth is everywhere, from films like Bollywood’s “Bride and Prejudice” to Wishbone to “I love Mr. Darcy” sweatshirts. Austen even has her own jokes, including “You might be an Austen redneck if you don’t think it’s weird that everyone seems to marry their cousin.”

Well, that’s funny!

Although Austen’s books are romances, she has been criticized for the lack of sexuality in her novels. The recent movie about Austen, “Becoming Jane,” addresses how she was incapable of having a sexual story of her own.

“But why do we need for Austen to have had a passionate romance?” Fowler asked. “Do we need to believe she wrote from experience about romance and disappointed desires?”

Austen’s books shouldn’t be put on a romantic pedestal. They must, instead, be examined on all levels, Fowler said.

Very true! And one can enjoy the novels on different levels at different points in one’s life.

Austen’s books are all about how people become attached and what leads to marriage, Kries said. Austen believed happiness was bound up in marriage.

However, the connection between the two people must not be merely romantic or only about wealth, as shown in “Pride and Prejudice” by Lydia’s and Charlotte’s unhappiness, Kries said.

But–was Charlotte unhappy?

When some authors of Jane Austen’s time needed their characters to fall ill for the sake of fiction, they usually endowed them with some sort of unidentifiable “fever” or other illness that either killed them or gave them the opportunity for deathbed confessions of murder or love. However, Jane Austen’s own characters usually have somewhat explainable illnesses, despite the fact that medicine in her time was not what one would call advanced, and she didn’t have the Internet to do research, let alone weekly episodes of CSI.

The BBC has taken a look at three fictional heroines–Marianne Dashwood; Catherine Earnshaw Linton of Wuthering Heights; and Lady Dedlock of Bleak House–and consulted physicians in an attempt to identify their fatal (or in Marianne’s case, near-fatal) illnesses.

Marianne is ill twice.

In the first half of the book, it is an episode of general swooning and not eating but in the second half, it is a life threatening fever - and you may guess what caused it. Yes, tripping through wet grass. Austen tells us only that the illness was an infection of “putrid tendency”.

Dr Jane Leese, infectious disease specialist at the Department of Health, thinks that this might suggest typhus, which was also known as putrid fever.

And Marianne had just returned in a coach from London where it was rife.

However Dr Leese plumps instead for a streptococcal sore throat, followed by septicaemia.

On the other hand, Dr Neil Vickers, reader in literature and medicine at King’s College London, thinks Marianne’s illness is simply a plot device.

Spoilsport!

He claims Austen needs a life threatening illness in order to return the previously overexcitable Marianne to the “sense” of the book’s title.

Well, of course she did, but just relax and have a little fun with it! Thanks to Alert Janeites Sue and Lisa for sending us this link.

Speaking of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, a new edition of her History of England has been published along with an edited version of Charles Dickens’ History of England.

“It is the work of an exceptionally bright, if jaundiced, teenager imbued with the egoism and flippancy to be expected of such provenance,” says the introduction by David Starkey, a prize-winning historian from Britain’s Cambridge University. “In fact perhaps the most valuable thing about her history is the glimpse it gives us of a highly talented adolescent on her way to greatness.”

If you haven’t read Jane Austen’s History of England, we recommend it highly.

Steve Johnson of The Chicago Tribune decided to try reading e-books on his BlackBerry, and what better book to start with than Pride and Prejudice?

It is a truth too rarely acknowledged, that a commuter in possession of a sophisticated electronic device, must be in want of a good book.

Put another way, free of the influence of Jane Austen’s famous first sentence, I just read “Pride and Prejudice” on my BlackBerry.

And, reader, I liked it. Against all my own prejudices, all my own pride in the history and tradition of the printed word, I liked it.

I liked holding it in one hand, having it always with me, and customizing my fonts and screen color. I liked reading it on the train without advertising my tastes; I could have been reading “Tropic of Cancer” or “The Firm.”

I really liked reading it in bed without the encumbrance of a book light.

I liked it all so much, I’ve moved on to Austen’s “Persuasion” and am, frankly, halfway annoyed at having to take time away from that to write this. What comeuppance will the vain spendthrift Sir Walter receive, and will his deserving daughter Anne find satisfaction?

We read e-books on our Treo all the time, mostly classics. Jane Austen’s novels and some of the minor works actually live on the hard drive of the device, along with J.E. Austen-Leigh’s Memoir of his aunt, and Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters by R.A. and William Austen-Leigh. They are with us at all times, in case of literary emergency. We also keep a rotating selection of other e-books on a removable Secure Digital card. (The photo at left shows Fanny Burney’s Cecilia on our Treo, Enrico.) All of these e-books are free to download in a large selection of e-book formats at the links above. We love being able to highlight and take notes in the e-book and then export the notes to a memo, which is handy for group discussions, all in a handheld device. Readers are available for nearly every mobile phone and/or PDA. Give it a try! We’re happy to answer any questions about e-books. Thanks to Alert Janeite Lisa for the link.

Novelist Josephine Cox fears that women take novels, including hers and Jane Austen’s, so seriously that their romantic relationships suffer for it.

Fewer than one in three women in their late 20s in Britain are married, compared to 85 per cent in the 1970s. If married, they become convinced that some grand passion has passed them by.

Many will point out that Jane Austen was writing romances more than 200 years ago.

Did she lead her readers astray by giving false hope and expectations? The answer, of course, is no.

In Jane Austen’s day, women had many fewer choices and less control over their lives.

Women of the 1790s were more concerned about status, stability and suitability of a possible partner.

So what is important in a marriage? Trust, followed by sharing and tolerance. I think good looks — and having oodles of money — are of far lesser importance.

That last sentence could be right out of one of Jane Austen’s novels. It is important to not get so wrapped up in a certain hero *coughDarcycough* that one overlooks the fact that Darcy is not so much Mr. Right as he is Mr. Right For Elizabeth Bennet. There is a difference, you know.

For those looking for something new and Austen-related to read, we heard from one Edward JB, who has published two alliteratively titled stories via lulu.com.

“The Shades of Udolpho,” Chapter Ten of the Editrix’s novella There Must Be Murder, has been published by the Jane Austen Centre at Bath online magazine. Other new articles at the magazine include a recipe for French pottage, the Regency layette, a review of The Jane Austen Book Club film, an article about Mary Shelley, and directions to make an heirloom baby bonnet.

That’s it for Friday Monday Weekend Bookblogging, and always remember, Gentle Readers: Books Are Nice!

Cub Reporter Heather L. pointed us to a delightfully snarky review of Becoming Jane in The Prague Post. It’s true we’ve had a touch of blogging malaise lately (and apologize for it and promise to do better), but they’re just treading on our territory now. Not that we don’t love it. We feel rather as though we strayed into a sort of literary version of “the dozens.” Dorothy has made popcorn; help yourself!

The creators of Becoming Jane undoubtedly congratulated themselves on their cleverness in reimagining Austen’s life as being a mere blueprint for Pride and Prejudice, so we needn’t bother.

Oh, SNAP!

It is too much to hope for some semblance of truthfulness in a Hollywood film, so one must salute Becoming Jane with that highest of praise: “It could have been worse.”

OUCH!

While Jane and Lefroy circle each other like a road company Benedict and Beatrice, her mother is trying to wed her to the nephew of Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith). The nephew, Mr. Wisely (Laurence Fox), is a rather stiff, unimaginative suitor, though he’s fallen under the spell of Jane’s wit (a quality that the script strives to keep at bay).

OH! That’ll leave a mark!

As a dodgy Cliff’s Notes to Austen’s work, Becoming Jane is sure to appeal to those who buy books for their covers.

We think someone has been served. (Click through and read the rest of the review, it’s quite hilarious.)

Cheer From Chawton will be presented at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa on November 1 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are free and the play is open to the public.

Modesto High School will present the Jon Jory stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice on November 2-4, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $7 for adults and $6 for seniors and students.

From time to time, we receive a press release at AustenBlog World Headquarters about a new edition of Jane Austen’s novels, or a book or film related to them; not surprising, considering the mission of our blog. Today we received a press release that had us scratching our head:

Rare book titles by famous authors are being brought back to the shelves of bookstores and online litterature dealers thanks to the efforts of two identical twins from sweden. “We grew up on books like these, they are inspiring and unique works of art. Upon reading them you are impressed by the genious of the creators. Be it turn of the century science-fiction predicting the atom bomb or Jane Austens romantic tale of forbidden relations. They do not deserve to be forgotten.” says Nils-Erik Lindstrom, one of the men behind the new editions.

The books are published under the collection name “A Twin Engine Gem”. Kent-Ove Lindstrom, the other twin explains; “We are presenting them under a single collection name because we think that although the books span several genres they are true literary gems. Hard to find, very precious items.”

So what is this “hard to find, very precious item” described as “Jane Austens (sic) tale of forbidden relations”? Pemberley in the Attic, maybe?* The answer, Gentle Readers, amazed us, and we are sure it will amaze you as well.

Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey” (ISBN: 978-1-84753-742-3) The first of Jane Austen’s novels to be completed for publication, though published only after her death. It is the story of seventeen year-old Catherine and how she matures from a dreamy irresponsible child to an independent strong woman.

This “hard to find, very precious object” has generously been made available to us ignorant Janeite plebes for the low, low price of $12.95. Isn’t that special?

It might have been a lot more special had the book not been available in multiple editions at many price levels in just about every bookstore we’ve ever entered, not to mention free to read on the Internets. Perhaps it is rare in the “publishers’” own country, though we know we have Swedish readers who presumably have read Northanger Abbey. What say you?

*Oh, dear. We just had a vision of a horde of wide-eyed fan fiction writers racing for their word processors. “Coming soon from lulu.com, a tale of forbidden love inspired by Jane Austen’s classic novel: Pemberley in the Attic!” You read it here first.

Janet Todd, the Herbert JC Grierson Professor of English Literature at the University of Aberdeen, will give a public lecture titled “Dead Hands: Jane Austen’s manuscripts and other puzzles.”

Professor Todd, the Herbert JC Grierson Professor of English Literature, will explore the intriguing question of who possesses past works and dead authors, including whether famous writers are primarily celebrities who should fulfil the public’s desires at any particular time in history. Focusing on how evidence from literary manuscripts can conflict with the demands of readers and literary critics, Professor Todd will refer to her innovative research into selected texts by Jane Austen and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The event begins at 6.00pm in King’s College Centre on the Old Aberdeen campus, and will be followed by an informal wine reception.

Places are free, and can be booked online via the web: www.abdn.ac.uk/inaugurallectures or by telephone: (01224) 273874.

As always, if any of our Gentle Readers attend this lecture, we would love a report!

Mark Thwaite of the Book Depository is offering a download of a free, unabridged BBC audiobook of Persuasion read by Greta Scacchi. To download the file, register at Audible UK. You must be 18 or older and a resident of the United Kingdom.

Barnard Castle United Reformed Church will hold a Jane Austen’s Christmas celebration as part of the bazaar honoring the church’s 175th anniversary.

This year, however, an additional entertainment has been organised, in remembrance of the period when the bazaar started, called “Jane Austen’s Christmas.”

There is the promise of a merry presentation, bringing to life festive pleasures in the age of elegance, based on the life and writings of Jane Austen. It will be presented by Gillian Stapleton, a costume historian, and member of the company, The History Wardrobe.

Those attending shall learn how to dress for a Christmas party, hear Mrs Austen’s recipe for a pudding, try to decipher Jane’s own charades and party puzzles, play some traditional games, and hear a thrilling ghost story.

Afterwards there will be tea and cakes, baked from period recipes.

If any of our Gentle Readers attend, we would love a report!

“Cheer From Chawton,” Karen Eterovich’s one-woman, audience-participation play, will be performed at Hanover College on Friday, October 26, at 7:30 p.m. in Fitzgibbon Recital Hall, Lynn Center for Fine Arts. Tickets are $12 for adults and $5 for youths and are available online.

Congratulations to Melanie, who won the sampler CD from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, A Musical. She thinks Hugh Laurie should have a role in the production…we have long thought he would be a great Mr. Bennet someday!

Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us a link to an eBay auction for a banknote bearing Jane Austen’s image. Click on the thumbnail at left to see it in full size. Check out the watermark on the back, and the image of Winchester Cathedral!

Laurel Ann tells us the banknote is from Greece and was issued in 2004.

Does anyone else find it comically ironic to have an image of Jane Austen on currency?

Everyone who attended the JASNA AGM received a ticket to redeem for a copy of a sampler CD of songs from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, A Musical, including “Lizzy’s Song,” “Not Romantic,” and “Fine Eyes,” as well as a conversation with the writers. Since we already have a CD that the producer kindly sent to us, we decided to redeem our ticket for a CD to give away on the blog. We also purchased a special handmade CD cover and had it signed by the composers, Lindsay Warren Baker and Amanda Jacobs. If you would like to be placed in a drawing to win the CD, send an e-mail with your full name and mailing address to editor@austenblog.com by 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday, October 23, 2007, and also tell us who you would like to see in the cast of the Broadway play! Also check out the composers’ MySpace page, which is linked above, for some other songs from the play.

Clay Jenkinson has a lovely column in the Bismarck Tribune about the universal nature of an appreciation of Jane Austen, including his first experience with reading her as a fresh-off-the-prairies exchange student at Oxford University.

I had arrived at Oxford a couple of weeks before the fall (Michaelmas) term began, to get settled. One day I was loitering in the 17th century gateway of my college (Hertford) reading the notices put up for students of each study area. Suddenly a portly distinguished man in a wool suit jacket and a sweater vest moved toward me in a flat-footed way and said, “You must be young Jenkinson from America.” Indeed I was.

He invited me up to his rooms in the college and poured me the first glass of sherry of my life. He asked me about my special interests in English language and literature. I stammered out nervous and self-conscious answers.

Then he sat far back into an overstuffed ottoman and tilted his head up to the ceiling, cocked an eye at me, and said, “Well, Mr. Jenkinson, which Jane Austen novel do you especially fancy?”

A very long stage pause here.

Idiot that I was, I told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “Mr. Cockshut, I’m afraid I have to admit that I have never read a Jane Austen novel.”

Pause.

A.O.J. Cockshut said, “I find that I can always tell a very great deal about someone by asking that question. Good day.”

I slipped out of the room like a terrified and humiliated boy in a Dickens novel, walked straight to Blackwells bookstore, bought all six Austen novels, and read them all during the next week.

HA!

We loved how his and his daughter’s reaction to seeing TJABC was to run out and get all of Jane’s novels. Do it! Read them! We’ll be here waiting when you are finished.