Don’t forget, UK folks–the second of three parts of Sense and Sensibility will be broadcast tonight on BBC One at 21.00. We’d love to hear what you thought about it.

Lots of S&S08 in the news, especially since we’ve been slacking the last couple of days about posting it. Thanks to all who sent in links and stuff, apparently laboring under the impression we were wallowing in ignorance rather than sloth here at AustenBlog World Headquarters. (more…)

Fanny grows up as an outsider, often made to feel like a burden on the household despite her housework and peacemaking efforts. When the two other girls in the family run away with a seductive neighbor, Fanny’s loyalties are torn between her own yearning for independence and a longing for acceptance from all the family factions.

Is this Fanny Price in Mansfield Park? Meet the little-known but very real Fanny Wollstonecraft, daughter of early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and older half-sister to Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Fanny coped with her stepmother’s unrelenting criticism, sought inclusion with her half- and stepsisters, and craved love from her stepfather William Godwin in a household where a stepsister noted, “If you cannot write an epic poem, or a novel that by its originality knocks all other novels on the head, you are a despicable creature not worth acknowledging.” Fanny’s biography is handled with the tender sensitivity she never received during her short life.

“In the world of pragmatic compromise envisaged by Jane Austen at about the same time, enthusiastic Harriet [Westbrook, Shelley's first wife] as Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility should have lived to find a kinder man, while compassionate Fanny could and should have gained the rewards earned by her namesake Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. Instead both encountered Shelley’s utopian absolutism.”

While Death and the Maidens: Fanny Wollstonecraft and the Shelley Circle is not about Jane Austen, this scholarly biography provides a thoughtful examination of the literary and philosophical influences of Jane’s time period, carefully researched and adorned with details. But a penchant for footnotes isn’t necessary to enjoy this book: it’s a fascinating story about the young women in the Wollstonecraft-Godwin household and how their upbringing combined with Shelley’s passionate influence to send the small family’s dynamics into turmoil. The “aristocracy of genius” encouraged by Godwin and Shelley was not without tragic results – leading to a poignant tale of love and death straight out of Romanticism in its own right.

Alert Janeite Cinthia from JACastellano, the Spanish language Jane Austen discussion list, let us know that Persuasion (2007) will be broadcast on Canal 22 tonight, Sunday, January 6, 2008, at 22:00 Mexico City time. (Central Time in the U.S.) Don’t forget to come back and let us know what you thought of it!

The composers of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice have posted the story of the more than seven-year (so far!) journey of writing their musical on their MySpace page.

Lindsay’s work extracting the dialogue from the novel showed us how many conversations Austen left to the reader’s imagination. While Austen was extremely detailed in creating scenarios, often times the conversations were told from the narrator’s third person perspective, rather than from a first-person dialogue.

Because of these two revelations – the love of the Janeite and the brilliant voice of the author – we knew we had to take great care in HOW we chose to tell the story – in song and on stage.

Without making any immediate decisions, we started with the characters. We looked for moments and turns of phrase that revealed who the characters were. We began to hear and play with musical motives and themes that could tie into text-phrases and translate the characters into song.

What we had already learned from our years of working together is that working on a musical requires patience, dedication and a whole lotta LOVE. What many people don’t realize is that it can take a minimum of five years to complete a project. In order to continue and not lose heart, we must love our material. Already, we have been living with Pride & Prejudice for seven years. And we still LOVE the novel and our work with Jane Austen.

They’ve also posted several demo songs from the musical on the main page–check them out. The songs are delightful. We can’t wait to see this on Broadway!

Some might say the Austengeddon, but they are clearly glass-half-empty types. Though we are less than thrilled with many of the adaptations being broadcast, no matter how you look at it, Masterpiece Theatre Classics’ presentation of “The Complete Jane Austen” will bring a lot of attention to our favorite author, which is never a completely bad thing. We think. We hope.

Entertainment Today has a preview with a schedule and information about each film in the series. Also there’s a new photo from Miss Austen Regrets.

So what has brought about the Renaissance for the 42-year-old English novelist who died in 1817? Maybe because she was very smart, very strong, and knew how to tell a good story. Some folks say what she wrote was like Sex and the City in the 18th century.

None of those folks would be associated with this blog, we believe.

Miss Austen Regrets (airs Feb. 3) is a film biography starring Olivia Williams. It dramatizes Jane Austen’s lost loves and reveals that the authoress wrote from personal experience. It explores how she played the courtship game, and how the “happily ever after” eluded her.

Oh please, Jane, no. Please no. *sticks fingers in ears, sings “la la la la la, we can’t hearrrrrrrrrr youuuuuuu!”*

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, you know.

PBS is positioning the series with educators, and has produced a Teacher’s Guide that might also be available to the non-teachers among us, and also has featured the series on its PBS Teachers website. (Thanks to Alert Janeite Diane for the link.) For the many students, both high school and university, who read AustenBlog, we would like to take this opportunity to remind you of JASNA’s 2008 essay contest, which incorporates the four new adaptations in the series, and has some pretty nice prizes, including free registration and two nights’ lodging for the 2008 JASNA AGM in Chicago.

With the Complete Jane Austen gearing up on PBS, everyone seems to have Jane Austen films on their minds, and there are several events coming up dedicated to Austen film adaptations old and new.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., is having a special event, “Jane Austen Goes to the Movies,” on Wednesday, January 30th at 7 p.m.

Jane Austen has become one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters, with both feature films and television mini-series to her credit. Independent scholar and lecturer, Virginia Newmyer, examines the dramatization of the novels, and whether 20th-century scenarios have improved on the renowned author. The discussion, illustrated with images, interprets the ways in which Jane Austen wove the enduring questions of power, money, and social class into her romantic comedies, and how the themes have been transferred to the screen. Several films and videos are considered, including: Sense and Sensibility (1995 feature film), Pride and Prejudice (1980 BBC mini-series, 1995 BBC/A&E mini-series), Mansfield Park (1993 feature film), Emma (1996 feature film), Clueless (1995 feature film), and Persuasion (1995 feature film). In addition, both Becoming Jane, the 2007 feature film as fictional as the novels, and The Jane Austen Book Club, very different from the book, are included.

Tickets for this event are $20, but if you call and mention that you are an AustenBlog reader, you can get them for the member price of $15! La!

Alert Janeite Jen K. sent us some information about upcoming events sponsored by JASNA’s Greater New York region, kicking off this week. First is a pre-broadcast screening of the new adaptation of Persuasion, this Tuesday, January 8, at 6:30 p.m. at Wollman Auditorium at the Cooper Union. The event is co-sponsored by Penguin Books.

JASNA New York also is co-sponsoring (with Borders) post-broadcast discussions for each of the six novel adaptations on the Mondays after broadcast at several locations in New York and Connecticut.

Another very exciting New York area event (though it’s not listed on JASNA New York’s website, but Jen posted details at The Republic of Pemberley) is a screening of the 1995 adaptation of Persuasion with a discussion featuring Ciarán Hinds, who of course played Captain Wentworth in the film, and possibly Corin Redgrave, who played Sir Walter Elliot, discussing the film with Foster Hirsch of the Brooklyn College Film Department and Rachel Brownstein of the CUNY English Department. The event will be at Brooklyn College on Monday, February 4, 2008 at 3:30 p.m. at the Gershwin Theater, Brooklyn College Campus.

All of these events are free and open to the public.

We previously mentioned “Jane-uary” at the Kansas City Public Library, and as part of that endeavor the library will have a film series called “The Reel Jane Austen” featuring some of the big-screen adaptations, nicely balancing the small-screen versions on PBS. The series will include P&P 1940 and 2005, S&S 1995, and Emma 1996. (No Persuasion 95? Quel dommage!)

In conjunction with Rocky Mountain Public Radio, Audrey Sprenger of the Denver Central Library will present a film and lecture series, Jane Austen, Literature’s Posthumous It Girl.

Created to supplement Masterpiece Theatre’s winter telecast of The Complete Jane Austen, this short cinematic and academic course will chronicle Austen’s slow but steady rise in popularity since the late 1800s, compare her to other It Girls like aviator Amelia Earhart and actresses Jean Seberg and Brigitte Bardot, critique Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a Hollywood Teen Re-Make of Austen’s Emma and finally, explore Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club, a fictional take on why Austen’s work and persona still endures.

The Denver Central Library will have a free screening of the new adaptation of Persuasion on Sunday, January 13, 2008 at 2 p.m. to kick off the series.

The Steering Committee for the 2009 JASNA AGM in Philadelphia has issued a call for papers for breakout sessions on siblings in the novels, relating to the theme, “Jane Austen’s Brothers and Sisters in the City of Brotherly Love.”

The AGM will be on October 9-11, 2009, at the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia. The Editrix is a member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Region, which is hosting the AGM, and looks forward to welcoming JASNA members to our city.

The Alert Baja Janeite also sent us a link to an interesting-sounding play that will be staged in October and November at the Sydney Street Theatre in Brisbane, Australia, “I Want to be in a Jane Austen Novel.”

Jen isn’t looking for Mr Right. She’s looking for Mr Darcy. But the only tall, dark and brooding male in her life has four legs and a tail. So Jen takes the only possible route out - Jane Austen novels. But as the characters begin to take over her evenings, her weekends, even her work life, Jen starts to realise that maybe Mr Darcy isn’t what he’s cracked up to be. Maybe she wants someone from the real world….

Oh, those fictional men–they get us every time.

The ever-Alert Baja Janeite sent us information about a couple of upcoming tea events in various locations.

Via Austen-tatious, JASNA’s South Carolina Region is having a Jane Austen Birthday Tea on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at Gage Hall in Charleston. The event is open to the public.

Miss Melanie’s Tea Room in Johnson City, Tennessee, is having a Jane Austen Tea Party on February 9, 2008 at 3 p.m. (click on “Upcoming Events” for information) with readings from P&P and S&S. Reservations are required!

Victorene’s Tea in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, is having a Valentine Tea on February 15, 2008, featuring a reading from Emma–with all the shifting romances in that book, a great choice!

Alert Janeites Aad and Franka both let us know that the 1980 BBC P&P miniseries starring Elizabeth Garvie as Lizzy will be available in the Netherlands on January 15. Our British readers also might find this good news, as it is difficult if not impossible to find in Region 2 DVD.

We found this little bit of behind-the-scenes stuff from P&P95 rather amusing.

Colin Firth himself. When asked by a French magazine who were the women in his life, he replied: “My mother, my wife and Jane Austen.”