We have always found it difficult, perhaps even impossible, to like Edmund Bertram. We find it infuriating when he hurts poor Fanny by rationalizing Mary Crawford’s behavior to her, putting words in Fanny’s mouth to excuse Mary, encouraging Henry Crawford’s suit, talking about his love life problems with Fanny, just rubbing salt in the wound. There is a reason we call him the Lord High Mayor of Wankerville. Of course he doesn’t mean to hurt Fanny, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the reader to endure. Every lash of his emotional whip on poor Fanny’s wounded spirit is like a slap in the face; just because those lashes are inadvertent makes them no less painful.

Needless to say, we approached Edmund Bertram’s Diary with some trepidation. If anyone but Amanda Grange had written it, our courage might have failed; but we gained confidence from Ms. Grange’s thorough preparation and her sympathetic treatment of her subjects in her previous work. We waded in boldly, and were not disappointed. Amanda Grange may be the best friend Edmund Bertram ever had–except Fanny Price, of course. (more…)

We were quite delighted by Karie’s post about the subjunctive in Northanger Abbey.

“A woman, especially,if she have [sic] the misfortune of knowing anything,should conceal it as well as she can.”
Jane Austen,
Northanger Abbey

Back to Jane Austen and subjunctives from my previous post…
The picture above is from page 11 of Masterpiece’s The Complete Guide to Teaching Jane Austen, a beautiful, full-color, teaching guide aimed at educators who want to use the film adaptations of Jane Austen’s works in the classroom. I was looking through the guide and came across the above-referenced quote with the bracketed [sic].

Inserting a [sic] in a quoted text draws attention to the fact that an apparent error in spelling or grammar is part of the original and not an editorial blunder:

Karie (who has a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages, Phi Beta Kappa) goes on to prove that Jane Austen’s use of the subjunctive in that quotation is correct. Not that we ever had a doubt.

We missed this, but there’s still some time to catch it: Pride and Prejudice is being staged at Theatre Memphis through March 9. Tickets are $10-23 and available online. The Memphis Flyer has a review.

Flock Theatre in Connecticut will stage Jon Jory’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice from March 6-16. All performances will be at the Shaw Mansion in New London. The Day has an article about the production.

Lee-Davis High School will be staging the Jon Jory adaptation of Pride and Prejudice on March 6-8 and 13-15 at 7 p.m. in the Black Box Theater. Tickets are $5.

The Winnipeg Sun reports that Theatre Manitoba’s 2008-2009 season will begin with a production of Pride and Prejudice, but we are having trouble accessing the theatre’s website and have no details as to dates.

Alert Janeite Cinthia let us know that three Jane Austen adaptations (Kate Beckinsale Emma, NA07, and MP07) will be shown on Tuesday nights this month on the Hallmark Channel Latin America with Spanish subtitles for most of the countries and Portuguese subtitles for Brazil. Emma will be shown on March 4 at 22.00 with two repeats, Wednesday at 10.00 and Thursday at 23.00. MP07 will be shown on March 11 at 22.00 with repeats on Wednesday at 10.00 and Thursday at 23.00 and NA07 will be shown on March 18 at 22.00 with repeats on Wednesday at 10.00 and Friday at 00.00.

So far, only Emma is on their website: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.

Alert Janeite Cinthia found the press pack for Miss Austen Regrets on the BBC website. It will be on BBC One…soon. No date yet, but Cinthia points out that the DVD is set to ship on March 24, and it is likely that when the Week 13 schedule is announced, we will see Miss Austen Regrets on Saturday the 22nd or Sunday the 23rd; Sunday being more likely. Watch this space.

A while back, we linked to Mari’s lovely Jane Austen teapot cookies; apparently, our Gentle Readers then badgered her for politely requested a tutorial, and Mari has now obliged us. These cookies really are a work of art.

(We wonder if it’s possible to make the little silhouettes separately on the wax paper and place them on, say, an iced cupcake? Hmm.)

In case you saw the post below this one and thought the Editrix was losing it by designing a Jane Austen doily (you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…wait till we break out our tatting patterns!), check out Noreen’s crafty Janeite goodness…a Jane Austen spool knitter (buy them here) to go with her Jane Austen crochet hook! And you can purchase the pattern for her knitted “Homage to Jane Austen” doll, too!