Baja Janeite sent us some Austen-related fun for a Friday!

On Savage Chickens: When Tolkien meets Jane Austen

On Cartoonstock: More Jane Austen cartoons than you will be able to stand

And we’re going to bring back a classic from the archives: Utahraptor owes me money!

Alert Janeite Carmen sent us a link to a fan-made trailer for Miss Austen Regrets (complete with Spanish subtitles! Lovely!) since neither PBS nor Auntie Beeb bothered to make one:

All kinds of book news this week! (Actually we’ve been saving it up.)

Alert Janeite Carol let us know that romance author Mary Balogh is working on an Austen-related anthology project with several other authors.

And I have just agreed to participate in another anthology, this one the brainchild of Susan Krinard, who thought it would be fun to write paranormal novellas based on various Jane Austen novels. She had already recruited Colleen Gleason and Janet Mullany by the time she asked me. I was hesitant as I have never written anything paranormal, but I always find it difficult to resist a challenge, especially when it involves nothing more arduous than using the imagination. And so I have my sights set upon making something paranormal of the basic plot idea of Persuasion. The tentative title for the anthology is Bespelling Jane, and it will contain two historical and two contemporary novellas. You may watch for it some time in the future–if we can catch the interest of a publisher, that is!

Keep your tongues in your cheeks, ladies, and we suspect it will work a lot better.

Hot on our discussion the other day about Austen first editions and memorabilia, we have the results of an auction of a collection of first editions at Bloomsbury Auctions, which went for a lot less than you might expect.

Other highlights included a group of privately owned first edition Jane Austen books. Austen’s first book, Sense and Sensibility , 1811, had a contemporary author attribution of “Miss Austen,” and it sold for $24,200. Pride and Prejudice, also in three volumes, made $33,300; Mansfield Park fetched $6,460, Emma made $11,400, and Northanger Abbey sold for just above its higher estimate at $7,250.

Again, unclear if the listing of NA included Persuasion; most likely, as that book is not otherwise mentioned in the collection.

EADT has an article about the influence of playwright Elizabeth Inchbald (author of the infamous “Lovers’ Vows”) on Jane Austen’s work.

The latest edition of the Jane Austen Podnovel is now available.

Alert Janeite Amo sent us an article about a spoof rewrite of Shakespeare in “yoof-speak.” The author of the piece takes it to the logical conclusion and rewrites a certain opening sentence.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” could become “You’re loaded, but got no bird. You some sort of bender?”

On that note, Gentle Readers, that’s it for Friday Bookblogging. Until next time, always remember: Books Are Nice!

Well, sort of. Alert Janeite Lisa sent us a link to an article on “the top 10 sporting bookworms” in which now-retired footballer Pat Nevin admits to enjoying auditory Jane.

6. Pat Nevin Almost a decade before Graeme Le Saux arrived at Stamford Bridge with all his fancy airs and graces, Nevin had already been nicknamed ‘Weirdo’ by those in the Chelsea dressing room for his unusual interest in politics, art and literature. The Scot has described Voltaire, Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Gogol as “wonderful” and in 1999 said that if he didn’t have time to read, he made up for it by “using talking books in the car. At the moment I’m listening to Pride And Prejudice”

That makes tremendous sense to us!

As the title says: WHYY (the PBS station in the Philadelphia area) is showing a Mother’s Day marathon of P&P95. From the press release with which several unrelated posts on this blog were spammed (News flash: we have an e-mail address):

WHYY TO AIR MOTHER’S DAY MARATHON OF
MASTERPIECE “The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice”
This mother’s day WHYY brings families a marathon showing of “The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice.”

How many ways can a young woman find true love amid the dinner parties, balls, carriage rides, picnics and other picturesque opportunities to meet the opposite sex in turn-of-the-19th-century England? There are six transcendently satisfying scenarios, as told in a half-dozen enchanting novels by Jane Austen — one of the most beloved writers in all of literature.

“The Complete Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice,” beginning Sunday, May 11, 2008, at 3 p.m. and running all day thru to 11 p.m. on WHYY-TV12, features the Emmy Award-winning “Pride and Prejudice” that made Colin Firth a leading man and a special half-hour program, Celebrating The Complete Jane Austen.

In “Pride and Prejudice,” Colin Firth (Bridget Jones’ Diary) is Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle (The Coast of Utopia) is Elizabeth Bennet in the definitive adaptation of the most-loved of all Austen novels. With five daughters, no sons and an entailed estate, the elder Bennets are in dire straits as they try to arrange advantageous marriages. Wedding bells ring three times, but the path to true love is tortuous indeed. Adapted by Andrew Davies. Directed by Simon Langton.

Celebrating The Complete Jane Austen is hosted by NBC correspondent and “Weekend Today” co-anchor Lisa Daniels, an avid Austen fan. “As a journalist and NBC network correspondent, I’ve been trained to maintain a neutral attitude toward my subject. When it comes to Jane Austen, that’s impossible for me to do!” confesses Daniels.

Daniels tackles the questions the most ardent Janeite would ask: Two hundred years after her death, why do Jane Austen’s novels continue to relate to modern readers? What’s in these stories for the “Sex and the City” crowd (one answer: clothes!)? And what were the challenges in bringing these novels to television?

From the Regency era to today, there are more social similarities than meet the eye. “How could Jane Austen’s 18th-century mind create characters that we read again and again now? I think it’s because her heroines are very modern. They are women who are trying to find themselves, trying to do the right things by who they are, in their way.

So it’s just P&P95, looks like…that’s not “The Complete Jane Austen” by any stretch. And wasn’t Lisa Daniels the reporter who put together a video report raving about Jane Austen’s wonderful dialogue, illustrated with movie clips that contained no dialogue that Jane Austen actually wrote? Oh, better and better!

According to Ellen Gray at the Daily News, there is a possibility that it will pre-empt the second part of Cranford here in Philly. Take it from us: much as we love Jane Austen and P&P, BIG MISTAKE. The proprietor of AUSTENBLOG is telling you this is a BIG MISTAKE. Just about every woman in America already owns P&P on DVD. Show us something new and wonderful.

If anyone wonders we are often cranky, the stupid makes our brain hurt. You would be cranky if your brain hurt, too.

A new stage production of Pride and Prejudice will be presented at the Barons Court Theatre beginning May 6 and running through May 18. Tickets are £10-12 and available online. As always, if you see it, send a report.

Thanks to the ever-Alert Baja Janeite for the news!