Wordcandy.net is having a giveaway–basically the same one we had last week, with five winners of a Jane Austen-related Sourcebooks title. So if you weren’t one of the winners in our drawing, check it out!

And there is still time to enter the current AustenBlog giveaway of a copy of the new paperback edition of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.

We’ve posted about this before, but since we talked about it as part of our presentation at the JASNA Super Regional event in Rochester this past weekend, we thought it was time to post it again: one of our favorite Jane Austen sites on the Internet, the Augusta Burke Notebooks at Goucher College Library’s website.

Augusta Burke was a Janeite who, beginning in the 1930s, amassed an incredible collection of Jane Austen first editions, letters, and other memorabilia, most of which she bequeathed to Goucher College, her alma mater. Part of the collection is a series of notebooks in which Mrs. Burke pasted articles and clippings that referenced Jane Austen and her work. She kept these notebooks from 1935 until her death in 1975.

The Jane Austen Collection website also contains a PDF of a booklet printed in 2000 for the 25th anniversary of the collection. The booklet includes a letter from Mrs. Burke’s husband, Henry, one of the founders of JASNA, to the director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in which he explains about the notebooks. We loved this quote:

Alberta started keeping notebooks where even the most casual Austen reference merited an entry. Approximately 2,800 items of this sort have found their way into 10 notebooks which are now a part of the Austen collection. Anything worth clipping was pasted into the notebooks…The three big items which almost filled a notebook apiece were the production of Helen Jerome’s Pride and Prejudice, the movie with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, and the musical First Impressions.

Other highlights of the notebooks include receipts for and correspondence about the items that the Burkes acquired for their collection–including a first edition of Emma, uncut and in boards (which means it’s never been read) for $135! A first edition of P&P for £15 8 shillings!

We encourage our readers to spend some time surfing around the notebooks. However, make sure you have several hours to kill–you’ll get lost in there.

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!

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!

Alert Janeite Sylvia sent us a video of Pride and Prejudice in alternate reality…

And if you prefer your Jane Austen a little more low-concept, Alert Baja Janeite sent us a video of a cartoon cat reading the first chapter of P&P. No catch, that’s exactly what it is.

Nibbles has a very relaxing voice, doesn’t he?

Alert Janeite Lisa sent us some photos from a Sotheby’s auction earlier this week, which includes some costumes from the late eighteenth century. We’re a little taken aback by the gown claimed to be “like the one worn by Elizabeth Bennet” (pull it up on your shoulders, gel!) but check out that flowered gentleman’s waistcoat! Right out of Georgette Heyer!

Alert Janeite Ellen sent us a link to one in Your Neighborhood Librarian’s continuing series, Fug the READ Poster, in which she snarks the American Library Association’s series of READ posters in the style of the ladies at Go Fug Yourself. Jane Austen herself has her share in the conversation with Miss Knightley…

JANE: Hello, Keira.

KEIRA: JANE.

JANE: How nice to see you again, dear.

KEIRA: Mmm-hmm.

JANE: Dear, your thumb is over my title.

KEIRA: [SIGH]

JASNA has published the latest edition of Persuasions On-Line, which has the theme “Global Jane Austen.” Articles include (and how timely is this, after the news today about the casting of Sense and Sensibilidad?) “A la Señorita Austen: An Overview of Spanish Adaptations” by Carmen Romero Sanchez; AustenBlog reviewer Allison Thompson on “Trinkets and Treasures: Consuming Jane Austen,” which, knowing the authoress as we do, we are sure will be both amusing and instructive; and articles on Jane Austen in Japan and Turkey, the South Indian adaptation of S&S, Jane Austen and the French Revolution–well, our head is spinning. Turn off the bally movies and go read!

Alert Janeite Laurie let us know that Book Club Girl is sponsoring a contest to win several Jane Austen paraliterature titles and a DVD of one of the film adaptations, determined by a reader poll. P&P seems to be winning at the moment.

Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us an amusing post at Blogcritics in which Jane Austen writes to Cassandra about attending a SmashBox Cosmetics show at Fashion Week.

We drove in a black horseless carriage across broad expanses of asphalt. I was surprised to find the I-5 and I-10 freeways have as much appeal as a soggy rutted road in the middle of winter. The journey lasted ninety minutes, during which time Miss Fong and I waited in line behind other carriages as at times we were proceeding at walking pace.

We arrived at a store called Trader Joe’s and, after circling, found a spot in the car park. I begged leave to stop in at the store, (which I found preferable to Tesco). We bought Cadbury and scones as other travelers have said there is little food at the oddly named Smash Box Studios, a duchy owned by the grandsons of cosmetics duke, Max Factor.

Miss Fong and I then caught a public coach over to Smash Box Studios, where there was a long queue. There were many young women in mourning – never have I seen so much black. To my shock, a feather-haired gentleman was engaged in a mild flirtation with one of the widows. It was not until Miss Fong indicated that indeed in Los Angeles, wearing black needn’t mean they’re widows. As such, we spoke to one of the ladies at length. Sadly, I’ve concluded most of the women are spinsters.

Very clever!

Alert Janeite Laurie sent along a bit of YouTube silliness…

Not that any of the men HERE would need such a thing.

And have an open thread!

Laurie Viera Rigler has resumed her series of blog posts on Jane Austen’s novels with Emma.

These “a-ha” experiences are high on the list of reasons why I love Austen. I have this theory that if you read her works enough times and really contemplate the life lessons therein, you can pretty much give up your psychotherapist. You can even reduce your library of self-help books to Austen’s six novels. They are so much fun to read, so satisfying, so full of dramatic tension and hilarious commentary, that you hardly know you’re getting a life lesson at all. Which is exactly how I like my life lessons delivered.

We agree that much of the genius of Jane Austen (and her continuing popularity) lies in the truth of her novels. John Murray wrote to Walter Scott about Emma, “It wants incident and romance, does it not?” Silly, silly man!

Alert Janeite Sarah sent us a link to a very amusing article in the New Yorker about the recent trend of memoirs that turn out to be mostly invention (and invention is what delights us in novels, after all).

And when history books are wrong they can be miserably, badly, ridiculously wrong, a point that wasn’t lost on Jane Austen, who, in 1791, when she was sixteen, wrote a brilliant parody of Oliver Goldsmith’s four-volume, march-of-the-monarchs “History of England, from the Earliest Times to the Death of George II.” (Goldsmith, the author of the novel “The Vicar of Wakefield,” wrote history to keep out of debtors’ prison.) Austen called her parody “The History of England from the Reign of Henry the 4th to the Death of Charles the 1st, by a Partial, Prejudiced & Ignorant Historian.” It consisted of thirteen perfectly dunderheaded character sketches of crowned heads of England. Of Henry V, she wrote, “During his reign, Lord Cobham was burnt alive, but I forget what for.” Of the Duke of Somerset: “He was beheaded, of which he might with reason have been proud, had he known that such was the death of Mary Queen of Scotland; but as it was impossible that he should be conscious of what had never happened, it does not appear that he felt particularly delighted with the manner of it.” Of the allegation that Lady Jane Grey, Edward VI’s cousin, read Greek: “Whether she really understood that language or whether such a study proceeded only from an excess of vanity for which I believe she was always rather remarkable, is uncertain.” Once in a great while, Austen happened to bump into a fact or two, for which she apologized: “Truth being I think very excusable in an Historian.”

In other book news, Alert Janeites Laurel Ann and Lisa sent us a couple of links to an article about Penguin’s new endeavor with ebooks, which will be “enhanced” with “a filmography, period book reviews, recipes and black-and-white illustrations.” We were concerned about formatting, but the Publishers Weekly article claims the enhanced ebooks will be compatible with all readers. It’s a pretty good idea, as there are so many nicely formatted ebooks of public domain texts available in every format that publishers will have to offer extra content to get readers to pay money for them. Jimmy Guterman of O’Reilly disagrees.

Although ebooks should have extras, those extras should take advantage of the interactive medium, not merely deliver more — and inferior — text.

Inferior? Jane Austen? Harrrumph. Or does he mean etexts are inferior to paper? Trust us, as a dedicated ebook user, once you start reading and get lost in the story, the medium in which the story is delivered becomes completely transparent. And besides, “interactive medium” indicates a connection to the Internet, which all ebook readers (meaning the electronic devices) do NOT have, and which many ebook readers (meaning people reading books) don’t want.

What’s most galling, of course, is that Penguin isn’t attempting to increase interest in ebooks as a medium by making these classics, long past copyright, available in free, un-DRM-encumbered formats. In an old-meets-new mashup, publishers could use free distribution of still-in-demand classics to generate interest in a form, ebooks, that is still only in the earliest days of its potential public acceptance. Wouldn’t you be more likely to try something new if it was free?

As we already pointed out, there are already tons of free ebooks of public domain texts available everywhere in every format. The publishers have to do something different to get people to buy them. We would like to see some scholarly notes and essays along with the more fun stuff, by the bye; there’s plenty of room for all.

In other news, two recent entries in Norm Geras’ Writer’s Choice blog series on Normblog mention Jane Austen. Meg Rosoff discusses the different layers of Pride and Prejudice:

Above and beyond the love story - people who would never consider reading the book have swooned over various film and TV versions - Pride and Prejudice is actually a book about class, about fortunes on the way up and down, inherited wealth versus new wealth, good marriages and bad, gentlemen and bounders, and the emerging English middle class at the end of the 18th century.

…and Olivia Lichtenstein writes about the continuing fascination of filmmakers with Pride and Prejudice:

In the past decade alone, Pride and Prejudice has spawned a BBC costume drama, an Oscar-winning feature film, a Bollywood version (Bride and Prejudice), the books Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, its sequel - arguably amongst the biggest of recent publishing sensations - and, of course, by extension, the two feature films they engendered. This year, a spoof Pride and Prejudice is planned, Jane Austen Handheld, a film which is to star Stephen Fry, Russell Brand and Lily Allen. I wonder whether frequent repetition diminishes the value of the original work of art, or at the least, people’s perception of it.

Naaaaaah.

And lastly, Alert Janeite Lisa pointed us to the Blogger News Network, which has a review of Pemberley Remembered, a new P&P sequel; we’ll have a review here at AustenBlog next week.

That’s it for Weekend Bookblogging, Gentle Readers, so until next week, remember: Books Are Nice!

Our friends at BrontëBlog found an individual who claims a rather different definition for “Janeite” than that usually heard around these parts.

Laura Joh Rowland’s The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë gets a good review (check ours here) from Entertainment Weekly:

I’m what’s known in literary circles as a ”Jane-ite”— someone who rereads Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre at least once a year — so I was prepared to loathe The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë, which transforms Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne into 19th-century sleuths investigating the stabbing death of a young governess. But Laura Joh Rowland (Red Chrysanthemum) not only evokes Victorian-era London with a sure hand in this detective novel, she creates a believable Charlotte whose intelligence, stubbornness, and wit recall Jane at every turn. Even more important, the mystery itself is particularly fine.

While we don’t mean to bogart the Jane, has anyone else ever heard that definition?

Thanks to Alert Janeite Amy for the link!

Alert Janeite JennaL sent us a link to a Jane Austen DVD Store at Amazon. Nothing we don’t already know about, but hey, one-stop shopping, right? And as Jenna pointed out, it’s fun to look through.

We also can’t resist taking the opportunity to link to JASNA’s Austen on Film Section, which has a list of just about all the movies available to purchase, and then some.

Alert Janeite and Occasional AustenBlogger Allison T. pointed us to a fascinating post at Susan de Guardiola’s blog, Capering & Kickery: “Real Regency Dancers Don’t Turn Single: Ten Tips for Judging Authenticity.” You think you’ve seen authentic dancing in period films? Most likely not, according to Ms. de Guardiola.

6. Real Regency Dancers Really Reel

Regency-era dancing was not limited to longways country dances. The Scotch Reel was also in the repertoire, though perhaps not always considered perfectly genteel, especially if others in the room were doing country dances. Mr. Darcy was not being complimentary in Pride and Prejudice when he asked

“Do you not feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?”

In its simplest form, the reel consisted of three or four people alternating between the interweaving hey figure and dancing in place, with the men in particular showing off their fancy footwork.

We cannot convey how completely delighted we are with the idea of Cranky McJerkpants doing a Highland fling. Do check out the whole post, it is just loaded with information on period dancing.

Speaking of plays (which we are below, if you read this from the top down), Ms. Place wrote to tell us that she is giving away a CD from “Pride and Prejudice, the Musical” on the Jane Austen Today blog. Pick your dream cast for a musical P&P and win a chance at the CD.

Jane on the Fascist Jumbo-tron!

Jane Austen: People of Earth!

People of Earth: Eeeeeeek!

J.A: People of Earth! It has come to Our attention that you have read Our Magnum Opus, Pride and Prejudice!

President of Earth: [shoved forward by everyone else] A-and we loved it, Ma’am! Especially Elizabeth! S-she was so witty, and…

J.A: Silence! You have misunderstood Our intention! You seem to think Elizabeth got her man because she was witty, clever, and good-humored! You could not be more mistaken!

Go read the rest. It’s quite hilarious.

Have your voice heard in the Janeite world by voting in the Jane Austen’s Regency World Awards for 2008. We shall not tell our Gentle Readers to vote for a Certain Publication that has been nominated for an award, but only encourage you to use your own discretion.

(Psst! Dorothy! Start giving out the chocolate.)

While we’re in a voting mood, let us draw your attention to a post on Laurie Viera Rigler’s blog in which she claims that Jane Austen is the best choice in this year’s U.S. Presidential elections. We’re down with that. We already have our Austen ‘08 button courtesy of Dee Dee’s wonderful Janeite Supply Shop and are ready to mow the grassroots for votes! People Powered Jane!

And further speaking of voting… (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.

Found via Smart Bitches Trashy Books, here’s a contest to win a Colin incubus of your very own to use as you will.

It is, of course, for “entertainment” purposes only. I’m hoping Sherry can tweak how “Colin” appears to his lucky owner, so I’ve made some very specific suggestions to her.

* Upper-class British accent
* Sexy, Georgian-style sideburns
* Very tall, with warm eyes
* Large, sensitive hands
* Gently waving, silky brown hair
* Haughty demeanor that melts when he sees you
* He will love you “just as you are.”

Yes, but will he say “dearest, loveliest Elizabeth” on command? And buy you furs and sexy lingerie? (oops, wrong Darcy)

(Background is here.)

Update: Colin the Sex Slave Incubus comes with a Genuine Sapphire Gem Stone Ring! This is getting really hard to pass up.