Category: Jane Austen

Emma Approved

Updated on June 28, 2014 by Myretta

Are you watching Emma Approved? The people who brought you the wildly popular Lizzie Bennet Diaries and the ill-conceived Welcome to Sanditon have taken on Jane Austen’s Emma and are 56 web episodes into a modernization of the story. Although I don’t feel Emma Approved has the appeal of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, it’s doing a pretty good job of moving the story into the 21st Century. There’s a good cast. Alex Knightley is pretty fanciable. Maddie Bates is hilarious. Harriet Smith is an excellent combination of shy and aspirational (and I’m waiting for Robert Martin to come back).

The sticking point for me is Emma Woodhouse. I know she’s a character of whom Jane Austen said, “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” If I recall my first reading of the book, I thought she was right. I didn’t like Emma very much. But she grew on me, through the course of the book and through each subsequent reading. I’ll admit that she’s not Jane Austen’s most likable heroine. I’m guessing that’s Lizzy Bennet (raise your hands). Apart of Lady Susan, whom we really can’t identify as a heroine, she might very well the least likable. (Although my vote here goes to Marianne Dashwood.)

But Emma Approved Emma is not really growing on me. Perhaps its because she’s too perky. Perhaps it’s because she hasn’t been brought low yet. Perhaps its the actress. I really want to like her. I like what’s being done with this adaptation. I keep watching in the hope that she’ll pull it out yet (and because I think Alex Knightley is adorable). So… what about you? Are you watching? Does it work for you? Do you have reservations? Have you seen the preceding Web series (I refuse to call them “webisodes.)

Posted in Frivolity, Jane Austen, TV and Film | 2 Replies

Jane Austen’s Plan of a Novel

Updated on May 30, 2014 by Myretta

After Jane Austen’s dealings with James Stanier Clarke, secretary to the Prince Regent, she wrote The Plan of a Novel, which I will include in its entirety right here.

SCENE to be in the Country, Heroine the Daughter of a Clergyman, one who after having lived much in the World had retired from it and settled in a Curacy, with a very small fortune of his own. — He, the most excellent Man that can be imagined, perfect in Character, Temper, and Manners — without the smallest drawback or peculiarity to prevent his being the most delightful companion to his Daughter from one year’s end to the other. — Heroine a faultless Character herself, — perfectly good, with much tenderness and sentiment, and not the least Wit — very highly accomplished, understanding modern Languages and (generally speaking) everything that the most accomplished young Women learn, but particularly excelling in Music — her favourite pursuit — and playing equally well on the PianoForte and Harp — and singing in the first stile. Her Person quite beautiful — dark eyes and plump cheeks. — Book to open with the description of Father and Daughter — who are to converse in long speeches, elegant Language — and a tone of high serious sentiment. — The Father to be induced, at his Daughter’s earnest request, to relate to her the past events of his Life. This Narrative will reach through the greatest part of the first volume — as besides all the circumstances of his attachment to her Mother and their Marriage, it will comprehend his going to sea as Chaplain to a distinguished naval character about the Court, his going afterwards to Court himself, which introduced him to a great variety of Characters and involved him in many interesting situations, concluding with his opinions on the Benefits to result from Tithes being done away, and his having buried his own Mother (Heroine’s lamented Grandmother) in consequence of the High Priest of the Parish in which she died refusing to pay her Remains the respect due to them. The Father to be of a very literary turn, an Enthusiast in Literature, nobody’s Enemy but his own (this is a quote from J. S. Clarke’s letter of Nov. 16, 1815) — at the same time most zealous in discharge of his Pastoral Duties, the model of an exemplary Parish Priest. — The heroine’s friendship to be sought after by a young woman in the same Neighbourhood, of Talents and Shrewdness, with light eyes and a fair skin, but having a considerable degree of Wit, Heroine shall shrink from the acquaintance.

From this outset, the Story will proceed, and contain a striking variety of adventures. Heroine and her Father never above a fortnight together in one place, he being driven from his Curacy by the vile arts of some totally unprincipled and heart-less young Man, desperately in love with the Heroine, and pursuing her with unrelenting passion. — No sooner settled in one Country of Europe than they are necessitated to quit it and retire to another — always making new acquaintance, and always obliged to leave them. — This will of course exhibit a wide variety of Characters — but there will be no mixture; the scene will be for ever shifting from one Set of People to another — but All the Good will be unexceptionable in every respect — and there will be no foibles or weaknesses but with the Wicked, who will be completely depraved and infamous, hardly a resemblance of humanity left in them. — Early in her career, in the progress of her first removals, Heroine must meet with the Hero — all perfection of course — and only prevented from paying his addresses to her by some excess of refinement. — Wherever she goes, somebody falls in love with her, and she receives repeated offers of Marriage — which she refers wholly to her Father, exceedingly angry that he should not be first applied to. — Often carried away by the anti-hero, but rescued either by her Father or by the Hero — often reduced to support herself and her Father by her Talents and work for her Bread; continually cheated and defrauded of her hire, worn down to a Skeleton, and now and then starved to death. — At last, hunted out of civilized Society, denied the poor Shelter of the humblest Cottage, they are compelled to retreat into Kamschatka (a peninsula in eastern Russia) where the poor Father, quite worn down, finding his end approaching, throws himself on the Ground, and after 4 or 5 hours of tender advice and parental Admonition to his miserable Child, expires in a fine burst of Literary Enthusiasm, intermingled with Invectives against holders of Tithes. — Heroine inconsolable for some time — but afterwards crawls back towards her former Country — having at least 20 narrow escapes from falling into the hands of the Anti-hero — and at last in the very nick of time, turning a corner to avoid him, runs into the arms of the Hero himself, who having just shaken off the scruples which fetter’d him before, was at the very moment setting off in pursuit of her. — The Tenderest and completest Eclaircissement takes place, and they are happily united. — Throughout the whole work, Heroine to be in the most elegant Society and living in high style. The name of the work not to be Emma, but of the same sort as S. & S. and P. & P.

I love this plan, not only because it is Jane Austen returning to the broad parody of her youth, but because it looks so darned familiar. Surely we all have read this plot in one form or another. Perhaps not all of the (repeated) twists and turns related here, but parts of it can be found wherever we read:

Mary Jane: Jane Austen has given us not only the perfect heroine but an equally perfect father and, without a doubt, a perfect hero. (All the Good will be unexceptionable in every respect — and there will be no foibles or weaknesses) Unfortunately, the heroine is also is TSTL. (Heroine a faultless Character herself, — perfectly good, with much tenderness and sentiment, and not the least Wit.)
Back story: It looks like the first third of this novel will be devoted to the father’s life as, of course, we all need to know this before we get to the actual tale.
Ruthless and irredeemable villains: As bad as the hero and heroine (not to mention her father) are good, so are the multitude of villains bad. (the Wicked, who will be completely depraved and infamous, hardly a resemblance of humanity left in them)
Lots of action: This father/daughter duo will have landed in most of the European countries and finished off in the easternmost part of Russia, all the while being hounded by the numerous villains. Hannah Howell characterizes the middle of all her synopses as “Then they fight their way across France.” I think that would apply very well to this plan.
The irresistible heroine: Not only is our heroine, all goodness and perfection, she’s so lovely men can’t stay away from her. (Wherever she goes, somebody falls in love with her, and she receives repeated offers of Marriage).
Heroine in peril: Lots of kidnapping, endangerment and, apparently starvation. (Often carried away by the anti-hero, but rescued either by her Father or by the Hero — often reduced to support herself and her Father by her Talents and work for her Bread; continually cheated and defrauded of her hire, worn down to a Skeleton, and now and then starved to death. — At last, hunted out of civilized Society, denied the poor Shelter of the humblest Cottage)
Deathbed explanation and blessing: We have to get rid of the father, otherwise our heroine will be carting him around Europe for the rest of her life. (the poor Father, quite worn down, finding his end approaching, throws himself on the Ground, and after 4 or 5 hours of tender advice and parental Admonition to his miserable Child, expires in a fine burst of Literary Enthusiasm, intermingled with Invectives against holders of Tithes.)
Felicitous and unexpected appearance of the hero in the nick of time: Of course. How are we going to get our HEA if the hero doesn’t get over himself and come looking for the heroine. (and at last in the very nick of time, turning a corner to avoid him, runs into the arms of the Hero himself, who having just shaken off the scruples which fetter’d him before, was at the very moment setting off in pursuit of her.)

How little has changed in the writing of novels, and particularly romance, that we see satirized here.

Doesn’t it make you want to go out and try it for yourself?

Posted in Jane Austen, Writing | Leave a reply

Trivialities and Austen stuff

Updated on March 20, 2014 by Janet Mullany

I went off to brainyhistory.com today to see what happened today a couple hundred of years ago, and the answer is, not much, or at least not much that interested me. A lot of obscure composers were born on this day. There are always a lot of obscure composers having birthdays.

Turning to the letters of Jane Austen–yes, good idea, let’s talk about Jane Austen–March was not a big letter writing month for her. Her letter of March 9, 1814 to Cassandra contains this sisterly gem:

If Cassandra has filled my Bed with fleas, I am sure they must bite herself.–

Cassandra got busy with the scissors on a letter of March 21 2014 to (maybe) Francis Austen but allowed this to remain:

Perhaps before the end of April, Mansfield Park by the author of S&S–P&P may be in the World.–Keep the name to yourself. I shd. not like to have it known beforehand.

Ah, those were the days. You could be all secretive about your impending release and even about your own identity. No facebook. No twitter. No wall to wall squeeing promo. Heaven.

I’ve been having a Jane Austen-ish time recently, doing what I swore I’d never do because there are too many polluting the world, experimenting with a P&P-based book. More about this darling child, maybe, later. I also went out to Minneapolis for a very short trip–Minneapolis in March, not so good–to talk to their JASNA chapter about Austen and servants. Fun, fast, furious, the weather cooperated, whew.

I also read S&S again. I’ve always thought that one of the wonderful things about Austen is that the books change for you every time, and sure enough, it was like reading a whole new book. I last read it in 2011 and this time I was very much aware of it being “about girls filling in their time waiting by the phone for unsatisfactory men who don’t respond in the right way.” (That was from a post I wrote in 2011 on the JASNA-AGM which was about S&S and hearing Andrew Davies talk about his Austen screenplays.) Because, sorry to say, other than being by Austen, it’s not a very good book. There are so many things in it that don’t work, principally Marianne, Elinor, and Edward.

But Mrs. Jennings. Oh gosh, I love Mrs. Jennings. This time around she was the heroine of the book for me. She’s fun. She’s lively. She isn’t afraid to tease Marianne about Willoughby while everyone else tiptoes around her, not daring to ask whether she’s engaged to him or not. And above all despite the meddling, grasping the wrong end of the stick (considerable), and gossip, she’s kind and loyal and sensible. She knows Marianne will get over Willoughby, and ultimately, get over herself.

Let’s hear it for Mrs. Jennings. Here’s a bit of video for you to enjoy–I love the pained expressions of everyone else while she and Sir John Middleton guffaw away idiotically.

Have you been surprised by a minor character when rereading a book? Do share!

Posted in Jane Austen, TV and Film | Tagged Sense and Sensibility | 5 Replies

A Story You Should Write

Updated on March 13, 2014 by Myretta

Carlton House

In 1815, Jane Austen was invited by James Stanier Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent (apparently a fan), to visit Carlton House. One doesn’t say no to the Prince Regent, not to a visit to Carlton House and not to an invitation to dedicate one of her books to him. Jane Austen was not an admirer of Prinny, but she dedicated Emma to him because, what else was she to do?

Dedication of Emma

Following her visit to Carlton House, Jane Austen wrote to Mr. Clarke, verifying that the Prince Regent did, indeed want her to dedicate a book to him. What followed was a correspondence between Jane Austen and James Stanier Clarke that I can only imagine she grew to regret.

In answering her letter regarding the dedication, he felt obliged to include the following paragraphs

Accept my best thanks for the pleasure your volumes have given me. In the perusal of them I felt a great inclination to write and say so. And I also, dear Madam, wished to be allowed to ask you to delineate in some future work the habits of life, and character, and enthusiasm of a clergyman, who should pass his time between the metropolis and the country, who should be something like Beattie’s Minstrel —

Silent when glad, affectionate tho’ shy,
And in his looks was most demurely sad;
And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why.

Neither Goldsmith, nor La Fontaine in his “Tableau de Famille,” have in my mind quite delineated an English clergyman, at least of the present day, fond of and entirely engaged in literature, no man’s enemy but his own. Pray, dear Madam, think of these things.

Apparently, Mr. Clarke could not resist suggesting the theme of her next book, one incidentally based on himself.

Jane Austen excused herself from the task by writing,

I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man’s conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing; or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother-tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving. A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.

Mr. Clarke was not to be deterred and, having recently been appointed chaplain and private English secretary to Prince Leopold, who was then about to be united to the Princess Charlotte, wrote to suggest, an historical romance illustrative of the august House of Cobourg would just now be very interesting,’ and might very properly be dedicated to Prince Leopold.

Jane Austen once again declined with great civility.

You are very kind in your hints as to the sort of composition which might recommend me at present, and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe-Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

We can only imagine how taxing this barrage of story ideas from a highly placed source must have been for Jane and applaud how kindly she turned them aside. I am particularly amused that she let’s him know that she could “no more write a romance than an epic poet.” I, for one, think she could do probably do whatever she put her mind to.

Some of us have experienced this offering of “ideas for stories.” Should this happen to me, while I never hope to be as clever and articulate as Jane Austen, I do hope to be as polite.

Has this happened to you? How did you respond?

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Writing | 5 Replies

Who’s in charge?

Updated on March 5, 2014 by Janet Mullany

Have you read Jo Baker’s brilliant Longbourn? It’s the book that switches upstairs/downstairs in Pride & Prejudice so we get the story from the servants’ point of view. Because the servants are always there, and reading that book for me has now changed the way I read Austen.

I’m giving a version of my talk on servants for JASNA in Minneapolis this weekend and so I’ve been sprucing up my material and wondering whether or not to include the strange, wonderful, (slightly icky) story of Hannah Cullwick (1833-1909) and her master, Arthur Munby (1828-1910). Hannah wrote a diary, published in 1984 by Virago Press, UK (now out of print) that gives an extraordinarily detailed account of the everyday life of a Victorian servant.

But it’s more than that.

Hannah wrote the diary at the instigation of her lover-employer-husband Arthur Mumby, who had a fetish for working class women and dirt, specifically women getting dirty. So a passage like this would get Arthur all hot and bothered:

Lighted the fire. Brush’d the grates. Clean’d the hall & steps & flags on my knees. Swept & dusted the rooms. Got breakfast up. Made the beds & emptied the slops. Cleaned & wash’d up…Cleaned the stairs & the pantry on my knees. Clean’d the knives & got dinner. Clean’d 3 pairs of boots. Clean’d away after dinner & began the preserving about ½ past 3 & kept on till 11, leaving off only to get the supper & have my tea…Went to bed very tired & dirty.

Boots, by the way, figure rather largely in their relationship.

Hannah took great pride in her strength and endurance, choosing always to remain at the bottom of the Victorian servant food chain, as a maid of all work. A lawyer and amateur artist, poet, and anthropologist, Munby had a huge collection of photographs and other records of working women that he bequeathed to Trinity College Cambridge.

Hannah met Munby in 1854 and he followed her around from one position to another, watching her beat carpets and so on, and she was fired from at least one household because of his interest in her–this was a period, of course, when women servants were not allowed to have gentleman followers. Working at boarding houses rather than private houses gave her greater freedom. Eventually he hired her in 1872 and they married secretly the following year. But to all intents and purposes she was still his servant, and Munby’s friends–who included Ruskin, Rosetti, and Browning–had no idea of the true relationship, one that seems to have been classic BDSM.

For freedom & true lowliness, there’s nothing like being a maid of all work (1872)

She wore a locking chain around her neck, for which Munby had the key, and a leather strap on one wrist as a sign of his ownership. Munby posed her in various disguises–as a man, a chimney sweep, in blackface, as a fashionable lady.

But she had an extraordinarily strong sense of independence outside their fantasy life. She insisted, even after marriage, on receiving wages and keeping her own name, and she left him in 1877, although he continued to visit her, but presumably on her terms. You have to wonder who did wear the trousers in this relationship.

And that’s the question that seems to have plagued households, particularly during the Victorian period, when master-servant relationships seem to have escalated to an extraordinarily virulent level: who really is in charge here?

So at the moment, yes to Longbourn, and yes to Cullwick-Munby, and let’s see if anyone picks up on the subtext. And I expect they will, because smart readers of Austen always find the subtext.

Posted in Jane Austen, Research | Tagged servants | 2 Replies