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Category: Jane Austen

I read somewhere in my time wasting serious research online that the way to improve traffic to a blog was to cover certain topics so I thought I’d give it a try.

First, PETS. Here’s Samuel Johnson’s cat Hodge, of whom Boswell wrote:

362px-Hodgecat_flickrI recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, ‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;’ and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’

colin-firth111COLIN FIRTH Picture of Colin Firth with wet shirt for no particular reason.

1814 v11 Ackermann's fashion plate 4 - Promenade DressNext, FASHION. PROMENADE COSTUME. From Ackermann’s January 1814: A Plain cambric robe, with long gathered sleeve and high arched collar, trimmed with net lace or muslin. A Spanish lappelled coat of fine orange Merino cloth; full epaulette ornaments on the shoulders: the whole lined throughout with white sarsnet, and trimmed with a raised border of white velvet or swansdown. A small, provincial bonnet of the same material as the coat, ornamented with a full curled ostrich feather. White spotted ermine or Chinchilli muff. Gloves grey or light blue kid. Half-boots of orange-coloured jean, or velvet. But she still looks cold.

firth2You may not ever have considered that when COLIN FIRTH plunged into that pond he might have encountered certain aquatic life forms. His attitude of discomfort may well have been not because he appeared in a state of undress but because he was anxious to get rid of certain attachments to his person

There is actually a bit of dialogue, struck from the script that goes as follows:

Darcy: Madam (bows). Would you have some salt upon your person?

Elizabeth: Salt, sir?

Darcy: A match, then?

Elizabeth: Oh, certainly. (Takes a matchbook from her reticule)

Darcy: The Meryton Go-Go Swingers’ Club? Ridiculous. Matches haven’t even been invented yet. I suppose I’ll have to wait until I get into the house.

Sucking_leech… Bringing us onto the next hot topic of HEALTH.  I thought this picture spoke for itself. I hope you appreciate that I passed over some truly disgusting pics to find one that showed the business but would not make you lose your lunch.

RichardArmitage05Talking of which, FOOD is always popular too, but I thought that instead, for a change, we’d have RICHARD ARMITAGE. Although I did find several artistic shots of his behind, I hate to tell you that it looked OK but pretty much like anyone else’s. Unless you were on very intimate terms with Mr. Armitage (and someone certainly was) you’d never have known whether it was his or his bottom double’s.

So there you have it, the Big Popular Topics and I expect our numbers will soar.

But seriously, is there anything you’d like to see us blog about here that we haven’t yet covered? Any celebrity bottoms?

I totally forgot it was Monday!

It was a lovely Christmas! I hope yours was, as well.

Northanger_Abbey_CE_Brock_Vol_II_chap_IXI’m just back from Williamsburg, visiting the in-laws. We had a gathering of our whole family, including the cutest grandson EVER. He’s now 6 mos old and the current love of my life. So please excuse me for forgetting my blog day.

It has been a holiday season with almost no Regency tie-in. I have been re-reading Northanger Abbey in preparation for Kathy Gilles Seidel’s annual Austen workshop for Washington Romance Writers on January 11.

Tomorrow I’m anticipating two parties – lunch and an evening party. For the evening party, I’m supposed to bring something. Wouldn’t it be funny if I brought a Regency dish?

What should it be??

(Happy New Year, everyone!)

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas. Having had to drive 350 miles through the snow to visit family and dreading the same for the return trip today (I didn’t order this weather!) I’m looking forward to celebrating New Year’s at home.

It’s been a long standing tradition for us to make a special dinner, trying at least one new recipe. This year the new recipes are Chicken Kiev (accompanied by potato puffs and green beans almondine) and chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert. Then we’ll settle in to watch movies. This year it’ll be the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr.

mrdarcyelizabethMy daughters have delighted me by agreeing to a Jane Austen movie marathon on New Year’s Day. So far we’ve agreed on the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride & Prejudice. We’re still discussing which other films we can fit in. I’m thinking the recent Northanger Abbey with Felicity Jones and JJ Feild (whose name is so much fun to write, breaking that “i before e” rule). Maybe Sense & Sensibility, but which one? Maybe the girls would enjoy seeing Professor Snape as a romantic hero.

We’re still thinking about food. Should we go period or would that make things too complicated? The point of this day is to relax. I’m away from my period recipe books so will have to check later today if there’s something easy I can make.

Any suggestions about films and food for our Jane Austen movie marathon? How are you all planning to celebrate the New Year?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

I’m closing out Jane Austen’s birthday week by offering copies of the Cozy Classics board book editions of Pride and Prejudice and Emma, along with my novella A Dream Defiant in your choice of electronic format. Comment by 9 PM Pacific Standard Time on Sunday (that’s midnight Eastern) for a chance to win!

Emma image

I have a humiliating confession to make:

The first time I read Jane Austen, I got about a chapter in and then quit.

I was 14 or so, and I’d taken to reading my hometown library’s extensive collection of Georgette Heyer, Clare Darcy, and Marion Chesney. They were real, adult love stories I didn’t have to hide from my mom. Which wasn’t the case with historical romance in general. Anything with the lurid “bodice ripper” covers so prevalent in the 1980’s wasn’t quite forbidden to me, but they led to lectures on appropriate entertainment, the importance of waiting till marriage to have sex, etc. I occasionally snuck such books into the house regardless, but for the most part I just found ways to read what I liked that flew under Mom’s radar–e.g. you’d never guess how much sex is in the Earth’s Children series by the covers.

But I digress. Our librarian noticed me working my way through Heyer, Darcy, and Chesney and said I really MUST try this book called Pride and Prejudice.

So I checked it out, took it home, and tried to read it. But I couldn’t quite follow what was going on somehow, and the arch wit of the writing completely went over my earnest, angsty young head. So I gave up and set it aside.

I didn’t try Austen again until just after college, when I was 23 or 24. Again I started with Pride and Prejudice–and this time it instantly clicked. I plowed through all six of her novels one after the other, and I’ve re-read them more times than I can count in the years since.

P&P illustration

I’m still baffled and not a little embarrassed by my adolescent self’s failure to Get It. It’s not like I was a poor reader–I loved Jane Eyre, and I read Romeo and Juliet for fun at 12, albeit an annotated version with footnotes clarifying all the language and references I didn’t yet have the maturity and experience to pick up on my own. Maybe I would’ve done better with an annotated Austen to explain the entail, the relative social positions of the Bennetts, Darcys, and Bingleys, and everything else that baffled me then but made perfect sense a decade later.

Or maybe I just wasn’t for anything that wry and subtle. Those Regencies I was plowing through were by far the least angsty and dramatic fiction I was reading at the time, and even Heyer isn’t quite in the same league as Austen for subtlety, IMHO.

What about you? How old were you when you got your first taste of Austen, and did you immediately connect to her stories? Do you have a favorite book by any author that didn’t work the first time you read it?