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Category: Jane Austen

How Dickens wrote

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Are you tired of spoiled celebrities and nouveau riche wannabes behaving badly in the news? Yes, I know they’d fit right in with the Regency, but I’ve had enough. I can find better things to do online and I have just discovered some major timesucks that I hope you’ll enjoy too.

First, since we’re heading for Christmas, here’s a fabulous opportunity to take a look at Dickens’ editing process and enter a contest. The original manuscript of A Christmas Carol, owned by the Morgan Library and Museum, usually has one page at a time on display, but has entered into an agreement with the New York Times to photograph and display the entire manuscript, side by side with the final version, so you can compare the two.

City Blog is sponsoring a contest for readers to choose what they think is the most interesting edit and the winner will be invited to tea at the Morgan with blogger Alison Leigh Cowan (but you’ll have to get yourself up to NYC!). You can see the manuscript here.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in six weeks in 1843. He needed the cash, with six children and an expensive lifestyle to maintain, and his current serialized novel Martin Chuzzlewit was not selling well. The first printing of six thousand copies sold out, but Dickens made no money on it, having decided to splurge on hand-colored drawings by John Leech, a well-known illustrator.

If you’re planning a trip to the Morgan, there’s an exhibit A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Life and Legacy now through March 14, 2010 which includes manuscripts, personal letters, and related materials.

And back to Dickens–if you care to splurge on a Christmas present to yourself Sothebys is auctioning off a complete set of his Christmas books in original cloth bindings. I’ll be blogging tomorrow at History Hoydens about auctions of writers’ manuscripts and possessions, so I hope you’ll come on over and say hello.

Has anyone seen the Austen exhibit yet or visited any other museum recently? Tell us what you’ve seen! I’m planning to go to Written in Bone at the Natural History Museum in Washington DC this weekend. I visited the exhibit very briefly last summer but want to go back and linger over the bones.

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Jane Austen Everywhere

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Last week I promised you a photo of my Halloween costume. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Here it is.

It didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. I looked awful, but that was the point, right? I was dressed as “What Not To Wear.” If you watch the TV show on TLC, you’ll know that Stacie and Clinton throw away baggy cropped pants, patterned socks, thrift shop items (like the bowling shirt) and warn against being too “matchy matchy.”

The Halloween party was fun in spite of my failed costume. Helen, one of my writing friends and member of my original-and-still-meeting critique group gave the party. I have a double connection to Helen, because our husbands work together. Here’s the “Writing Group” (left to right: Julie, me, Helen, Virginia). As you can see, my costume looks just like I wore horrible clothes; the other costumes were very effective. (Helen, by the way, made that vest and hat)


The real surprise was to find Jane Austen at the party. Not “our” (Risky Regencies) Jane Austen but Helen’s friend Carol who came as Jane Austen vampire. And, let me tell you, her gown was fantastic. She’d made this beautiful pelisse out of a deep purple fabric with black flowery designs on it, almost like applique. I was in complete costume-envy! This pelisse was so elegant and looked like she’d just stepped out of a Regency novel. She also had black angel wings which were not so Regency. And the vampire teeth.

Helen, who also happens to be my modiste, has made me two Regency dresses over the years. The light blue one was from a copy of an authentic Regency era pattern. The dark blue was from a Simplicity pattern and it has (oh the shame!) a zipper. Last year I wore the dark blue one to the Halloween party so could not do so this year. And the light blue one fit me better when I was 20 lbs lighter. (You’ll recognize the other person in these photos as Amanda!)

I’m trying to think of a way to get Helen to make me a beautiful pelisse just like the Jane Austen vampire’s!

Did you have a fun Halloween? How did your costume work out? Better than mine, I hope!

Check out my website, which is not updated yet, but which still has a new contest on it.

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Austen, ice cream and summer

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Inspired (somewhat) by Carolyn’s post yesterday I’ve been over at History Hoydens today talking about eels and thought I’d talk today about summer and summer foods.

First, here’s a great link to some recipes from the online newsletter from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, including the delectable Anne Elliott’s Apricot Ice Cream.

The modern recipe you’ll find there is based on one in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Housekeeping Made Plain and Easy (1756):

Pare and stone twelve ripe apricots, and scald them, beat them fine in a mortar, add to them six ounces of double refined sugar, and a pint of scalding cream, and work it through a sieve; put it in a tin with a close cover, and set it in a tub of ice broke small, with four handfuls of salt mixed among the ice. When you see your cream grows thick round the edges of your tin, stir it well and put it in again till it is quite thick; when the cream is all froze up, take it out of the tin, and put it into the mould you intend to turn it out of; put on the lid and have another tub of salt and ice ready as before; put the mould in the middle, and lay the ice under and over it; let it stand for four hours, and never turn it out till the moment you want it, then dip the mould in cold spring water, and turn it into a plate. You may do any sort of fruit the same way.

Another delicious morsel you might have missed was Jonathan Yardley’s article in the Washington Post, Pride. Prejudice. Perfection, one in a series of rereading favorite books. His article is a lovely tribute to his mother, a lifelong admirer of Austen, who, like Mr. Bennett, with a book in her hand was “regardless of time.”

Oh, wait. Summer. A great time for reading and re-reading, for eating delicious seasonal foods (peaches, anyone?). I have finally read Naomi Novik’s latest, such a sad book, but with some phenomenal battle scenes, and writing (although not nearly enough) and not getting nearly enough ice cream.

What have you been doing?

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Sister Story

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This month at the Wet Noodle Posse we’re blogging about sisters and today I’m discussing my sisters there. Last week our Q and A day asked what “Sister” movies were favorites. “Our” Louisa Cornell mentioned Sense & Sensibility.

I watched Sense & Sensibility a couple of nights ago, the Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet version, and agree it is a wonderful sister movie. When Eleanor sobs over Marianne’s sickbed, begging her not to leave her alone, I cried, too.

Eleanor and Marianne were such true-to-life sisters, sometimes being hurtful to each other, other times fiercely supporting each other. In Marianne’s grief over Willoughby, she still tries her best to foster Edward’s attachment to Eleanor, not knowing that Lucy is the impediment.

Pride & Prejudice is another “sister” movie. Elizabeth and Jane are very close and, unlike Eleanor and Marianne, no sharp words pass between them. Lizzie, who is the opposite of Lydia, tries to convince her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, showing her concern for even the most frivolous sister.

Jane Austen was very close to her sister Cassandra. Her relationship to Cassandra was perhaps the most important in her life. It is no wonder she writes about sisters.

The wonder is, why don’t I? I’m the youngest of three sisters. My mother was one of three sisters. Her sister had three daughters. Because we moved around a lot, my sisters and I were often our only companions. My year and a half older sister was my closest relationship growing up.

But my books don’t explore sisterhood. Most of my heroines don’t have sisters (Morgana in A Reputable Rake; Rose in Innocence and Impropriety; Marlena in The Vanishing Viscountess). Or the sisters are estranged (Maddie from The Mysterious Miss M and her sister Emily in The Wagering Widow; Lydia in Scandalizing the Ton)

A big exception is the anthology, The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor. In Justine and the Noble Viscount, I get to introduce the sisters who are the “diamonds,” and Deb and Amanda show how their relationships evolve. See my Wet Noodle Posse blog on The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor

Do you think Jane Austen accurately represents sisters in her books?
What other books or movies are good “sister” stories?

Check out my website for more blogs about The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor.

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Brunel, bananas, and an apology

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First, in the interests of encouraging others to waste time online, you can now find me on Twitter, not that I have anything particularly interesting to say there.

Today is the birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, born 1806, possibly England’s greatest engineer, whose masterpieces like the Great Western Railway, the Thames Tunnel and the Clifton Suspension Bridge are still in use today. He was the inventor of the first propellor-driven ocean going iron ship, the SS Great Britain.

It is also–and I hope Megan wasn’t planning to blog about this exceptionally important date–almost the anniversary of another important date, April 10, when, in 1633, bananas first went on sale in London.

You can imagine–or at least, I can–the bemused discussions that took place regarding the fruit. I think we should throw the squishy part away, it’s probably gone bad…Too bloody expensive–quick, they’re not looking, put one in your codpiece…

The banana was first introduced to North American in the 1870s and an early, helpful publication, A Domestic Cyclopaedia of Practical Information stated: Bananas are eaten raw, either alone or cut in slices with sugar and cream, or wine and orange juice. They are also roasted, fried or boiled, and are made into fritters, preserves, and marmalades.

Banana marmalade? Jam? And it still doesn’t explain if you’re meant to consume the whole thing, the inside, or the outside, which I’d think would be the most helpful hint of all.

And now, I have decided to do an about face. I was wrong, I admit it. Jane Austen is a romance writer. I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and here are the points which made me change my mind:

Secret babies. Willoughby (Sense & Sensibility) has a secret baby.

Cowboys. There are many rural settings. Harriet Smith, in Emma, has a beau who owns at least one cow, (we know because it’s Harriet’s favorite). Therefore, Robert Martin is a cowboy. Yeehah. And Knightley himself, a powerful alpha male landowner, has to be a ranch owner. Pam Rosenthal blogged persuasively over at the History Hoydens that most of Knightley’s land has to be enclosed and is therefore grazing land.

Navy Seals. Close and almost a cigar–Persuasion is rife with manly men in uniforms, the cream of the Royal Navy, muscles rippling beneath their skin tight uniforms.

Sex. Who can forget the torrid sex on page 47 of Mansfield Park?

Alpha males. Yes… the glowering simmer of Mr. Darcy (Pride & Prejudice), the sinuous grace of Edward Ferrars (S&S), the riveting description of Mr. Collins as he masterfully handles the English Book of Common Prayer (P&P), Captain Wentworth’s mainmast, and Knightley, see above.

TSTL Heroines. Catherine Morland (Northanger Abbey, with the added bonus of being a TSTL heroine in her nightgown).

Can you think of any other examples? Let us know!

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