maandag 17 oktober 2011

My dear Cassandra


My dear Cassandra,' wrote Jane Austen to her sister on Saturday, March 5, 1814. 'Do not be angry with me for beginning another letter to you. I have read [Byron's poem] the Corsair, mended my petticoat and have nothing else to do ...'
Deirdre Le Faye, the editor of this new edition of Jane Austen's letters, writes that Austen's letters to Cassandra are 'the equivalent of telephone calls between the sisters'.
But there is a better comparison. These letters are exactly like the affectionate, hastily written emails with which so many of us keep in touch with our friends and family.
After Jane's death both her sister and her favourite niece, Fanny, destroyed bundles of her letters. Their loss is lamentable, for the correspondence that survives gives a sparkling, intimate portrait of the novelist.
In 1870, her nephew, the Rev James Austen-Leigh, published a memoir of his aunt, quoting some of her letters with the patronising caveat that 'the reader must be warned not to expect too much from them ... for they treat only of the details of domestic life'.
But for modern readers, it is the domestic detail that makes the letters so fascinating - that and Jane's sharp wit. The letters are acerbic to the point of savagery about the tedium of provincial social life. 'Miss Debary, Susan and Sally made their appearance and I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me,' runs one fairly mild example.
Jane Austen's biographer, Claire Tomalin, writes 'the most striking aspect of Jane's adult letters is their defensiveness. They lack tenderness towards herself as much as towards others ... They are the letters of someone who does not open her heart'. They are also, perhaps, the letters of someone who doesn't dare open her heart, for fear of what she might find there.
In 1805, three years after she had turned down what she must have known would be her last proposal of marriage, she wrote to Cassandra of an acquaintance: 'Poor Mrs Stent! It has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs Stents ourselves - unequal to anything and unwelcome to everybody.' 
Between such moments of clearsightedness there is a great deal of playfulness and fun. Even advancing middle age has its redeeming features: 'As I must leave off being young, I find many Douceurs in being a sort of Chaperon for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.'
Jane's vivid capacity for enjoyment is marked in her correspondence, especially in her descriptions of clothes - a constant topic in the letters to Cassandra. 'I am amused by the present style of female dress - the coloured petticoats with braces over the white spencers and enormous bonnets are quite entertaining.'
This volume concludes with Cassandra Austen's grief-stricken letter to Fanny, describing Jane's final illness.
'She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure', wrote Cassandra.
And in reading these letters, a little of that golden warmth falls on us, too.
JANE-AUSTENS-LETTERS-COLLECTED-AND-EDITED-BY-DEIRDRE-LE-FAYE.

zondag 9 oktober 2011

Please listen to this, how beautiful.

Aurora,  from
 is singing. 
The song is called
 Voi Che Sapete
 and I think
 any devoted Janeite
 will recognize it 
(at least those who have seen the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice). 
The weblog of Aurora
 is a joy to follow
 and now this voice.......


woensdag 5 oktober 2011


The forgotten treasures of Jane AustenPDFPrintE-mail
Written by Rebecca Anderson   
Monday, 03 October 2011 17:43
Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon is a collection of stories never submitted for publication in Jane Austen's lifetime. They are little known except by the most hardcore Austen fanatics. 

The short story “Lady Susan” is an epistolary novel and so is made up of letters between the multiple characters.
This type of writing had gradually fallen out of fashion by the time Austen began writing but she nevertheless attempted this style several times in her early years. It is even thought that early drafts of "First Impressions" which later became Pride and Prejudicemay have been started in this way.

“Lady Susan” tells the story of an attractive widow as she attempts to scheme her way to a new husband and a suitable match for her daughter, oblivious or uninterested in her daughter’s thoughts on the matter. It is disconcerting at first when reading this story as this style is so uncommon when reading modern day fiction. The title character is perhaps one of Austen’s most interesting characters, a manipulative social climber, very unlike the typical heroines. She does not follow any of the conventions you would expect from an Austen woman, flouting custom by actively seeking, flirting with and seducing men. If Austen had chosen to rewrite this novel and expand it, Lady Susan would certainly have provided endless hours of amusement as she schemed her way through society but as it is it seems to end rather abruptly and disappointingly.

“The Watsons” is the first of the extracts which is unfinished. Austen began writing this while she lived in Bath in 1804, however she abandoned it when her father died in January 1805. The heroine of the extract is Emma Watson who has been raised by her aunt but now finds herself back with her parents. There she attracts attention from a socially shy but attractive young Lord, while her desperate husband hunting sisters pursue his arrogant and overconfident friend Tom Musgrave. This extract is extremely promising and if completed would perhaps have rivalled Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility as the best ‘rags’ to riches love story. Interestingly, thanks to Austen’s sister Cassandra we do have some idea how the novel would have finished so the reader is given a welcome sense of resolution in a summary paragraph at the end of the extract.

Unlike “The Watsons”“Sanditon” appears to be very different from the typical Austen novel. This is the novel Austen was working on when she became ill and eventually died in 1817 and it shows a remarkably mature writing style and content compared with her earlier works like “Lady Susan”. Rather than characters, the primary focus of these first few chapters is on the development and evolution of a town, seen through a group of families. Although, perhaps not for me her most engrossing work, “Sanditon” is sharp, full of wit and satire, shockingly so for a seriously ill writer, particularly at the expense of hypochondriac sisters who are convinced that their brother too must be sick. It is a real tragedy that Austen was unable to finish this novel as it could have proved her most unusual and sophisticated masterpiece.

Barbara Brown, Illustrator of the Jane Austen 1975 Commemorative Stamps

Barbara Brown was born in Surrey, and lived and works in London.  She attended Hornsey College of Arts and Crafts, and then  the Royal College of Art where she studied graphic design and book illustration.She was well-known as an illustrator of children books and also undertook designs for Halcyon Days enamels under the stewardship of Susan Benjamin. In 1970 Halcyon Days revised the art of enamelling these delightful “toys”  -mostly small boxes for comfits or snuff. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries these boxes  had been made at Bilston in the West Midlands or in Battersea. Mrs Benjamin had been an antiques dealer specialising in collecting and selling these boxes for some years,selling her wares form her delightful shop in Mayfair. She decided to revive the art,due to demand for the items, commissioning many special pieces from favoured artists. Here is one of Barbara Brown’s designs for her, which illustrated the children’s nursery rhyme, Oranges and Lemons. Read more http://austenonly.com/

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