Jane Austen: 08/01/2011

maandag 29 augustus 2011

Fashion Museum website – Welcome to the Fashion Museum

Eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-regency

Lucy Worsley/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-regency/ :

He was the ‘fop at the top’, but the Prince Regent was more than a crude caricature, says historian Dr Lucy Worsley. Well, almost …

1. They called him the Prince of Whales
2. … but he loved art
3. His marriage was the stuff of soap
4. A dandy who dressed to impress
5. The waltz and the rise of dirty dancing
6. A revolution in the arts
7. Life got faster, Britain got smaller
8. But the peasants are revolting

dinsdag 23 augustus 2011

Maximilien Vox

Jane-austen-illustrators-maximilien-vox/

Maximilien Vox (real name: Samuel William Théodore Monod^[1]) was a French writer, cartoonist, illustrator, publisher, journalist, critic art theorist and historian of the French letter and typography. He was born on 16 December 1894 in Condé-sur-Noireau and died on 18 December 1974 in Lurs where he is buried. He created the VOX-ATypI classification.

zaterdag 20 augustus 2011

Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine

Welcome to The Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine.

Each month we update this page with fascinating articles on all aspects of Jane Austen’s Life and the Regency Period.
www.jane austen online-magazine

zondag 14 augustus 2011

Behind the scenes of Lost in Austen

zaterdag 13 augustus 2011

Roses, candles and Jane's letters

woensdag 10 augustus 2011

Five myths about Jane Austen

It’s been 200 years since readers first met the serious-minded Elinor Dashwood, heroine of Jane Austen’s first published novel, “Sense and Sensibility.” Austen-mania got off to a slow start, as the four books published during her lifetime were anonymous. But it has made up for time lost. Now, Austen is a superstar. Films, sequels, prequels and updated versions of her books bring her plots (and her life) to readers and moviegoers. And then there is the work of the academics: She was heartbroken by an Irishman — no, she was gay; she was conservative — no, she was a feminist. We love her; we hate her; we can’t agree about her; we know we should read her. Myths about her abound, but there are some truths we should universally acknowledge.
.washingtonpost/five-myths-about-jane-austen

woensdag 3 augustus 2011

JANE AUSTEN IN BAGHDAD

What is this book about? It is an exchange of e-mail messages (from January 2005 to October 2008) between two very different women who, little by little, develop a firm friendship based on a strong feeling of sympathy.

May teaches English Literature at a university in Baghdad, to a class of girls and, even though nothing could be farther from the reality surrounding them, she leaves her house every day to talk to them about Jane Austen. Old times’ skirmishes vs real war. Read more: thesecretunderstandingofthehearts

Edward Austen Leigh wrote down this description of Jane's appearence in the years just after the family left Southampton.

"She was tall and slender; her face was rounded with a clear brunette complexion and bright hazel eyes.

Her curly brown hair escaped all round her forehead, but from the time of her coming to live at Chawton she always wore a cap, except when her nieces had her in London and forbade it."

Henry Austen said of his sister, " Her stature rather exceeded the middle height; her carriage anad deportment were quiet but graceful; her complexion of the finest texture, it might with truth be said that her eloquent blood spoke through her modest cheek." Henry applied these lines to Jane: " Her pure and eloquent blood spake in her cheeks and so distinctly wrought that you had almost said her body thought."

Portraits of Jane

There have been only two authentic surviving portraits of Jane Austen, both by her sister Cassandra, one of which is a back view! (A poor-quality greycale JPEG and a poor-quality color JPEG of this are available.) The other is a rather disappointing pen and wash drawing made about 1810 (a somewhat manipulated JPEG of this original sketch is available). The main picture of Jane Austen referenced at this site (JPEG) is a much more æsthetically pleasing adaptation of the same portrait, but should be viewed with caution, since it is not the original (for a more sentimentalized Victorian version of this portrait, see this image, and for an even sillier version of the portrait, in which poor Jane has a rather pained expression and is decked out in cloth-of-gold or something, see this image -- for some strange reason, it is this last picture which has been frequently used to illustrate popular media articles on Jane Austen). Here's the silliest version of this portrait ever.
For a fun modern re-creation of the Jane Austen portrait, see the "Photograph" of Jane Austen lounging at a Hollywood poolside (as seen in Entertainment Weekly). See also a deliberately contemporized (but not silly) version of the portrait by Amy Bellinger. The silhouette included at the top of these files (if you have a graphic browser) is not actually known with certainty to be Jane Austen's. Here is another silhouette said to be of Jane Austen, taken from The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen edited by Penelope Hughes-Hallett (formerly published as My Dear Cassandra: The Letters Of Jane Austen).
Silhouettes of Jane Austen's father and mother (that of her father apparently taken at a rather earlier age), a silhouette of Cassandra, and Cassandra's portrait of their niece Fanny Knight (JPEG) are also available.
In 1994, another portrait, claimed to be of Jane Austen, has been discovered among Mr. Clarke's papers, and published in a limited edition (this portrait was reportedly printed in the Daily Telegraph book section of Saturday, March 4 1995). Go to this site for more information (and a scanned image) of the portrait.
A picture of the Austen family coat of arms is also available (both the original greyscale and a rudimentary colorization). The heraldic "blazon" (description) is "Or, a chevron gules between three lions' gambs erect, erased sable armed of the second. Crest: on a mural crown or, a stag sejant argent, attired or." (Note that the ornamental winged child's head at the bottom of the heraldic shield is not actually part of the coat of arms.) The Latin motto, "QUI INVIDIT MINOR EST", can be translated as "Who(ever) envies (me) is lesser/smaller (than I)".

Trifle

Original recipe from Jane Austen's sister-in-law Martha Lloyd:
"Take three Naple biscuits. Cut them in slices. Dip them in sack. Lay them on the bottom of your dish. Then make a custard of a pint of cream and five eggs and put over them. Them make a whipt syllabub as light as possible to cover the whole. The higher it is piled, the handsomer it looks."

Cheesecakes
"Our journey yesterday went off exceedingly well; nothing occurred to alarm or delay us... At Devizes we had comfortable rooms and a good dinner, to which we sat down about five; amongst other things we had asparagus and a lobster, which made me wish for you, and some cheesecakes, on which the children made so delightful a supper as to endear the town of Devizes to them for a long time."
—Jane Austen writing to her sister Cassandra, Queen's Square, Friday (May 17) 1799

Jane Austen