Jane Austen's World

I decided to google Jane Austen’s World to see how many items of interest popped up (besides those featured on my blog, Jane Austen’s World, and my website, also entitled Jane Austen’s World.) Here are the links listed in no particular order:

• Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World, is a recent review in the Time Online of a book by Claire Harman, in which she asserts that Jane is no longer merely a famous author, she is a brand. The review mentioned another book, Jane Austen and The French Revolution, a topic she never mentioned but of which she must have been extremely aware. Read more about this book on a recent post in Austenprose.

• The Jane Austen Society of Australia (JASA) features Emma – Understanding Jane Austen’s World, by Pamela Whalan. This is a fine article about the social system and economic realities during the Regency Period.

• Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels by Deidre Le Faye is available online as a partial Google book, though I highly recommend that you purchase this fine publication.

• The Los Angeles Times features an archived post entitled the Music World of Jane Austen, which is a review of a concert performed in 2007. The link also leads to Jane Austen Audio Guide at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, which is an independent learning course offered by Professor Emily Auerbach. The costs are quite reasonable!

• Sheet Music Plus features a songbook for solo piano entitled, of all things, Jane Austen’s World.  These pieces evoke music from recent Jane Austen film adaptations. Jane Austen’s World Book by Richard Harris is available for only $10.95 at this site. One can listen to Crystallized Beauty by Philip Sheppard, which was used to promote ITV’s Jane Austen Season, and to individual songs on Rhapsody of the Pride and Prejudice 2005 soundtrack.

• The link also led to Maggie Lane’s excellent book, Jane Austen’s World: The Life and Times of England’s Most Popular Author. Available from many booksellers, this book is a must-have for Jane fans and those who love the Regency Period.

• The March/April 2009 issue of Jane Austen Regency World Magazine is now available. Topics in this issue include: Is This the Real Mrs. Bennet?, Chawton House Bicentenery, Amazing Wilberforce, For the Love of Jane: A survey of Janeites, Death in the Press: Obituaries in the Regency World, and a new series of insights about Jane by Maggie Lane. Bimonthly Bits of Ivory, a review of Jane Austen Regency World Magazine by Carrie Bebris for JASNA News sits on the Republic of Pemberley website.

• The Romance and Respect of Jane Austen’s World is a Suite 101 article about an era that is diametrically opposed to the 21st century.

• Jane Austen’s World in History, Literature, and Film is a course that is offered at Harvard this spring. Lucky students. Students at Marlborough College in Wiltshire will be able to take a course entitled Jane Austen’s World in July, 2009.

• Shedding Light on Jane Austen’s World is a 1998 review of Claire Tomalin’s book, Jane Austen: A life. One needs a trial prescription to HighBeam to read it, but what I found interesting was this link to the Center for Distance and Independent Study from the University of Missouri, which offers English Studies online, including those that will round out your knowledge of Jane Austen and the world she lived in. Two of the courses are named Studies in English (The Rise of Gothic Literature) and Major Authors 1789 – 1890 (Jane Austen Then and Now) with a preview of the course.

• An interview I conducted with author Josie Brown  titled: Jane Austen’s World Interviewed Me About My Pride and Prejudice Musical popped up in my search. Josie and her partner, Rita Abrams, offer a free song from the musical every week. This week you can listen to two free songs: Changing World and The One I Could Have Been With You.

• The World of Jane Austen describes a two-day walking tour in the Hampshire countryside. It is a little pricey at £230 per person, but this tour would give you a sense of what walking from place to place was like during Jane’s time. I intend to share this information with the Janeites on the James, my book group. We are all dying to see Jane Austen’s world now that we’ve been talking about it for nearly four years.

• Last week the Smithsonian featured The Regency World of Jane Austen. Drat, I missed it. I shall have to keep a closer tab on their educational features, since the Institution is only a two-hour drive from my house. Did anyone from the Mid-Atlantic JASNA attend the day-long workshop? If you did, how was it?

• Jane has indeed become a brand if such headlines as Aliens to Invade Jane Austen’s World in Pride and Predator are attention grabbers. Please tell me this is a joke. What is NOT a joke is the new novelty novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. Seth uses so much of Jane’s plot and her own words that he HAD to give her double billing. I wonder if she’ll receive half the royalties as well as he invades her very special world with his tongue in cheek tome? You can purchase the book widely after April Fool’s day.  How apropos.

• Last but certainly not least, Jane Odiwe recently published a post entitled: What Was Happening in Jane Austen’s World in 1795? The last few winters that Jane experienced in her life were colder than normal, which inspired Jane Odiwe to paint one of her lovely watercolours of Jane walking in the snow with her sister Cassandra.

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