Place of Execution: PBS Masterpiece Contemporary

Hold on to your thinking caps as you watch this tense and suspenseful psychological mystery to be shown on PBS November 1 & 8 at 9 PM. Juliet Stevenson stars in this excellent production, which kept me guessing almost all the way to the end. In this story, based on a book by Scottish novelist [...]

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The Sale of Hyde Park Corner Tollgate

“The last time! a going! gone.” “Auctioneer. “Down! down! derry down!” “Public. A toll-gate was moved in 1721 from Piccadilly, near Berkeley Street and the present location of the Ritz Hotel, to the west end of Hyde Park in London. It was a real barrier, its gates stretching across the road, and the area was illuminated [...]

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A Jane Austen’s World Celebration

Inquiring readers, Your visits and loyalty will soon drive this blog’s bean counter over the million mark. My, oh, my! When I began blogging about Jane Austen in 2006, I only meant to provide information for my Jane Austen book group. Over three years later I have had the pleasure of meeting Jane lovers from [...]

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Emma 2009, Episode 4: What Did You Think of the Film and the Actors?

The incident at Box Hill loomed large in this episode. What did you think of the series as a whole? How did it stack up against other Emma film adaptations? Vote here. More polls sit below asking you how well the actors fit in their roles. To save you from fatigue, not all the show’s [...]

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Endgame: PBS Masterpiece Contemporary

“Trust no one, confide in no one …” This memorable line in Endgame, PBS’s latest presentation from Masterpiece Contemporary, is the essence of a plot that includes secret talks and negotiations between Afrikaners and the African National Congress (ANC) that ended apartheid. If you missed the show or want to see it again, you can watch it [...]

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Persuasion: Fashion in the Age of Jane Austen

Inquiring Reader: Emma, the author of this post, lives in Melbourne, Australia. After she interviewed me for a class assignment, I asked her if she would give us her impressions of the the fabulous fashion show at the National Gallery of Victoria. Happily, she said yes. Click here to read an article on Jane Austen [...]

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Pride and Prejudice, the Pachyderm and Feline Versions

During the 2007-2008 holidays, artist and cartoonist Paula J. Becker watched Pride and Prejudice movies nonstop, from the 1940′s version, to the 1980′s and the mammoth 1995 Colin Firth adaptation.  When she finished viewing P&P 2005, she was inspired to draw Mr. Darcy and Lizzy at a ball. What fun she must have had! You [...]

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Emma 2009: Episode Three

Emily Hill of the Evening Standard isn’t thrilled with this adaptation of Emma: The tension of the series comes not from the characters being marooned in stuffy Regency England, but from the bizarre twenty-first-century dating psychobabble. At some point, whoever created this very pretty 9 pm drama seems to have thrown the actual novel aside [...]

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Pride and Prejudice 1940 Featurettes

Turner Movie Classics offers a website with trailers and featurettes about its films. Click on this link to hear Ann Rutherford speak in two featurettes about the making of Pride and Prejudice 1940. Of his part as Mr. Darcy, Laurence Olivier said in his autobiography:  ”I was very unhappy with the picture. It was difficult [...]

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The English Pleasure Garden 1660-1860 by Sarah Jane Downing, A Review

It would be very pleasant to be near Sydney Gardens; we might go into the labyrinth every day. - Jane Austen to Cassandra Wednesday, January 21, 180 The English Pleasure Garden 1660-1860 is a small, slim volume that easily slips into my purse. I was rather skeptical that a mere 63 pages could contain very much information [...]

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Emma 2009: The Sets of Highbury and Hartfield

Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. – Emma, Jane Austen, Ch 1 Read my review at this link [...]

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Illustrated Books About Jane Austen and Her Milieu

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Barontage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one – Persuasion Gentle reader, it is hard to name my favorite books about Jane Austen and her era. [...]

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