We Found Steventon!

In honor of Jane Austen's 240th birthday, here is a post about the quiet corner of the county of Hampshire where she was born, and how you can find it.

I have long dreamed of visiting the place responsible for the formation of Jane Austen's genius, the home where her talents and deepest loves were nurtured and her intellect began to grow - that elusive, long-demolished home in Steventon. I must repress a sigh every time I think of Jane's beloved home being demolished by her own nephew a mere five years after she died. In 1823 William Knight became rector of Steventon and moved into a newly-built rectory, having the old one pulled down. (Are you trying not to sigh now, too?)

But the rest of the neighborhood hasn't changed! The lanes, hedgerows and meadows still look untouched, and the Steventon church where Mr. Austen preached looks nearly as it must have to Jane and her family. It still feels like you're stepping back in time when you walk down the lanes shaded by old oaks and fluttering birch trees in between peaceful meadows. I've never felt more a part of Jane Austen's world! I almost really expected to see a young Jane and Cassandra walking toward us down the lane. As a Jane Austen fan, I've never been more excited!

Okay, so how does one get there? It is no simple feat without a car. And we almost gave up after arriving in Overton on a bus from Basingstoke, because there are no taxis in Overton. (Overton is the nearest town to Steventon.) However, the #76 or the #86 buses to and from Basingstoke stop at Deane Gate Inn, and from there it is a 1 1/4 mile walk to where the rectory house used to be.

A photo from the Deane's Gate Inn bus stop on the road from Basingstoke to Overton. The side road leads to Steventon.

The town center of Steventon.
 We walked straight down that side road across from Deane's Gate Inn bus stop, then when we reached this sign post, we followed the sign pointing left, labelled "Steventon Church".

 

If you follow the sign in the town center, this is the road you walk down. The rectory sight is on the right over the hedgerow, and that little white sign marks the road to Steventon Church.

Here is the sign up close. We turned right to find a nice view of where the former Rectory stood and to get to the church.

 Off we go!

The road to the church, and many of the beautiful trees you'll find there.

Along the road to the church we found this bank on the right. We scrambled to the top, and found some excellent views of where the Rectory would have been.

 

The small grassy clump on the left is where the well is, the only original part of the Rectory that remains.

The Austens' Rectory would have faced the road to Steventon Church, with the well in the back of the house. The hedgerow that now lines this road seems to have originally been the Long Shrubbery, a part of the landscaping surrounding the house. The meadows all along the roads leading from the town and to the church belonged to the Rectory, and some of them contained small plantations, gardens and plant nurseries.

Here is the Lime Tree planted by Jane's oldest brother James in 1813 in the corner of the meadow.

We continued up the road to the church, which basically stops at a dead end with the church on the left and a house or two on the right. There is no bright sign for tourists to know they have found Jane Austen's church, so we were a bit confused as to whether we'd actually found it. But from the fact that a sign in front of the church read "St. Nicholas' Church" and had as it's emblem a lady in Regency dress writing on a table with a quill pen (and the fact that there was no other church around...) we realized we were in the right place.

The steeple is an addition from the late Victorian period, and at an earlier time the door was moved to its current position from this wall, here.

It was a windy, peaceful afternoon, so we decided to seat ourselves on a bench outside to eat our lunch before venturing in. It was indeed a pleasant spot, and we enjoyed sitting there, soaking in the fact that we had at last made it to Steventon. Experiencing the peace and pleasantness for ourselves made it very apparent why Jane Austen loved her home so much.

 In the shade on the right is our bench.

 The east end of the building. The tree to the right is a Yew tree, estimated to be nearly 900 years old.

Lunch over, it was time to peek inside! But we had a problem. We could not open the door. The round door handle/knocker would do nothing but flip up and down, no matter how hard we pushed or pulled on it! It was an intolerable thought to come all this way and then be defeated by a door handle, so my Mother went back to the door, determined to think of something while I waited on the bench. She seemed to have been positively inspired! For, as I was uttering a mental prayer that she could think of something...vóila! It was done, and I was running to the door. She had simply lifted the handle and turned it.

We entered the place where Jane herself had worshiped nearly every week for the first twenty-five years of her life. She had walked up that very lane with Cassandra, her mother and brothers to sit in these very pews to hear her father preach.

It is a simple building inside and out but pleasant, especially on this sunny July day.

 The pulpit on the left, where the Reverend George Austen, Jane's father, would have preached.

The bright paintwork on the walls and the stained glass window were added in the late Victorian period.

St Nicholas Church is still used today. It's been around for long while - it is mentioned in a document from the twelfth century - and it hasn't changed too drastically over all of those centuries.

 This is looking toward the door from the front.

I imagined the Austen family sitting in these first few pews, dressed in their Sunday bonnets and coats, singing and listening to Mr. Austen. The most memorable part of our day in Steventon was imagining Jane living her life here – looking in every direction, and knowing that she had walked in the lanes, sat in the church, enjoyed her family and her home in these places. Then, on top of that, it was almost unreal that we were actually in those places!

It is an unforgettable experience, and I hope this post will help and inspire you to seek it out for yourself!

Have you ever visited Steventon? What did you think?

Happy 240th Birthday to Jane Austen!

One of my favorite quotes to celebrate Jane Austen is from Rudyard Kipling's short story The Janeites:

Jane lies at Winchester – blessed be her shade!
Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!

The world would indeed be a poorer place without the existence of Jane Austen. She has changed the course of literature and even the world with her gifts and talents – this unknown young woman from a tiny village in the English countryside who loved her work and had faith enough to send it out into the world 200 years ago!

The winter of 1775 was frosty and gloomy, but on the 16th of December the naturalist Gilbert White, who lived in the nearby village of Selbourne, recorded, "Fog, sun, sweet day." Could there have been more perfect perfect weather for the birth of the girl who would grow into one of the most clear-sighted and affectionate people, bringing sunshine into the lives of those who knew her and those millions of people who would fall in love with her stories?

Her father, the Reverend George Austen, wrote in a letter that, "everything was soon happily over" and that she was to be "a present plaything for her sister Cassy and a future companion. She is to be Jenny."

Jane Austen wrote the most brilliant novels in the world, but she did so much more than that. As her father had predicted, she was a companion to her sister, and grew to be a wise and loving woman – which may be why her writing is still so beautifully deep and clear today.

To Jane! 

 

Jane Austen + Scrapbooking

Scrapbook lovers rejoice! Joann Fabrics at last carries a 'Dear Jane Stack' filled with designs from Jane Austen's Regency world. Our local store has them for 50% off, making them $9.99, so you may wish to check out your local Joann soon!

The Dear Jane Stack

My favorite pages are those with Hugh Thompson's illustrations and those with Jane's handwriting faintly covering drawings of old books or pink roses. There are also some more basic patterns using embossed gold shapes, outlines or stripes which are lovely.

These designs are lovely for many scrapbooking themes or for crafts and invitations, and I plan to use them in my album displaying my first trip to England!

How would you use the Jane stack?

Old-Fashioned Charm Review: Death Comes To Pemberley (2013 Miniseries)

 Here is a delightfully insightful and informative review of the recent adaptation of P.D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley by Miss Laurie of the Old-Fashioned Charm blog.

• Old-Fashioned Charm: Death Comes To Pemberley (2013 Miniseries)

If you haven't seen the miniseries, but have been thinking about it, I would highly recommend this review! There are plenty of lovely photos, and the writing is well-organized under headings such as costumes, scenery, questionable scenes and historical accuracy.


My opinion of the 2013 miniseries coincides with Miss Laurie's, so I would also recommend watching it (after reading the review, of course)!

 

The BBC One Trailer

JASNA's 'Persuasions On-Line'

I may be the last person to discover that all the previous issues of Persuasions On-Line are on JASNA's website, but they are there and I want to share my excitement!

They can be found here: The Jane Austen Society of North America - Persuasions On-line

JASNA's description:

"Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal On-Line (ISSN 1559-7520) is the electronic journal of JASNA.  It is published each December 16 and made freely accessible as part of JASNA’s outreach mission.  All prior numbers will be maintained here indefinitely."

To clarify, these online issues do not contain the pieces written for the physical editions of Persuasions. But there are many great pieces in these online issues as well! As JASNA states these are available for anyone to read for free and you do not need to be a member of JASNA.

The papers published in Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line are informative and perceptive, and for me they have made becoming a member of JASNA worth every penny! I read a piece from the latest Persuasions issue titled 'Why Edward Ferrars Doesn't Dance' by Theresa Kenney that opened up a whole new window on my reading of Sense and Sensibility and how Jane structured this novel, and it increased my appreciation of Edward himself. These papers can be somewhat scholarly and are often written by professors, but they are nevertheless very readable (and enjoyable!).

So to discover more about Jane, her novels and her world, read on and enjoy!

And here is another link to Persuasions On-Line.


{ If I have any mistakes in my information, please comment or contact me! I'm not always sure I perfectly comprehend everything I read. :) }

We're back!

A confession or at least an explanation is called for when there have not been any blog posts here for two and a half years, and I shall now attempt a short one or the other.

The webmistress of ThitherJaneAusten.com apparently cannot manage a website and be a full-time college student, and the consequence is that one must fall by the wayside. Obviously that one was managing the website. So please accept my apologies for my neglect! I am now turning over a new leaf as well as graduating, so there will be many more posts in the future.

Our website is now undergoing a thorough reconstruction, which means it will be down for a bit while we're switching webhosters. Our target date for fully reopening is currently September 1st (unless something disastrous happens)!

We'll be posting updates on its progress here on the blog as we go.

It's good to be back!

Happy 236th Birthday to Jane!

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"Jane lies in Winchester—blessed be her shade!
Praise the Lord for making her, and her for all she made!"

-- by Rudyard Kipling from The Janeites

"We are reading Clarentine, & are surprised to find how foolish it is. I remember liking it much less that at the 1st & it does not bear a 3d at all. It is full of unnatural conduct & forced difficulties, without striking merit of any kind."

Jane's letter to Cassandra, February 8 and 9, 1807

But Jane's novels were full of natural conduct and unforced difficulties, with merit of every kind, and we have enjoyed them now for 200 years.

So let us all drink a cup of tea today in her honor, and raise our teacups in a toast to "Jane!" And praise the Lord for making her!

Happy birthday Jane!

A Christmas Poem from 1795

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A Poem of Christmas Day 1795

By Robert Southey

How many hearts are happy at this hour

In England! Brightly o'er the cheerful hall

Flares the heaped hearth, and friends and kindred meet,

And the glad mother round her festive board

Beholds her children, separated long.

Amid the world's ways, assembled now,

A sight at which affection lightens up

With smiles, the eye that age has long bedimm'd.

I do remember when I was a child

How my young heart, a stranger then to care,

With transport leap'd upon this holyday,

A o'er the house, all gay with evergreens,

From friend to friend with joyful speed I ran,

Bidding a merry Christmas to them all.

The Wit of Elinor Dashwood

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Reading through Sense and Sensibility I am always caught off-guard by Elinor's hilarious comments. She is generally considered to be made up entirely of sense, and for good reason, but we often forget her sharp and perceptive humor. (Humor not unlike her creator, Jane.) 

To assist in spreading the appreciation of her wit I would like to post one particularly humorous exchange with her youngest sister Margaret:

"'Oh! Elinor,' she cried, 'I have such a secret to tell you about Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr Willoughby very soon.'

                'You have said so,' replied Elinor, 'almost every day since they first met on High-church Down; and they had not known each other a week, I believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great uncle.'

'But indeed this is quite another thing. I am sure they will be married very soon for he has got a lock of her hair.'

 'Take care, Margaret. It may be only the hair of some great uncle of his.'"

Jane Austen Book Club Week 10 | Northanger Abbey

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Northanger Abbey & Gothic Literature

"I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocket-book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time."

"Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?"

Isabella Thorpe and Catherine Morland in...

It's been quite a long time since I've posted about our meetings at the Sacramento library, and I almost gave up on finishing, but I've decided to carry on. This post is the lecture given by Dr. Jason Gieger on Gothic literature!

So what is it that makes Gothic novels horrid?

To understand this Gothic genre it greatly helps to define terms:

• Being gothic is only remotely related to the barbaric tribe known as the Goths, or to gothic architecture.
• Fiction before 1700: Romances with exotic settings, noble aristocratic heroes, fantastic action and third person narratives.
• Fiction during 1700s: Realism with local settings, mid- to lower-class heroes, everyday action and first person narratives. (Samuel Richardson and Daniel DeFoe are examples.)
• The Picturesque: Beauty with a touch of wildness
• The Sublime: Feeling (pain and torture imagined from a distance), greatness of dimension, infinity as contrasted with our smallness and fading away.

"The Sublime" largely defines Gothic literature, which was written in the latter half of the 1700s. Gothic authors use the sublime to create a certain feeling in their readers, a feeling of smallness in an infinity, along with imagining fear and torture from a distance.

You can see how Ann Radcliffe creates this feeling, gives us a sense of the sublime, in Udolpho as she paints a picturesque scene :

"To the south, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenees,
whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting awful forms, seen, and
lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren,
and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned
with forests of gloomy pine, that swept downward to their base. These
tremendous precipices were contrasted by the soft green of the pastures
and woods that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks, and herds,
and simple cottages, the eye, after having scaled the cliffs above,
delighted to repose." 

Some great illustrations of what "the sublime" looks like can be seen in some paintings done in the 1600s and at the turn of the 19th century. Dr Gieger showed us a number of them in his slides, and I must say they certainly made me feel my smallness!

Salvator Rosa: Grotto with Cascades, 1639-40

Salvator Rosa: Evening Landscape, 1640-43

Claude Lorrain: Pastoral Landscape, 1638

Casper David Friedrich: Abbey in the Oakwood, 1808-10

Do these paintings make you feel your smallness in an infinity? Or at least the smallness of the people in the paintings? The last one here by Casper Friedrich is an especially vivid example! I can see Catherine Morland having this in her head - maybe as she's reading The Mysteries of Udolpho.

The paintings also illustrate the rules of "the picturesque," defined as "beauty with a touch of wildness."

Seeing the "sublime" and the "picturesque" in the art above can shed some light on why in Northanger Abbey, after Henry explains art to Catherine, telling her of

"fore-grounds, distances, and second distances -- side-screens and perspectives -- lights and shades;" 

 she was able to understand the concepts of picturesque art and,

"when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape." 

 You see, wildness in the landscapes of the paintings above, and in any picturesque landscape, would not include orderly patterns and straight lines, and the city of Bath most certainly did include orderliness and lines. Bath was quite un-picturesque!

Milsom Street, Bath, 1806

An important influence on the sublime and picturesque movements is Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Dr. Gieger shared part of this quote from Burke's writing:

[On buildings:] "I think then, that all edifices calculated to produce an idea of the sublime, ought rather to be dark and gloomy, and this for two reasons; the first is, that darkness itself on other occasions is known by experience to have a greater effect on the passions than light. The second is, that to make an object very striking, we should make it as different as possible from the objects with which we have been immediately conversant; when therefore you enter a building, you cannot pass into a greater light than you had in the open air; to go into one some few degrees less luminous, can make only a trifling change; but to make the transition thoroughly striking, you ought to pass from the greatest light, to as much darkness as is consistent with the uses of architecture." [Emphasis is the quote Dr. Gieger shared.]

 The sublime is aimed at the passions, it affects the feelings. This use of the sublime in novels shows the shift in literature that was happening in Jane Austen's younger days. Before she was born the literature was very realistic with everyday heroes, and took place in England. But in Gothic literature - which loved to use "the sublime" - stories took place in France, Italy, and even the Orient! Books went from having titles like Clarissa and Tom Jones to having exotic titles like The Castle of Otranto, Vathek, and A Sicillian Romance. These titles create much more of a stir in our passions than a title like Pamela, don't you think?

Authors who are famous for their use of the "sublime" are:

• Ann Radcliffe (chronologically: A Sicilian Romance, The Romance of the Forest and The Italian)
• Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk)*
• Willam Beckford (Valthek - it included genies!)
• Horace Walpole (who wrote the first novel defined as "Gothic," The Castle of Otranto in 1764.)

*An interesting note: Mrs. Radcliffe wrote The Italian as response to The Monk, to correct Matthew Lewis's overdoing Ambrosio the monk as a character who was too over-run by his passions.

The plot of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is one of the most hilarious I've ever heard of. I won't give it away, but it involves a giant helmet...

"Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he advanced hastily, - but what a sight for a father’s eyes! - he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers."

 It's no surprise, then, that he lived at Strawberry Hill, a Gothic fantasy house:

From the Lewis Walpole collection

You can see more pictures and find more information on the house here: www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk.

William Beckford lived in Fonthill Abbey...

A view of the north and west fronts of Fonthill Abbey from John Rutter's Delineations of Fonthill and its Abbey (1823). [From Wikipedia]

What is quite revealing about Mr. Beckford is that he was heavily involved in the Abbey's design. So, it's not surprising that someone who could dream this up wrote Gothic novels!

The Gothic genre reflected a sort of shift in English society in more than just literature: also in the area of the situation of women. The women authors seemed to be making a point in often writing of women who were trying to escape from something. (In contrast men authors wrote of men exploring.) This implies, in Dr. Gieger's presentation, that it was probably a common thing for women to at least feel like they were confined in many ways in their society, by men and by circumstances, specifically. This wasn't an area that had been questioned in popular literature in England before (as far as I know).

"But, though it was certain, that she had herself no longer a home in France, and few, very few friends there, she determined to return, if possible, that she might be released from the power of Montoni, whose particularly oppressive conduct towards herself, and general character as to others, were justly terrible to her imagination." From The Mysteries of Udolpho

While we're studying Gothic literature it can be easy to forget that Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey as a parody of the Gothic novel. That is what I will look at in the next NA post, using the discussion we had at the library meeting.

Until then...

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her."

It's here!: George Knightley, Esquire Book Two

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The eagerly anticipated second book in this Mr. Knightley set is here at last for us to enjoy.

Unlike Emma Woodhouse - who could never keep up a steady course of reading - once I have this book in my hands, it will be difficult for me to keep a steady course in anything else! Although I have a feeling that Emma would have read this one quite as steadily as I will...

Now available for your enjoyment in our Thither shop:

 The Thither Shop

The Thither Newsletter

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George Knightley, Esquire Book Two: It's almost here!!

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Part two of Emma from Mr. Knightley's perspective will be for sale on August 25th! And Thither is going to carry it.

Take a look at the cover here: Crownhill Writers Blog

Part One

If you are an admirer of Mr. Knightley and have not read this book, you must read it. No question. I enjoyed every word of it! I have a very, very high standard for any portrayal of my favorite hero, and Barbara Cornthwaite's Mr. Knightley does not fall short of it.

The story of Emma from his point of view can have somewhat of a potential to be boring. It could just be written as Mr. Knightley walking from Donwell to Hartfield, dining here, having this conversation there; it could get very monotonous. But that is far from the case here! Ms. Cornthwaite has captured the cheerful, clear-sighted squire of Donwell, who never misses a person's absurdities (especially Emma's). His banter with Emma and his brother, John, had me laughing out loud. I gained a deeper understanding of why he loves Emma, as well; which, as readers of Emma know, can be rather hard to see. She captures his humane side, too, as he takes care of his tenants, and is concerned about Emma and tries to guide her and protect her from her own foolishness or Mr. Elton's social-climbing or Frank Churchill's trifling gallantry. 

After every well-known scene I found myself eagerly anticipating the next because what I had just read was so well-written and had completely delighted me. When I had finished it, I was more enamored of Mr. Knightley than ever.

Next JASNA Greater Sacramento Meeting

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Image courtesy of JASNA GS

Another JASNA GS meeting is around the corner:

Date: July 23

Time: 10:00 - 12:00

Location: Rancho Cordova Library meeting room (located on the right of the entryway)

This meeting will be the most fun one yet! We will be thinking of activities, for both our meetings and for our JASNA group. So, for all of you creative minds out there, now is the time to join in!

 

JASNA Greater Sacramento: Meeting

Or JASNAGS

(As we affectionately call ourselves.)

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www.jasnasac.org 

Image Courtesy of JASNA GS

Formed in March of this year this fledgling branch of the Jane Austen Society of America has some delightful plans for the coming months and years. Sacramento Jane Austen fans will have opportunities to enjoy a Birthday Tea in December, readers' theaters and visiting speakers, and hopefully picnics, book clubs, more teas and a plethora of other things! I am privileged be a part of the founding committee, which is an experienced and quite diverse group of both women and a men. Our group's regional coordinator was the principal planner for the "How Austentatious" series at the Sacramento Library that I've posted about in the past.


Apart from introducing this group, I'm announcing our next meeting: this Saturday, June 25 at the Rancho Cordova Library, 10:00 in the morning (until 12:00). At this stage in the group's forming anyone is welcome to join us!

I'd like to mention that if anyone has any ideas for events that our regional group could put together or be involved in, please comment on this post! Or tell us on Facebook or Twitter. We'd love some ideas!



View Larger Map
(Directions to the Library) 

...and Charles Dickens Knew, My Review

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At last I'm giving my review of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist -- the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England. I would highly recommend this book! It's almost like an encyclopedia of background information on 19th century English life. But, unlike a real encyclopedia, it is much less daunting. Which means the way it is written makes it easy to read. 

Some of my questions it answered were:

• How exactly do you play whist, commerce, vingt-et-un, piquette, casino, etc.?
• Where did country houses get their names?
• Why were horses such a status symbol?
• What exactly did all the servants do?
• When is Michaelmas?
• What's the difference between an apothecary and a surgeon?

The book is neatly divided into sections such as: 

• "The Basics," with subcategories "Currency," "The Calendar," "London," etc.
• "The Public World," with "The Titled," and "Esq., Gent., K.C.B., etc." and so on
• "The Country," with "The Midland, Wessex and Yorkshire" and "Shire and Shire Alike: Local Government in Britain," etc.

It includes a handy glossary as well. Very helpful when you'd like to find a specific term.

Besides Mr. Dickens and Miss Austen Mr. Pool looks at works primarily by Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy and Charlotte and Emily Brontë. He covers the upper class, lower class and working class, transportation, titles, government (local and national), vocabulary, food, social life, crime, money, marriage, fashion -- from an "abigail" to a "yew," he'll inform you on all the important points of life in the nineteenth century.

I'd recommend it as a very interesting and helpful investment for any reader of 19th century novels!

The Collector's Library Sense and Sensibility: A Review

The Collector's Library Sense and Sensibility

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To celebrate the opening of our shop and information site ThitherJaneAusten.com, which carries this edition, this is a review of my favorite edition of Sense and Sensibility, which itself is celebrating in the form of the bicentennial of it's publication!

This is not a review to critique it's author -- who would dare?! -- only it's aesthetics and extra materials. To begin, I love it's size, which is approximately six by four inches. It is ideal for tucking into my purse or packing for a trip, especially one by airplane. The only downside to it's compactness is it's small print, which may be difficult to read, if that is an issue. It is an elegant little piece, with gold-gilt page edges, a built-in ribbon bookmark and a red cloth hardback cover under it's decorative dust jacket. But the most delightful addition is the artwork by Hugh Thompson scattered throughout it's pages! There are about forty illustrations in the volume.

"Apparently in violent affliction"

And speaking of volumes, this edition is sadly not divided into it's original three volumes. Which may not matter to many readers (I didn't care at first), but it would be a nice addition when studying the book.

The afterward is written by Henry Hitchings, and contains some insightful looks at the text, although I don't agree with them all, particularly his opinion on Marianne and Colonel Brandon's happiness at the close of the novel.

The Collector's Library has printed all of Jane's novels, and I would recommend them all!

A Timeless 21st Century Royal Wedding

Adding our congratulations!
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"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church..."

This wedding was more than a display of pomp and traditions, it will stand as a tribute to the loving relationship of William and Kate, and the sweetness and honor of marriage. Not only was her dress beautiful, but it was beautiful to see them being joined together as man and wife, and to see marriage celebrated as the sacred and joyful event it is! 

And the two kisses was one of the most romantic things I've ever seen! It's not often we see such sweet romance in real life. It was romantic and proper enough to be classed with the happy endings Jane herself created!

Along with being the HRHs they are...

• Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
• Earl and Countess of Strathearn
• Baron and Baroness of Carrickfergus

Prayers and thoughts are with you Will and Kate!

Mr. Tilney on His own Perfections: The Old Spice Parody

(We're still here!)
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I have heard much of this event, which occurred during the last JASNA AGM in Portland last October, and am so excited to be able to see it myself at last! This is for all you Mr. Henry Tilney admirers, of which I am certainly one:

"Unlike some gentlemen who refuse to dance, I love to dance." Yes!!

To Celebrate Jane's Birthday: Free eBooks of her Novels!

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Everyone's mentioning it in the Jane Austen blogosphere, so we might as well, too:

Sourcebooks.com is offering free downloads of all Jane's major novels -- illustrated! You can find them here.

Enjoy!