Podcasts about jane austen society

"To work in his garden was one of his most respectable pleasures."—Pride and PrejudiceThe garden may be where Charlotte sends Mr. Collins when she tires of him, but for many of Jane Austen's heroines, it's a place of repose and reflection. Nature is an important and recurring theme in Austen's novels and a meaningful part of her own life. In this episode, author Kim Wilson takes us on a tour of the many types of Regency-era gardens and greenery that inspired Austen and her work.This episode is a slightly abridged version of the videocast available on our YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4XSBUImU0Y.For audio-only listeners, a selection of images discussed in the episode can be found in the transcript on our website: https://jasna.org/austen/podcast/ep20.Kim Wilson is a writer and speaker, a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and a past regional coordinator for JASNA's Wisconsin Region. Kim has presented at several JASNA AGMs and was a 2023/2024 JASNA Traveling Lecturer. She is the author of At Home with Jane Austen, Tea with Jane Austen, and In the Garden with Jane Austen.*********Visit our website: www.jasna.orgFollow us on Instagram and FacebookSubscribe to the podcast on our YouTube channelEmail: podcast@jasna.org

Hello friends,Enjoy this special podcast episode from a fun and meaningful conversation broadcast from our live taping at a one-day conference, “Everybody's Jane Austen.” This special symposium was hosted and produced by the Jane Austen Society of North America's Metro New York region. It was recorded live at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, in Manhattan. It was our honor here at the Austen Connection to speak with two amazing people on the front lines of Austen dialogue: JASNA director Renata Dennis, and Producer Tia A. Smith.Renata Dennis serves as the Georgia Regional Coordinator and on the board of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and she also serves on JASNA's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.So Renata is on the front lines of discussions about equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Austen conversations and scholarship. Tia A. Smith is a film producer who develops what she calls “culturally shifting projects that leave lasting imprints.” These lasting imprints that Tia Smith produces include more than 3,500 hours of television and film, with 15 movies, two documentaries, and four major awards shows to her name. Tia A. Smith also executive-produced the most recent film and television adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the February 2024 production for Hallmark Channel as part of its Loveuary month of Jane Austen. Enjoy the conversation. —---Thank you to the Everybody's Jane Austen organizers, Sarah Rose Kearns and Fran Winter and the team at JASNA's Metro New York Region. This episode was taped live at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, in Manhattan. Cool links and research:* Here's more about Hallmark's 2024 Sense and Sensibility film* The Race and the Regency Lab and its director, scholar Dr. Patricia Matthew* Historical Regency-era heiress Dido Elizabeth Belle* Belle the movie* Author Vanessa Riley writes historical fiction drawing from real lives and deep research on 18th and 19th century Black history. She also talked with us for this Austen Connection podcast episode.* Historian Gretchen Gerzina has written several books unearthing the lives of 18th and 19th century Black British figures and communities.* Professor Henry Louis Gates' series of books* UK Historian David Olusoga produced an extremely moving and all-encompassing series on Britain's Black past, Africa and Britain: A Forgotten History, available to stream on Amazon Prime* UCL's Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, and the educational initiative “Colonial Countryside: Reinterpreting English Country Houses” - insightful historic companions to our readings of Mansfield Park  Coming this spring from PBS Masterpiece - Miss Austen! This is a television adaptation of Gill Hornby's book Miss Austen, starring UK actor Keeley Hawes, who happens to be married to another actor named Matthew Macfadyen whom some of you may know of. (

Charlie and Natalie Jenner (Every Time We Say Goodbye) discuss the war years and 1950s Italian film industry and the Vatican's authority over it, changing working practices after being accused of discrimination, and including still-living celebrities in your book. A transcript is available on my site General references: I talked to Natalie about her previous book, Bloomsbury Girls, in episode 65 Day For Night Quo Vadis Umanità Nine Summertime Three Coins In The Fountain Roman Holiday A similar quote of Kurt Vonnegut's is "Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages." I talked to Liz Fenwick about the map girls in episode 100 Natalie's Instagram post on Ray Holland The Prince Of Foxes Natalie's episode on chapters 7-9 of Pride And Prejudice for the Rosenbach Library Books mentioned by name or extensively: Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend Charles Dickens: A Tale Of Two Cities Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Last Days Of Pompeii Henry James: The Portrait Of A Lady Jane Austen: Pride And Prejudice Jane Austen: Emma Joe Klein: Primary Colors Natalie Jenner: The Jane Austen Society Natalie Jenner: Bloomsbury Girls Natalie Jenner: Every Time We Say Goodbye Natalie Jenner: Austen At Sea Sophia Loren: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow My Life Zadie Smith: The Fraud Zoe Wheddon: Jane Austen's Best Friend Buy the books: UK || USA Release details: recorded 11th April 2024; published 9th September 2024 Where to find Natalie online: Website || Twitter || Instagram Where to find Charlie online: Website || Twitter || Instagram || TikTok Discussions 00:01:52 The different inspirations for the book - old films, Natalie's character Vivian from her previous book, Bloomsbury Girls, the WW2 refugees that lived at the Cinecittà movie studies and then used as extras (this turns into a longer discussion) 00:10:58 More about Cinecittà itself 00:13:08 The Vatican's past authority over the Italian film industry 00:17:59 How Natalie researches her books, and her love of Rome 00:29:30 John Lassiter, urgh! 00:34:20 The importance of Tabitha's story and how a reader's criticism changed how Natalie wrote 00:38:25 La Scolaretta and the stafetta - the young women messengers and assassins in WW2 Italy 00:44:45 Natalie's knowing, and the life of, Ray Holland, film-maker Jack Salvatori's son 00:52:28 Writing as characters celebrities who are still with us, with a focus on Sophia Loren 00:59:16 All about Natalie's forthcoming next book, Austen At Sea, which Charlie reckons will end up being her favourite of all Natalie's books 01:08:59 Natalie tells us why she likely won't write about Jane Austen herself Disclosure: If you buy books linked to my site, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

After our brief midsummer break, we're back with an episode featuring two outstanding new guests, Natalie Jenner & Sarah Kozloff.Natalie Jenner is the internationally bestselling author of THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY & BLOOMSBURY GIRLS which have been translated into more than 20 languages worldwide. A former lawyer, career coach, & independent bookstore owner who lives in Oakville, Ontario with her family & two rescue dogs, Natalie's latest work of historical fiction is the wonderfully well-researched novel EVERY TIME WE SAY GOODBYE.Sarah Kozloff is a professor emerita at Vassar College, where she taught film history for 33 years. Her publications include the BFI Classic volume on THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES & the chapter on romantic comedy in the NORTON: INTRODUCTION TO FILM GENRES. And since Sarah Kozloff is an expert on THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, she was the ideal person for Natalie Jenner to invite to join us for this episode dedicated to a legendary filmmaker we all love, William Wyler, who received more Oscar nominations than any other director (so far) yet is still vastly under-discussed by film fans today. While we give an overview of his life, career, filmography, & staggering contributions to motion picture history (as Bette Davis, Laurence Olivier, Barbra Streisand & more credit him for teaching them how to act for the camera), the two films we dive into most in this episode are his beloved works THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES & ROMAN HOLIDAY.Originally Posted on Patreon (7/24/24) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108744042Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive Shop Watch With Jen logo Merchandise in Logo Designer Kate Gabrielle's Threadless ShopDonate to the Pod via Ko-fi

"You have bewitched me body and soul, and I LOVE YOU!" Listeners prepare yourselves to swoon with this week's episode, Pride and Prejudice (2005). Don't worry, we'll also pay homage to the 90s Colin Firth version, but come on, Keira's is a feast for the eyes. Did you know there were two endings? And that your time zone determined which one you saw?! You don't have to be a member of the Jane Austen Society to appreciate Macfadyen's slow stomp across the misty moors. Cue: Buckled knees.

A lively discussion with two bestselling authors, TWE host Laura Munson and Natalie Jenner who talks about giving up on writing for 10 years, reinventing herself and what brought her back to write two bestselling historical fiction novels, The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls, and now her latest book, “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” which takes us to the movie sets of postwar Italy and captures the human spirit of her characters in the midst of love, loss, art and intrigue. ========================================== Learn More about The Women's Eye Online Magazine and Podcast: Website: https://www.thewomenseye.com/  ========================================== Subscribe to The Women's Eye YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheWomensEye ========================================== Learn More About Natalie Jenner:  Website:  https://www.nataliejenner.com/ Instagram: authornataliejenner https://www.instagram.com/authornataliejenner/ Twitter:  https://twitter.com/NatalieMJenner   Learn More About Host Laura Munson https://lauramunson.com/ ========================================== The Women's Eye Books: 1. 20 Women Changemakers: https://amzn.to/306MAce 2. 20 Women Storytellers: https://amzn.to/3pohetF ========================================== Connect with Us: Get the Latest Updates from The Women's Eye: https://www.thewomenseye.com/subscribe/ LIKE The Women's Eye on FACEBOOK:  https://www.facebook.com/TheWomensEye/ FOLLOW The Women's Eye on TWITTER:   https://twitter.com/thewomenseye/ FOLLOW MORE on INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thewomenseye/ ========================================== Disclaimer: Links in the description are typically affiliate links  that let you help support the channel at no extra cost.  ========================================== 

Join Angela, Ben, and the rest of the sleuthing family for the first Cozy Mystery Book Club livestream of 2024! Kicking off a year of coziness with Pride, Prejudice and Poison by Elizabeth Blake.

The Jane Austen Society's President Susannah Fullerton is thankful that her mother read classics aloud to her during her teenage years 

Check out this very special conversation HarperCollins Library Marketing Directer Virginia Stanley had with debut novelist Bill Gaythwaite. They discuss Bill's recently published book UNDERBURN. Praise for UNDERBURN: “A wonderfully engaging tale of both family and the underside of fame, Bill Gaythwaite's debut novel Underburn mirrors the deceptive richness of the very generational ties it so charmingly explores: the long memories, conflicts big and small, surprisingly pivotal moments, and rediscovered bonds. One rarely encounters characters drawn with such candor, warmth, and humanity: you will gladly cheer and care for everyone as they seek to make peace with the past, while risking it all for a brand-new future.” —Natalie Jenner, author of the international bestseller The Jane Austen Society "A quirky family story told with wit and wisdom, with shades of Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Strout...a fine debut." —Kirkus Reviews

Episode 114   April 26, 2023 On the Needles 2:17 ALL KNITTING LINKS GO TO RAVELRY UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.  Please visit our Instagram page @craftcookreadrepeat for non-Rav photos and info     Gridlines by Susanne Sommer   Lemonade Shop simple sock in Ugh People Vanilla is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher, Vintage stripe sock by Yarntini (may 2009) Knitted knockers, cascade ultra pima in chocolate– DONE!! Dark Academia by Sharon Hartley, Porter Wool Co fingering in Huntress, Serendipidye Coastside in Blossom  Dogwood Blanket by tincanknits, KnitPicks swish worsted in rose heather   Cortney Sewing: Linden Sweatshirt from Grainline Studio On the Easel 10:26 Pulp Fiction Show submission   Still Life with very fragrant lilies On the Table 15:03 Green beans with preserved lemon Pasta primavera with preserved lemon   White Bean, Roasted Tomato + Polenta Pie from Julia Turshen   Sesame Asparagus & Carrot Chop from Smitten Kitchen Keepers   Sweet Korean Lentils  It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken   Greek Meatballs with Oven Fries and Olive dressing On the Nightstand 26:19 We are now a Bookshop.org affiliate!  You can visit our shop to find books we've talked about or click on the links below.  The books are supplied by local independent bookstores and a percentage goes to us at no cost to you!   I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai Galatea by Madeline Miller C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton (audio) The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner (audio) To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters Trespasses by Louise Kennedy Edie Richter is Not Alone by Rebecca Handler My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer  

People Magazine called Natalie Jenner's latest novel, BLOOMSBURY GIRLS, "just delightful," and we agree! In this episode, the internationally bestselling author talked with A Mighty Blaze's own Julie Gerstenblatt about the joys and struggles of creating this charming, new world for her characters, some of whom were also included in her last bestseller, THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY. Hosted by Trisha Blanchet

Pour un coeur fidèle, huit années ne représentent rien... Ce mois-ci Victoire, Pascale, Jeanne et Marianne comparent le roman Persuasion de Jane Austen paru en 1817 à titre posthume à sa plus récente adaptation en film avec Dakota Johnson sortie sur Netflix. À 27 ans, Anne Elliot n'est toujours pas mariée. Cette jeune femme timide se morfond depuis qu'elle a repoussé la demande en mariage de Frederick Wenworth, un marin sans fortune dont elle était éprise, sur les conseils de sa famille et de son amie Lady Russell. Mais huit ans plus tard, Wenworth revient de la guerre, auréolé de titres et sa fortune désormais assurée. Mais il n'a jamais pardonné à Anne de s'être laissée persuader de ne pas l'épouser...  Le film est-il fidèle au roman dont il est tiré ? Réponse dans l'épisode ! 2 min 55 : On commence par parler du roman Persuasion écrit par Jane Austen et paru en 1817 44 min 08 : On enchaîne sur l'adaptation en film produite par Netflix et réalisée par Carrie Cracknell avec Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis et Henry Golding. 1 h 35 min 50 : On termine sur nos recommandations autour de Jane Austen et des histoires de seconde chance. Si vous avez lu ou vu Persuasion, n'hésitez pas à partager votre avis avec nous !

Structure, people. It's everything. Or it's a very simple thing. Like I said in the shownotes, for fiction, chronological 3rd or 1st person, present or past tense, following the protagonist through the story is the white-button-down and jeans of structure. Always appropriate, almost invisible. For non-fiction, it's harder—there is no fall-back basic, but a good trick is to pretend your book is either a chronological story or a how-to and start from there, then see what feels right and what feels wrong about it. Overlaying a very practical structure on a philosophical topic can make it more accessible to the reader—and easier to write.I threw in a bunch of book references to this one. Our stand-by, The Art of the Book Proposal from Eric Maisel. The Christie Affair, The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls, Adult Assembly Required, The Arc, The Mutual Friend.Hope the blueprint is going well for you! How to listen: if you've listened to any previous Bonus episodes or Minisodes, this one should already BE in your podcast feed. If not, click on the link to listen and you'll find yourself at amwriting.substack.com. You COULD listen there, but we're guessing you'd rather get all subscriber episodes, from now on, in your usual podcast-listening app. It's easy, and you only have to do it once to get every #Minisode from now on right where you want it.So click “listen in podcast app.” You'll get an email with a link in it. Click the link—ON YOUR PHONE—and you will get a menu of the most popular podcast apps. Chose yours and click, and you'll have a new “private” podcast feed for supporters only.If your favorite listening app isn't included, fear not. There's an RSS link in the email. Your podcast app has a way to add that—it's probably a “+” sign somewhere on your main page. Add the link once, and any time we do a #SupporterMini, you'll get it without having to do a thing. (Trust us, it's easy. This is WHY we chose Substack.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Charlie and Natalie Jenner (Bloomsbury Girls) discuss Jane Austen in all Natalie's interesting concepts, tales of related auctions she has been involved in, and the work to 'preserve and pull together' a record of the books that inspired her. They also discuss Natalie's inclusion of Daphne du Maurier in her novel, Persephone Books, and genre in its context as a label. Please note that there are (very slight) spoilers throughout the episode. Some podcast apps do not show description links properly unless the listener subscribes to the podcast. If you can't click the links below and don't wish to subscribe, copy and paste the following address into your browser to access the episode's page on my blog: http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/podcast/episode-65-natalie-jenner Persephone Books 84 Charing Cross Road (film) Sunwise Turn Madge Jemisin's memoir Lamb's Conduit Street The Second Shelf Bookshop, London Daphne du Maurier's Myself When Young: The Makings Of A Writer Emily Midorikawa: Daphne du Maurier and Oriel Malet Daphne du Maurier's The Doll Sonia Orwell Jane Wells Webb The Mummy! The Godmersham Lost Sheep Society's blog Reading With Austen McGill's Burney Centre Sample and Audible edition of Richard Armitage's narration of The Jane Austen Society Sample and Audible edition Juliet Stevenson's narration of Bloomsbury Girls Natalie's favourite Persephone book is Julia Strachey's Cheerful Weather For The Wedding Question Index 01:14 You owned a book shop. Tell us about it 05:40 You are obviously very interested in classical writers, Jane Austen in particular. Can you tell us where your inspiration stems from? 14:37 [Reading] 19:55 How much are the Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls related - can Bloomsbury Girls be a standalone? 21:09 Can you talk about three of your inspirations for Bloomsbury Girls - the book 84 Charing Cross Road, and the bookshops Sunwise Turn and Persephone Books? 26:17 Why as it important to you to include Daphne du Maurier? 32:51 Why Jane Wells Webb - why The Mummy, why include this author in particular? 37:20 You have auctions of books in your novel. Are auctions something that interests you and were there real life ones that inspired you? 41:40 You've mentioned genre a couple of times. Can you expand on your thoughts here? 45:51 What's next? 47:59 (Natalie talks about the British audiobook editions of her novels) Purchase Links The Jane Austen Society: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters Bloomsbury Girls: Amazon UK Amazon US Amazon Canada Waterstones Hive Barnes & Noble IndieBound Indigo Chapters I am an IndieBound affiliate and earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. Photograph used with the permission of the author.

In This Episode, We Talk About: The silly random thoughts kids say. How to be a mom and pancreas for your kid diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Monitoring, managing, and staying on top of a disease. Listening to your mom instincts when you know something isn't right.   Resources + Links: Connect with Bobbi on Instagram | @b_treadwell   The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley   Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough   City of Likes by Jenny Mollen   The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner   Upset the World by Tim Ross   Check out these amazing podcasts | Upbringing and The Flexible Neurotic   Check out Lauren's Instagram | @lauren_bongiorno   Connect with Moms in Real Life on Instagram | @momsinreallifepodcast   Follow Stephanie and Katie on Instagram! Stephanie Nguyen | @modernmilk Katie Kunz | @kunzandcrew and @newbornlifecoach   WANT TO HAVE YOUR MOM STORY FEATURED ON THE PODCAST? Sent us an email at info@momsinreallife.com   Find out more on our websites https://www.modernmilk.com/ www.katiekunz.com Show Notes: How do you listen to your mommy instincts and rise above a scary diagnosis? This week, we are joined by Modern Milk OG and infant & child CPR instructor, Bobbi Treadwell! Together, we'll talk about the random unfiltered things kids say that make us laugh, our love for ice makers & Jurassic Park classic, and a crazy misadventure all started by a single dove. Then, Bobbi shares her story of the time her daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and how they've learned to work through it. How does she monitor & manage the disease? What has been empowering about it? How has her daughter processed it so far? This episode will cover the highs and lows of overcoming Type 1 from the perspective of a mom who kicked into survival mode and became a second pancreas for her little one. Join us as we listen and learn from an inspiring mom in real life! 0:00:55 What is new with us? 0:03:55 Meet a real Modern Milk OG and infant & child CPR instructor, Bobbi Treadwell! 0:05:55 What has your family been eating this week? 0:06:35 What is your go-to meal to make for Logan? 0:07:35 Do your kids like eating out? 0:09:35 How do you eat around a full kitchen remodel? 0:11:10 What are you loving about spending summer in Flagstaff? 0:13:45 Picking blackberries in Oklahoma. 0:16:10 Why does Stephanie love her icemaker? 0:17:20 How picky are you and your family with water? 0:20:00 What have you been reading and/or watching this week? 0:22:05 What parenting podcast does Katie recommend? 0:23:35 What humorous self-development podcast has Stephanie been listening to? 0:25:00 How was the new Jurassic Park movie and why is the original still the best? 0:26:35 How did your six-year-old manage to keep herself awake on the freeway? 0:30:00 What random thoughts did Hayley share during the car ride? 0:32:50 Stephanie's wacky bird adventure.  0:38:10 When and how was Logan diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes? 0:43:30 What made you realize you needed to take her in, and how did it go? 0:45:40 What happened after the diagnosis? 0:47:20 How long was she in the hospital for? 0:49:15 How has she processed the diagnosis so far? 0:50:40 How long did it take for her to put weight back on and what do you do to monitor her condition? 0:54:20 What are the challenges and struggles? 0:56:15 What does Logan's support system look like? 0:58:20 What is your medical background? 1:00:05 Being the pancreas for your kid. 1:01:30 Who is a good mentor for Type 1 diabetes?

This is an apology for the ongoing non-appearance of Episode 8. It is fully recorded (as is Episode 9), but I haven't finished the editing, as I have completely overcommitted myself until mid-July. I am doing a presentation for the Jane Austen Society of Australia conference, and also for Virtual JaneCon, plus I am on the judging panel for the Educational Publishing Awards Australia. So, to quote Prince Humperdink in The Princess Bride - I'm swamped!But I'm really keen to finish editing the episode, as it's the one in which we talk about Henry Crawford. So I will get to it - I promise!

In This Episode, We Talk About: How to run a household as a busy mother and business owner. Pushing past mom guilt. If achieving work life balance is actually possible. How and why a scorpion completely derailed Karie's tropical vacay.   Resources + Links: Connect with Karie on Instagram | @connectthedotspromo   A Simplified Life by Emily Ley   The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner   Parent Like it Matters by Janice Johnson Dias   Connect with Moms in Real Life on Instagram | @momsinreallifepodcast   Follow Stephanie and Katie on Instagram! Stephanie Nguyen | @modernmilk Katie Kunz | @kunzandcrew and @newbornlifecoach   WANT TO HAVE YOUR MOM STORY FEATURED ON THE PODCAST? Sent us an email at info@momsinreallife.com   Find out more on our websites https://www.modernmilk.com/ www.katiekunz.com Show Notes: Want to know how a small scorpion managed to cause big problems during a trip to Hawaii? Today, we are joined by Karie Cowden, the owner of Connect the Dots Promotions! As a business owner and mother of two, she'll be sharing her advice on how to manage a household when you're a mom who does it all. We'll discuss grappling with mom guilt, finding work life balance, dealing with scorpions, and much more. To all our mom friends out there, we invite you to drop in for a new crazy mom story that really stung (in more ways than one)! 0:01:10 Meet our amazing mom of the week, Karie Cowden, the owner of Connect the Dots Promotions! 0:03:00 What is your business all about? 0:05:15 What is your secret to marriage? 0:05:55 What do you feed your family? 0:07:20 Ordering from takeout apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Instacart. 0:11:30 What is Katie's family eating at home? 0:13:25 Resources for a mom in chaos. 0:14:55 How is your family sleeping lately? 0:16:35 Do you have bedtime or curfew for your kids? 0:18:35 What do you do when your kids are scared to go to sleep? 0:20:10 What is the beauty of being able to send your kids off? 0:21:55 What do you have mom guilt over? 0:24:30 How do you get a kid with a lot of energy to fall asleep? 0:26:15 What have you been loving recently? 0:29:15 Stephanie's quail story. 0:33:00 How do you keep your kids playing over the summer? 0:36:15 What are our neighborhoods like? 0:39:10 What have you been reading and watching this week? 0:43:15 How is the newest volume of Stranger Things? 0:44:50 What has Katie been reading recently? 0:46:15 What is something your kids do that annoys you? 0:50:20 What do you do when your kids always need mom? 0:52:00 How do you bypass your kids so you can FaceTime in peace? 0:53:45 What is the key to achieving work life balance? 0:57:25 What is it like visiting assisted living with your family? 1:01:35 What is your crazy mom story? 1:08:50 Being able to rely on your spouse.  1:11:05 What has been our experience with scorpions?

In this episode, we read Chapters 26 to 30 of Mansfield Park. We talk about Fanny's preparations for the ball, the amber cross, her emotion reactions after Edmund gives her the chain, her post-ball meeting with Mary, and the scene where Henry tells Mary he plans to marry Fanny.We discuss Lady Bertram, then Ellen talks about what is meant by being ‘out', and Harriet follows this with some information about balls and dancing. Harriet also talks about how adaptations and modernisations treat these chapters. Things we mention: General and character discussion:John Wiltshire [Editor], The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Jane Austen: Mansfield Park (2005)Helena Kelly, Jane Austen, the Secret Radical (2016) [sees the amber cross and chain as a metaphor for slavery and Christianity]Jillian Heydt-Stevenson, Jane Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions: Subversive Laughter, Embodied History (2005) [sees the amber cross, chain and necklace as a sexual metaphor]The topaz crosses that belonged to Jane and Cassandra Austen:Credit: Jane Austen's House Museum, photography by Peter SmithAdrian Dickens, Jewels of the Regency (2022 – YouTube video of presentation to the Jane Austen Society of Australia)Sheila Kaye-Smith and G.B. Stern, Talking of Jane Austen (1943) The Daily Knightley (2021) [podcast]John Sutherland, Can Jane Eyre be happy?(2000)William Hogarth, The Painter and his Pug (1745)The Regency novels of Georgette Heyer (1902-1974)Historical discussion:Tea with Cassiane YouTube videos about Regency dancing5 Things That Jane Austen Films Always Get Wrong About the Dancing (2020)A Regency Dancer Analyzes Jane Austen's Ballroom Scenes (2021)A Regency Dancer Reads Jane Austen Part 2 (Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and The Watsons) (2022)Popular culture discussion:Adaptations:BBC, Mansfield Park (1983) – starring Sylvestra Le Touzel and Nicholas Farrell (6 episodes)Miramax, Mansfield Park (1999) – starring Frances O'Connor and Jonny Lee MillerITV, Mansfield Park (2007) – starring Billie Piper and Blake RitsonModernisations:YouTube, Foot in the Door Theatre, From Mansfield With Love (2014-2015) For a list of music used, see this episode on our website.  

I left this episode so inspired and hopeful. Natalie Jenner not only writes escapist reads but she is so uplifting after things that have happened in her life. She never quit. Her first novel, The Jane Austen Society was a Goodreads finalist and her latest, Bloomsbury Girl, OUT NOW, is sure to follow as a best-seller. I loved this chat and I think you will too! Follow Natalie for her latest novels and news: https://www.nataliejenner.com

This week's mega-episode is all about one of our very favorite authors. Trevor and Paul discuss Austen's six major novels, chat about what makes her work so special and even take a crack at ranking their favorites!  We also share listener feedback about favorite title and chat about various adaptions, both good and bad.  And a special treat this week: an interview with Jane Austen scholar (and fan) Joan Klingel Ray, Ph.d, former president of the Jane Austen Society of North America and author of several books on Jane Austen. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

In this episode, Gabi and Megan discuss the books they're thankful for and why. They also chat about Thanksgiving traditions and their favorite dishes!I'm thankful for books I can get lost in:Megan's Picks: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Happily Ever Afters by Elise BryantGabi's Picks: Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly JacksonI'm thankful for books that made me fall in love with reading:Megan's Picks: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamilloGabi's Picks: Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary, Nancy Drew Series by Carolyn KeeneI'm thankful for books that teach me/pull me into someone else's experience:Megan's Picks: Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Infinite Country by Patricia EngelGabi's Picks: Infinite Country by Patricia Engel, Detransition, Baby by Torrey PetersI'm thankful for short stories/short novels:Megan's Picks: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans, Matrix by Lauren GroffGabi's Picks: Orange World by Karen Russell, Fraternity by Benjamin NugentI'm thankful for books with a strong setting:Megan's Picks: The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, The Jane Austen Society by Natalie JennerGabi's Picks: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, Cooking for Picasso by Camille Aubray

Hello friends,Today we bring a new podcast episode and conversation that I think you will love. It's with Damianne Scott, an educator, writer and speaker in the Jane Austen community - she teaches literature at the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College and Cincinnati State University. And she's the host of the Facebook page, Black Girl Loves Jane. She's also working on a very intriguing project right now - rewriting the story of Jane Austen's Persuasion into the setting of an African-American megachurch. In her own book project, Persuaded, due out from Meryton Press next year, Ms. Scott makes Anne Elliot a PK - or preacher's kid. And as Dr. Cornell West has pointed out, in a legendary talk at the JASNA Annual General Meeting of 2012, Jane Austen was also a PK, or preacher's kid. This is a world that Damianne Scott knows well, and it's a world I also am not unfamiliar with - I also, as it happens, am a PK - so I really enjoyed this conversation. Ms. Scott says that as a student of 19th century literature, which she has loved since middle school, she often has found herself the only Black student in the room. So she appreciates the nontraditional casting of shows like Bridgerton, but has also watched and addressed the backlash that has arisen from that production and from the PBS series Sanditon.An article Damianne Scott contributed to JASNA.org, or the Jane Austen Society of North America online, addressed the pineapple controversy surrounding the Sanditon series. A chorus of viewers felt that using the pineapple emoji as a fan symbol for the show was insensitive to the cultural weight and the connotations of colonialism and of the slave trade carried by that symbol. Damianne Scott weighed in, and she weighs in here, in this conversation, saying she hopes people and the community of Austen lovers and fans will continue to grow and understand that - as she says - Austen doesn't want to be put up on a pedestal: Jane Austen, she says, wants to be among the people. I love that.Press play here (above) to stream this from any device, or find the Austen Connection podcast on Spotify or Apple. Enjoy!And for you word lovers, here's an excerpt from our conversation:Plain JaneLet me talk a little bit first about Persuasion. So why do you love the story of Persuasion?Damianne ScottWell, I love the story of Persuasion … It was my first Jane Austen novel that I read in college. And the first one I did a paper on. So that was one reason why I loved it. Second, I do enjoy the movie, the one that [from 1995], with Ciarán Hinds, the BBC, is one of my favorite adaptations. And then I like it now. Because Anne Elliot is very adaptable for any woman today, who is over a certain age who is not married, who has no children, and who has come to bear the responsibility  - either willingly or unwillingly - to be the caregiver of their parents, and their finances, the dependable child in the household. And I find that very relatable to me, because I am not married, have no children, and have become the pseudo-caregiver [and] financial-responsibility person, in my family. So it speaks to me. The other thing is, I think that Persuasion in itself, again, is very adaptable to what I'm doing now with my rewriting of it and modernizing it. Anne - she's always criticized by her father for the way she looks. There's that famous scene where, you know, she's talking, and he's like, “Oh, your skin looks better today, you changed cold creams”! And he talks about the naval officers, and he talks about Admiral Croft and how, you know, he looks pretty well for somebody who was in the Navy!Plain Jane  And it's very funny, like, it's a source of humor, but also it's just, you feel Anne's pain. I mean, any woman in the world feels Anne's pain with all of this. We're also laughing at it.Damianne Scott Because he's totally ridiculous! Like, really. So it is very funny. And so my adaptation- it's a little focused on physicality. So my Anne does not necessarily have a skin issue, but she has a weight issue. And then, because she's in this community, a small community - well, not a small community, but anyone who knows about African-American megachurches, which is where my book takes place ... people can still pretty much know your business, because it's a small community.Plain Jane So let me - I have to ask you more about this: I want you to talk about this retelling, but I will just say, I grew up going to Black churches. And I grew up going to megachurches. But never a Black megachurch.Damianne Scott Well, there actually are not that many.Plain Jane Well, I grew up in a sort of evangelical background. So I didn't love the megachurches … So can we just pause for a second and you tell me: Why that setting? Why the Black megachurch?Damianne Scott Well, because I'm familiar with it. It is, you know, my world. I go to church now. And so, though my church was not a megachurch, in the terms of how we think of it, when I was growing up, it had about 500 members. And at that time, so those were like mid-'80s, that was a big number of people. And then my pastor, he was the head bishop of the state of Ohio, for our denomination. So I'm very used to that church, where everybody knows your business. And you know what it means to be a preacher's kid, so I wasn't a preacher's kid. But I know what it means to be a preacher's kid and deacon's kid, someone-of-authority's kid, everybody talking about what's going on and everybody else. It is a village mentality. Plain JaneYeah, that's so true. And it is like a village. You were starting to say everybody knows each other's business. It's like the “four and twenty country families.” But I love what you're sayingd: there's a hierarchy, it can be a very wonderful, close community. It can also be a fairly oppressive community. And nobody shows this better than Jane Austen, right? I just have to say, Dami, so you were going to megachurches in the ‘80s; I remember going to the megachurches in the ‘80s. And this was in Atlanta. I would not have stepped foot in there without, like, [full] makeup, hair …!Damianne ScottOh yeah. Plain JaneSo, whole thing. And I kind of resented that, you know? So what was your experience? What  has been your experience in the church?Damianne ScottSo … I think I am not critiquing the church as a whole, pastors as a whole, as [much as] this particular pastor. But yeah … I came from a denomination for a long time [where] you didn't wear makeup, so that wasn't a problem. But you know, we were dressed, you didn't go to church and pants … you put together your hair, no jeans, there was no such thing as wearing jeans to church, on a Sunday morning. … if you're a woman, you wear a skirt. … I didn't resent it, because that's all I knew. I didn't feel oppressed by it. Especially when I was young. My friends were there, my family was there. That's where I participated in things, where I cultivated my speaking abilities or my writing abilities. So it didn't find it oppressive, to me, growing up at all. And then as I grew up, something altered and changed. I did start seeing things a little different, because then I realized, you know, church is also business. And so sometimes, it's all business, just like with all denominations … preaching one thing and doing the other. And so there is a little greed aspect to some churches - not all, of course. So … with this hierarchy, there is a power trip … Because of how the system was set up in America, systematically, the racism, the church was the only place where Black people could have clout. So if you are a pastor, or deacon, if you're a missionary, you have power. You have clout. What you say, goes. And so if you are the child of a pastor, a bishop, or whatever, people are looking at you. They expect you to act a certain way, be a certain way, do things a certain way, because you are not only reflective of Christ … but you're also reflected on that power structure. If you do something, you are challenging that power structure, that whole thing might fall down. And so Sir Walter, my character, he is a pastor of a megachurch. But he also has some gambling issues, and some spending habit issues. And he puts his church into debt, where he's almost losing the church and the upper limits of his power and his clout in the community. And then he has these children and one of them … is fiscally responsible and capable and efficient and knows how to run things. He doesn't see her value because she doesn't represent what he thinks a daughter should look like. Physically. … She's someone with intelligence. She's kind of challenging his wisdom … his thought process. And so that makes it really Austen. Even though it's 2021.Plain Jane That's so great. Everything you're describing is this character - that's so Austen, a character, a strong woman, a smart woman who's undermined and undervalued, and just how frustrating that can be. But Jane Austen just shows people how to go forward. So that's kind of what appeals to you about the story of Persuasion? You mentioned a teacher encouraged you, in your Facebook Live [event]. You called it an adult fairy tale, in a way because she does persevere, doesn't she? And is gracious. How does she get by? How does she survive? And why is this an adult fairy tale?Damianne Scott Well, I guess the fairy tale part is because there is no, necessarily, fairy godmother, or magic  - just that Anne kind of realizes that what she wants is important and valued. That she should move on. I mean, the only reason why she doesn't marry Wentworth in the first place is because Lady Russell and her family, and the small community that she's involved in, is like, “No, he has no money. He doesn't represent what we represent, being gentry … You can't marry him, he has no money.”And of course, during that time, having money was the most important thing - you're not marrying somebody necessarily for love, you're marrying somebody for connections, growing the family, making sure you're not starving, especially if you're a woman. So all your sisters are not starving. So this is what you're getting married for, you're marrying for the benefit of society, and particularly your small society. And so what Anne does is realize at the end: “Bump that! Now I'm wanting to do what I want to do, where my voice is heard, and I'm gonna marry this man that I love, that I probably [should have]  married eight years ago, but I listened to y'all.”And so I think the magic is that she realizes her own worth. And that there was somebody who already recognized it and she kind of let it slip away. And she gets a second chance to rectify it, which is something most of us do not get - that second chance to rectify a decision that we made incorrectly. And I think that's why it's a fairy tale.Plain Jane All right! … Do you find yourself having to explain to people about why you love Jane Austen, that it is about hardship? It is about endurance and survival? It's not just about finding somebody to, you know, to marry and carry you off. That it is about what it is like to get through life with responsibility, and how to do it graciously, and how to, hopefully, how to find happiness?Damianne Scott … My friends, they just don't understand that at all. They think of Austen as, you know: the dresses, the balls, the bonnets. And it is, let's not get it twisted: It's part of it. That is the appeal for people who read it today or look at the movies today. It's the romance. Because I mean … all the major novels that she wrote, all the main characters get her man, they get married. We may not see the marriage, but we know they get married. So for some people, that is the appeal of Austen, that is what they look at for Austen. That's why they read Austen and that's all they want. And that's fine. Others, like myself, I'm interested in also the other themes that are going on, the nuances. Because the nuances of the dance, [for instance]: Well, why are they doing that particular dance? Why can't women inherit from their fathers? Why [is it] they cannot work? What was going around in England at that time, to make it the way it is? That is what interests me also. And so, in the community itself … my biggest push is just trying to get them to understand not only the historical, which many of them already do, because that's why they're Janeites, and they really dive in and they're really scholarly about it, where I'm not as scholarly about a lot of the issues. But my biggest question is just to see that it's text, it's ideas that are open to all people. And... that it can be open to other people who might not necessarily have been in the thought of, or the mind of, Austen when she wrote those novels.Plain JaneWell I love that. And I want to hear more about that, Dami. So you started the Facebook page Black Girl Loves Jane to basically do what? To kind of put a stamp on that?Damianne Scott Yeah, well it initially started as something really for me to do, where I could share Jane Austen's quotes and wits and books and all that. That was in August of 2018. So it's pretty new. Just something to, like, put a quote of the day or a photo of the week. And then I would share something that was happening in my life that that wisdom either expresses or answers for. And then my goal was to then have other people share their experience that is similar to the quote that I placed out there today. And I call it Black Girl Loves Jane because I'm a Black girl! So I was a Black girl who loves Jane, which is an oddity! It's not completely, like, not heard of - you know, I've met and seen other women of color who love Jane. But for my circle, I am the odd man out and in college, here I am trying to get my master's degree in English, and I am the only African American who's in a Victorian class or British Romantic class, you know, trying to read Shelley and Austen and talk about these things. And I'm the only one there. And so what Anne does, is realize at the end: “Bump that! Now I'm wanting to do what I want to do, where my voice is heard, and I'm gonna marry this man that I love, that I probably [should have]  married eight years ago, but I listened to y'all.”So that's how it started. And I just like classics in general. So it's not just Austen. I love Hardy. I was presented to Hardy when I was 14 in school. So Hardy was who I started off with, because my teacher did not believe that I would like Austen. Because he was like, “Oh, you like Hardy? You're not going to like Austen because Austen is happy and they get married.”  … We never could read anything modern. So every book we read in high school from ninth to 12th grade when we had to do a book report was a classic. You know, everything else was Hardy, or Eliot, or Dickens, or Austen. So I was like, “Okay, this is a world I'm not used to. I've never been introduced to these classics before. So here we go.”My first book I read was Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Like, “This is what's happening in England in the early 1900s?! Okay! My goodness!” I read Hardy, and then [continued in] high school, college. And then it has eventually over time has evolved to just trying to make the case, in whatever small way I can, that Austen is not just for Caucasian people, that Austen is not just for people from Britain, that there are other cultures that can benefit from the lessons of Austen, or from other classic literature as well. Because anything I deem to be classic is something that is relatable to everyone, if you're willing to do the teaching to make it relatable. I think part of the issue, especially in high schools today, and maybe in some colleges … is that we teach these books, particularly these books that are in the canon, as unrelatable to anyone who's not white, or young … or whatever, and we tell you, “You're never going to understand it.” And really what it is, is the teachers are going to have to figure out a way to make it relatable and teachable for whatever generation they are presented with. And so part of my reason for writing my version Persuaded, part of my reason for why I read other modernization versions of Austen's novels and other classic novels, is because I have this hope. I want to have this hope that it's reachable even to this generation, and that if we don't learn how to make it reachable to the next generation, they're going to die. These classics are not going to be classics anymore. They're not going to want to teach Austen, or Dickens, or Toni Morrison. They're not going to want to teach them anymore because they won't feel they are relevant today. And so, books like, hopefully books like mine, but also Pride by Ibi Zoboi is giving that attention, making that way. And also Unmarriageable [by Soniah Kamal] which I just read too, is making that way, that it is so relatable! These are my people! Even if it is, you know, 1789 when it's written, and I'm reading it in 2021. These are my people. This is what's going on in my life in my world, too. And she's speaking to me. And so that is what my goal is.Plain JaneAwesome! Listeners can't hear that I'm snapping at Dami. I love it. It just makes Austen so much richer, when people realize [that], like I feel like they have already with Shakespeare. So I think you're - hopefully, you're right, and I am too, because I have the same hope -  that it's just a matter of imagination. It's just a matter of changing the way we see it, changing the way we teach it.Damianne ScottI always try to - even with my students,  because I teach English Composition, but I have taught upper-level classes as well about literature - and I'm always trying to get my students to understand that period just means it happened at a certain period of time. And the themes and experiences that we are having are the same themes and experiences that they'll be having 75 years from now, and the way that they were having 75 years ago, if you get through all that superficial stuff, right? Yes, you might have to practice some of the language because Shakespeare is no easy man, by any means! But the themes, the lessons, really what he was saying is just as modern today as anything else.Plain JaneLet me ask you, Dami, what would you like to see in any kind of Persuasion adaptation? What do you think makes it work for today? Because there are also two films coming out.Damianne Scott There is, and one I'm really excited about because one is going to be a color blind or nontraditional Persuasion, what they're calling nontraditional casting, where the Wentworth character is going to be played by a person of color.Plain Jane Oh, is it Cosmo Jarvis? Yes. Okay.Damianne ScottYes. So he's, going to be playing Wentworth. And then Mr. Golding, Henry Golding, who I adore, he is playing Mr. Elliot. Cousin Elliot, I guess. … So, it's nontraditional casting. And so that's what I was excited about, that we had that happening in the era of course of Bridgerton, which I also loved. But [it] also got a lot of flack. And those who are Jane Austen fanatics did not appreciate Bridgerton, some have not appreciated casting for this new Persuasion. And it's because of the nontraditional casting. So for the past six months or so, I've been doing some talks and things like that. I did one for “Race and the Regency” for Jane Austen & Co., where I'm pushing this idea: “Why not? Black people were there. Why are we acting like Black people are not there? There are people of color there, there are people from South Asia, India, were there during that time.” So I don't understand why people get upset about this notion … as if Austen was this historical document that could not be altered. It's fiction! It's fiction! Everything in it is fiction. I guess in England during that time, there is the wars going on at the time. All that has happened. I know this is happening, but again, it's still a fictionalized world, some of the cities don't even exist, really, in England. And these are fictionalized stories. And so the hullabaloo about Bridgerton, particularly, it's the greatest thing right now, is somewhat disconcerting to me. Which is why I make Black Girl Loves Jane, because I just don't understand it. That icing out of cultures who are sometimes forced to read Austen, but they can't be in Austen? They can't be in an Austen film, but you're gonna make them read it as part of the literary canon that you have in school, but then they can't be in it? Doesn't make sense to me. [P]art of my reason for why I read other modernization versions of Austen's novels and other classic novels, is because I have this hope: I want to have this hope that it's reachable even to this generation.So I'm really excited about that. And I'm looking for not only for Persuasion to do it, but I'm looking forward to a time where it's not a big deal. So that is what I'm looking forward to, not only with Persuasion, but all novels and really, you know, all classic novels. Where it's just not a big deal. And I don't always go into it, you know, by any means, looking at any kind of film or book. I'm like, ‘Oh, there's no Black people in it. So I'm not gonna read it, or people of color.' That's not me at all. But I do when I'm looking at it. And as I get more past the the surface stuff, but to the actual discussions about modernization and race and class, there's discussions to be had: … “What is wrong with this scene? Or, what's wrong with this theme that is being carried out through this period? Why was it established? What's wrong with it? And how have we rectified it? Or have we rectified it in 21st century England or America? Are there still class systems that's going on? Are they still based on race? Are they still based on it?” I am just saying that, like you said, the new normal has to come about where it's not such a big deal. I don't know if you know that I published an article in JASNA. Plain Jane Thank you for  reminding me - Yes, I did.Damianne Scott Well, one of the things I mentioned is, and that's part of the problem, I said, is that there is this need to hold on very tightly -  for many British citizens, but it's the same here in America as well - to this history that is not accurate. So this why people get upset with Bridgerton, or nontraditional casting in some Dickens movies, is because they're holding on to this idea of what they believe they are. And even though their history was told to them incorrectly … the challenge of it that's coming about in these last few years, it's very disconcerting for people. So this is why people have a cow. When you're going to have a multiethnic person play Wentworth, this is why people are upset that you have as the high royal in a drama going on in 1830 Regency be a Black queen. This is why people had a cow when the Jane Austen museum said, “Oh, we're going to establish and talk about how Jane lived during this time slavery,” and people have a cow about it.It's because it is challenging an idea and a history that is so ingrained in them, that, “Who will I be, if I am not the owner of Shakespeare or Austen or the Bible, or, for us in America, this great southern tradition? Who are we, if I don't have this? Or if you're telling me that I was wrong, or that my ancestors were wrong for what they did back then. And so therefore, you're now deeming me to be wrong.”And that is part of what solutions are going to have to come about. Because the change is coming. But how can we bring people along? Because it's scary to say to somebody, “Okay, you don't own Austen. I know you're Caucasian, I know you're a woman, and I know you might just want to tackle the stories of love and romance in these novels. But there's something else going on. Jane lived in a time of extreme upheaval. And if you say you love Austen, then you have to love all Austen. And some of what's was going on with Austen is not pretty.” Not necessarily with her, because she was a supporter of abolition, but what was going on around her was not pretty. And it's not all about the balls and the dresses, and that's scary for people. And so my hope is also that we can just have these dialogues where people don't feel like we're attacking or trying to take away something from them, but instead, understand and come to realize that we're trying to add to something that they already have.Plain Jane What would you like to see in our conversations going forward to be more equitable and inclusive? In our conversations about Jane Austen?Damianne Scott I guess what I really would like to see in the future is just this real, true understanding that people of color are not trying to - like what we've just discussed - invade people's space. What we're trying to do is say that we were always there. And that we want to be seen. And that we want to be accepted. Now, does that mean you have to go back and change 250 years of history? Well, no. You can never change that slavery, you can never change that there was a feudal system, and there were the landed gentry - you can't change it. But the idea that we are … this exclusive club, that is a problem. Because the change is coming. But how can we bring people along? Because it's scary to say to somebody, “Okay, you don't own Austen. I know you're Caucasian, I know you're a woman, and I know you might just want to tackle the stories of love and romance in these novels. But there's something else going on. Jane lived in a time of extreme upheaval. And if you say you love Austen, then you have to love all Austen.”So, hopefully, the future is that when we have these discussions, and have these conferences and have these things, that we are interested in the needle-point, and the dancing, and the foods that Austen ate; but we're also interested in the history of what was going on with the slave trade that was happening at that time. And we're also interested in how they were treating women. And we're also interested in talking about what they were doing with the tea that they were taking from India. And then we're also interested in, in all these other maybe somewhat earthy discussions about Austen and that are just as prevalently produced and advertised and populated and attended, as the latest discussion about how to make a bonnet. I am for you learning how to make a bonnet. I want to learn how to make a bonnet too. But I also want you to know that often, we put Austen on a pedestal. Austen does not want to be on the pedestal. We put her on there. And we make her so unreachable: She can only be talking about “this,” she can only be presented “this way.” As long as we keep Austen on that pedestal. she's going to die. Her words, her wisdom, is going to die. Because the one thing my generation - Generation X, Y or millennial - we're not looking for people to put on pedestals. We want people who want to be among the people. And Austen is among the people if you let her be. -------Thank you for being here, friends. Please talk back to us - let us know your thoughts on what Damianne Scott says here about how we read, and teach, and talk about Austen, and how we can make Austen more relatable. Teachers and professors, how do you introduce Jane Austen's stories to your classes today? Do you find that it's helpful to, as Damianne Scott says, consciously think about how to engage young, diverse readers with the classics and to help them see, as she says so beautifully, that Austen is speaking to all of us? And is among us? Let us know! It would be fascinating to continue this discussion! You can comment, here:Meanwhile, watch for more conversations coming up, including new podcast conversations with Ayesha at Last author Uzma Jalaluddin, Island Queen author Vanessa Riley, and Harvard professor and long-time New Yorker writer Louis Menand on “How to Misread Jane Austen.”  Thanks to you for listening, engaging, and making this the wonderful community and conversation that is growing and thriving. Invite a book-loving friend to join us! Have a wonderful week. You can stay in touch with us on Twitter at @AustenConnect, on Facebook and Instagram at @austenconnection, or you can simply reply/comment here. Stay well and stay in touch,Yours affectionately,Plain Jane Cool linksHere's Damianne Scott's piece for JASNA.org on PBS's Sanditon series and the pineapple controversy: https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-41-no-2/scott/Here's our piece on Damianne Scott and BGLJ Facebook page in the Christian Science Monitor: https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2021/0917/Is-Persuasion-the-Jane-Austen-story-we-all-need-right-nowMeryton Press - where Damianne Scott's retelling Persuaded is due for release next year: https://merytonpress.com/More on the upcoming Persuasion film adaptation, starring Cosmo Jarvis, Dakota Johnson and Henry Golding: https://deadline.com/2021/05/dakota-johnson-netflix-henry-golding-persuasion-cosmo-jarvis-suki-waterhouse-richard-e-grant-nikki-amuka-bird-1234754639/*This post was updated to reflect that Damianne Scott also teaches at Cincinnati State University. Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the second half of Fable Gazers' Season 2: Heyer Today, in which I interview knowledgeable experts and fans about underappreciated Regency romance queen Georgette Heyer This week, we'll be talking to the President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, Susannah Fullerton. She's also an OAM recipient (Order of Australia) as well as a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Added to this, she's a marvellous author and literary historian who is an expert on both Austen and Heyer. Together we discuss people's perceptions of Heyer (a poor man's Jane Austen? Pah!), the future of Heyer critique and what makes Heyer great. Our second guest is book blogger Eleanor Turner, who's website ‘Jane to Georgette' is really informative about Heyer and her works, as well as the comparison between Heyer and her idol, Austen.  

Today we'll dive into Jane Austen's Emma and investigate the meanings of the names of three of the main women: Emma Woodhouse, Harriet Smith, and Jane Fairfax. What is the history of these surnames? What do the names tell us about their characters? Did Austen do this intentionally? Was Jane Austen a wizard? We'll attempt to answer these and many more questions in our first foray into names in fiction!Dr. Octavio Cox Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCipwJ5GIKUYs2CcAhlcqjyw Sources:Articles:Fullerton, S. (1997). Jane Austen's Art of Naming. The Journal of the Jane Austen Society of North America-Persuasions, 9. http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number19/fullerton.pdfStiller, M. (2016). Wentworth Woodhouse is no Pemberley. Prospect Magazine. Published. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/wentworth-woodhouse-no-pemberley-jane-austen-autumn-statementBooks:Austen, J. (2021). Emma. ClassicBooks by KTHTK.Hanks, P., Hodges, F., & Hardcastle, K. (2016). A Dictionary of First Names (The Oxford Reference Collection) (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. John, A. (2017). The Peerage of Scotland: A genealogical and historical account of all the peers of that ancient kingdom. Hansebooks.Websites:www.houseofnames.com  www.merriam-webster.comhttps://thebiography.us/en/fairfax-robert  https://peoplepill.com/people/robert-wodehouse/www.wentworthwoodhouse.orgMusic:Market by PeriTune | http://peritune.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0Deep Woods3 by PeriTune | http://peritune.comMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unportedhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_USJohn Harrison, violin, with Robert Turizziani conducting the Wichita State University Chamber Players. Live, unedited performance at the Wiedemann Recital Hall, Wichita State University, 6 February 2000Music by Antonio Vivaldi composed 1723 and published in 1725. Recording copyright John Harrison (JohnHarrisonViolin.com)https://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_Harrison_with_the_Wichita_State_University_Chamber_Players/The_Four_Seasons_Vivaldi

Professor Danielle Christmas is a scholar in English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her day-job, she researches serious topics about race and history, from white nationalism to the legacy of slavery and the Holocaust, and how issues like this are depicted in our cultural currency. But when she's off the clock and needs to unplug, Danielle Christmas turns to Jane Austen. And she says even though she doesn't always want to, she can't help bringing her knowledge of race and history into these stories. As co-editor of the most recent issue of the JASNA journal Persuasions Online, Danielle Christmas has become a convener of conversations within the Janeite and academic community on race and the works of Jane Austen. She took some time recently to chat with us about that issue, and everything from Fanny Price and the history behind Mansfield Park, to binging “Bridgerton.” And she says, for her, escaping to a Regency world can be both guilt-free and fruitful. Here's our conversation.Danielle ChristmasSometimes I really like the idea of putting my brain to the use of just having fun - of playing around in a text that's beautifully written and is doing subtle work, right? [During the day] I'm talking about slavery and the Holocaust. And my new work is on white nationalism. That's loud, there's nothing [subtle] about that. And you have to pay attention to the corners and the contours of what's happening in [Jane Austen's] novels, in order to really understand the stakes. And it's just a good brain exercise [and] it trains me to pay attention to the small things. Whereas maybe if I'm spending all of my time, just looking at the loud - you know, the loudness, the violence, all of that - I miss the corners.Plain Jane  Well tell me, Danielle, because you are reading with all of that loudness around you. And you're very aware of this and you're … choosing to dedicate the time to exploring all those issues in our culture, everything from our lynching histories in our culture and the legacy of slavery and the legacy of racism. What do you bring as a reader with your expertise to Jane Austen, does that enter into it very much? Do you find comfort in the fact that she was surrounded by these conversations? And they are, like you say subtle, but they might be there like Edward Said says, - look at what's not there as well as what is there.Danielle Christmas Yes, exactly! That it's always there. Even if it's not there. It's there and it's absence and the fact that it's absent, is itself indicating something that we should be thinking about that's doing something whether or not it's present in the room. I think it's fascinating that people that we talk to so much in this special issue that we're doing [in] Persuasions, there is a lot going on, of course about the triangle trade and how that works. And yet there are four lines in Mansfield Park … or the sum total of what Jane Austen clearly said, explicitly said - explicitly-ish! - that is her making a direct reference to slavery. If we, we smart people, we smarty-pants people, have so much to say, based on four lines and its absence, then there really is something fascinating going on. Anytime there is a narrative, a television series, a book, anything that has to do, it is deeply embedded in a construction of class culture, right? And manners. There are all sorts of politics that surround that. And she was right. … She was a brilliant woman and a brilliant writer who wrote knowing that, right? It's intentional. I think that sometimes it's fascinating to encounter resistance among people who love Jane Austen, out of fear, I think, that we're pushing politics into a space where it's like a protected space. So why are we bringing politics into yet another thing, right? Like, why are we? It's there! … If we were living in Regency times, there's no way to read her work without understanding it as construction of political narrative. Not only that, or maybe not primarily that, but to write a romance novel at the time is itself a political exercise. And so acknowledging the truth of that - two things can be true at the same time. This is what I like, my major discovery in my 30s: Things can be true, a person can be, you know, racist and fascinating; a person could be writing just enjoyable romantic fiction, and also be doing something interesting and political. And I think that's what's happening. And it's easy to to get our hackles up on either side of that, to insist that it is only politics. And to forget that it's more fascinating. So why are we bringing politics into yet another thing, right? Like, why are we? It's there! … If we were living in Regency times, there's no way to read her work without understanding it as construction of political narrative. I think maybe this is my pop culture brain. But it's more fascinating because it's not just politics, right? Like she's doing something that is supposed to be an exercise in entertainment and pleasure. But she's playing this all out. And in a tableau that's tends to be people of a certain like wealth and class and that money comes from someplace, their comfort comes from someplace, the exclusion or not, of people. You cannot read Mansfield Park outside of those four lines, without understanding Fanny, and her absence of wealth, her relationship to the wealthier family, and the way that that interaction works as anything except a political inquiry into how relationships with family and money work and power, and morals and ethics, right? Plain Jane  So everything you say, Danielle, so interesting about Mansfield Park: They have to get their money at Mansfield Park from somewhere. You mentioned the four lines about “dead silence.” There's so much in that novel, if you're closely reading the text, that are choices that Jane Austen is making. And … she's so good at her job that we forget that there's a puppeteer. There's a conductor, who's making choices about how Mansfield Park gets its money, about where Sir Thomas goes when he leaves Mansfield Park, about what Fanny Price is reading. So much more than the “dead silence,” you know?So tell me more. Danielle, when I read it, it occurred to me that it's not it doesn't seem to me like too much of a stretch to see Mansfield Park and its dismantling, I would say it's kind of reduced to rubble. By the end of it. It's kind of destroyed! And the only person who's still standing is Fanny Price. And I feel like it could be a metaphor for a sort of dismantling of England through colonialism - morally - not paying attention to your house, being out there and not concentrating on what's real and what's actually ethical. And the consequences of that. Do you think that's too much of a stretch?Danielle Christmas That's provocative! I kind of love that! I would have to sit and think about that. I think if that's plausible, and as a sort of larger metaphor, I think that maybe … you'll get my preemptive defenses against those people who tend to in general, tell me I'm bringing politics into politics-free spaces. So [they'll say], “It's just romance. Right? It's happy. It's just pop culture. Why are you insisting?” I think because of that, I tend to be more conservative in the claims that I make than you're being. I think that my the most conservative account that I could easily defend - that I think that any person could reasonably defend: After you learn a little bit about Jane Austen's family in general (I resist psychoanalytic readings of an author through their work, don't think it's helpful), but you can't find out that her father has a trustee relationship with a plantation, or find out that her brother would patrol waters for slave ships, and not think about how knowing that in her relationship to them, and doing that would inform her decision to write this novel. And what to include, and not. So I think the most conservative thing to say about slavery, history, [and] politics, and the novel, is that just the insistence that she's publishing this, and that she's insisting that people who like her novels, and enjoy her kind of writing, read this. That is disruption. That is interesting. Just that, yes. So, just even stopping there, makes me curious. I think sometimes I feel like my job as a teacher, maybe less so in my writing, but as a teacher, is just to make us notice things that we noticed, but didn't realize were important to notice. Like to just say if I was teaching a class, like, what do you guys think that a woman who was writing what we could call - even at the time -chicklit, right? Like a woman who's writing - yes, a smart woman - who's writing for other literate smart women, inasmuch as any woman is considered especially smart and literate at the time, who's interested in reading a romantic novel happened to do this. Like happens to mediate this particular story through the experience of a deep privilege? And, what you're saying, which is really the kind of collapse of privilege in one family, right? So, like, and this is where we're going. Just think about that, guys. I'm a new historicist. So I want to know what's going on all around the page. I want to know what helped make the story and I want to know what the story is doing off of the page. And so there is an entire ecosystem around what we can talk about - this really weird thing she did, right? Like, it's just a weird thing! There's a way to have told that story, so that all I needed to do was curl up on my couch and read it and not really have to do any heavy lifting. Not grapple with what it means that there are four lines of silence. I think sometimes I feel like my job as a teacher, maybe less so in my writing, but as a teacher, is just to make us notice things that we noticed, but didn't realize were important to notice. You know, Fanny really is the subject of abuse. … And I think because so many of us read the novel, and so many of us who are doing it outside of the context of the classroom, are doing it for pleasure reading. And ... if I'm reading this novel for pleasure, I don't want to sit with Fanny's pain very long. It is unpleasant. It's really cruel the way she's treated. But if we pause and think about that, that is quite a choice that Jane Austen made: to insist that somebody who wants to pick up the genre that they would expect her to be writing, that they have to walk through that maltreatment. And it's not just, you know, a heroine who's mistreated. She is the subject of abuse. Compared to how people feel about Lizzy Bennet, you know, everyone wants to be Lizzy Bennet, right?Fanny is meek. She is not … as charming. And, you know, she's just coming from a different place. What a heroine she is, right? What a curious heroine she is compared to who we've come to know from Jane Austen's other novels. What do we do with that? What do we make of that? Sometimes I think the most fruitful things come from just realizing that there are questions that we haven't been asking.Plain JaneLet me get to some of your work. Danielle. You are the Co-editor of the most recent issue of Persuasions … and it's a peer-reviewed publication of JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America. And it features essays on Jane Austen and her world. Can you tell me a little bit about the most current issue, which is called “Beyond the Bit of Ivory, Jane Austen and Diversity”? By the way, I put the Call for Papers, link in our chat. It's so beautiful, the first paragraph of that. Danielle Christmas I'm so glad that you think it's beautifully written. You know, it was fascinating. We encountered each other through the “Race and the Regency” series. That was a fascinating multi-month journey ... hearing different lectures. But .. because so many of us are asking questions about race, we're asking questions we didn't know we should have been asking .... So that's good and important work then, right? If you sit back and think, OK, we're all kind of engaged in that thinking JASNA has jumped in. Like at Chawton [House], where they were doing the Black Lives Matter to Jane Austen exhibit and all of that. I mean, like, Whoa. Fascinating. Like, who is mad who's yelling? Why? What are the stakes to people? What's happening? … Like, what is that alarmism about? People who have different intellectual stakes in the way that we remember, and read Jane Austen. We're all bringing a different set of thoughts and values and questions to this figure, as an abstract person, as a writer, as a creator of stories. We are mapping on to these stories, all sorts of powers that they may or may not have. So this special issue is an opportunity for us, in this moment, to do some deep thinking about those questions. Fanny is meek. … What a curious heroine she is compared to who we've come to know from Jane Austen's other novels. What do we do with that? What do we make of that? Sometimes I think the most fruitful things come from just realizing that there are questions that we haven't been asking.You know, there are plenty of folks who have been working on the intersection of these questions in these histories and Jane Austen's work for a long time. So it's not as if, you know, finally scholars are coming to ask questions. But for maybe different scholars than before, and some who have been … in this wheelhouse, but different folks who maybe haven't been a part of the conversation yet. And all of us, right, whether or not we've been a part of the conversation, or we're new to it, or having this conversation right now. And now is a different time to be having this conversation. Asking questions about Race in the Regency four years ago is interesting and important. But it's different right now. There is something different happening in the … stakes of the way that we think and argue and remember racial history.Plain Jane  The very first sentence in the Call for Papers [says] “the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, and the pandemic that has disproportionately killed along racial lines have shocked the world into a confrontation of inequities resulting from individual behavior, institutional design, and even attachment to limited and comfortable perspectives.” That's really powerful language to introduce a Call for Papers about Jane Austen and the world of Jane Austen. What did you mean in that first sentence - “limited and comfortable perspectives that we might be attached to”?Danielle Christmas Well, what it makes me think now about is the fact that I think a lot of us, if you read that Call for Papers and agree, like, Wow, that's an important conversation to be having. Then it's likely that at least a little bit, when we read Jane Austen or - heaven forbid - we like go binge a Netflix series, right? So … Why should we be wasting hours doing this, it's purely an exercise in like, you know, self pleasure, whatever?Plain Jane  Well, let's just say what we're all thinking right now, which is: “Bridgerton.” So yes, as we're watching “Bridgerton” …?Danielle Christmas Right?! As we all sit for one day and watch the entirety of the series! We, I don't know, I won't project for lots of others, but I've talked to enough people who are the same people who would read that Call for Papers and think, “This is urgent and important.” And then would would realize that there is some degree of guilt that we feel when we are cozied up right now reading Jane Austen. Like … what does it mean? That we're exercising our comfortable privilege to sit and relax and read a feel-good book, you know? I feel guilt about that. I feel guilt as a person, as a scholar who has a certain set of values. But as a Black woman who understands all of the history that's in the background of Jane Austen, I sit with some guilt about what is and is not there. I think that it's really helpful to see that, and talk about that, and not suggest that, like, that guilt can't do fruitful things. In this Persuasions issue, there are some folks who are not, quote, “scholars,” right? These are not the usual suspects that you would find in a typical peer-reviewed journal. Lots of people submitted, and some of the folks that we're publishing are non-university folks. And … we are all bringing a set of active considerations that typically are dismissed as inappropriate for informing questions and answers, and we're insisting that that's OK. And it's interesting, and it can do interesting stuff. Some of the essays, unlike a sort of traditional peer-reviewed journal, are coming more from a place of practice. Some of them are coming more from a place of intellectual memoir. And ... that is so valuable, especially when we're thinking about what it means to talk about this figure in this time, considering that the passing description of her is a woman in the 1800s, who wrote romance novels, right? Like that's the quick and short version. There's a lot of problems we need to fix right now. And that's really an indulgence and there's something to be worked out. It feels like an exercise in privilege. And that's really [the source of] some of the resistance and alarmism, I think, is that we don't like what it might mean about us if we don't want to think about that. Who wants to think about that, right?! Like who wants to think, “Oh, yeah, there's the Zong crisis, is happening in the background, right? Maybe Lord Mansfield, the real man had something to do with the Mansfield Park.” Like what a terrible … who wants to think about that?!… But if you just read it  - to take away that you feel guilty, there's something wrong with you if you don't enthusiastically embrace the idea of talking about race, slavery and Jane Austen, right? Like you are intellectually dishonest, whatever. I think it's more interesting that, like, none of us really want to do that thinking! That she made it a little difficult to do that thinking. She could have been more explicit. But … an adult mind that's really fully formed and inclined to do critical thinking cannot read her novels and not ask questions about power, money, history, race. Like all of that stuff, the silences and the explicit statements: We have to notice it. We do or don't have to choose to ignore it. … It's not wrong, that on Tuesday, after doing my research on white nationalism, I don't really want to think about that.… I have a lot of students who are inclined to think that talking about this stuff means that a professor's telling them they should feel guilty about stuff. … They're conditioned to think that, like I'm saying you should have been thinking about this all along and shame on you. What I would say to them is, I think the most important thing about consuming any culture - so Jane Austen or any media - is to be deliberate and intentional …  If you sit down and decide to binge “Bridgerton” … I'm gonna have fun. It's Netflix. Like, it's been a tough day. But do that knowing that today, you're … choosing not to think about all of the racial politics that Shonda Rhimes introduced by creating this alternate race history in England. The fact that she … [introduced] the visual politics of having characters of having a Black man and a white woman fall in love -  in the context, just having interracial romance is itself a really political, challenging thing to represent. And to think about, especially now that I live in the south, to look at, to argue about, to remember to [think about] all of that. And Shonda Rhimes is like, “No, no, no. I'm not going to let you enjoy that without noticing what you're not noticing.”So I think it's just fine to decide, I don't really want to do that right now., I don't want to do that thinking. But tomorrow: Do that thinking, or know that it's thinking that needs to happen. And that you aren't appreciating the text for the fullness of what it is. ... You'll actually, I think, enjoy it more. Maybe you consider, like, what a decision she made, right? Like what a fascinating decision she made that we're arguing now, again, about Queen Charlotte and whether she was Black. And our construction of race -  it's fascinating to hear what people have to say about Queen Charlotte being Black, as if race operated in the same way then as it does now. All of that. Plain Jane  And in all of what you just said, something sticks out to me that I want to pick up - which is Jane Austen could have been more explicit. And I want to be careful that when I'm saying, “Fanny Price burns the b***h down!” You know, [that[ I'm not superimposing what I would have loved for Jane Austen to be thinking and saying. I do think, though, the more you hear the more you think, ‘“Yeah, there's that subtext. Maybe even not as subtle as I thought.”And you mentioned something in “Race and the Regency” and your talk on the Zong slave ship - [that] calling Mansfield Park Mansfield Park is a little bit like writing a novel today and calling it Scalia House. There's no way that's not saying something.So anyway, I think it's, it's not politics. It's life. If you think that we need to just sit and escape this, and your students want to just escape, and not look at this. It's not politics they're escaping from, it's basically life. It's just the real world that they're escaping from. But yet you need to escape from it. So do I and we all do that. So it's about life. And it is painful. That's the other thing you said, Yes, it's painful. You know, wherever you're coming from when you're reading Jane Austen. And when you're having these conversations about privilege, it's painful. But yet I feel like the art is what helps us work through it. So I guess that's what I pull away: the art. … But all of that noise, as you say. that loudness … was seeping in. So it's there. And it's just going to be unpacked and unraveled for generations to come.Danielle Christmas Absolutely. You know, and as I'm listening to us, and listening to you and thinking about what both of us are talking about, I think [of] another discomfort: This is really a sacred cow. So I'm spending time with Janeites. And talking about all this interesting stuff and enjoying books. And I think something that we don't like, this group that I've been spending time with ..., is that Jane Austen probably had some racial attitudes that we really wouldn't like. Right? So, really problematic racial attitudes and racial values. And that's hard, right? Like, if we, if we love her work, if we feel like she was doing important, disruptive, interesting stuff, that then challenges us. I think that brings forward ... the stuff that's, like, what does it mean about me? If I like a person, you know, I don't want to admit that about her because it means something about me. … What are my values if I enjoy that?And it is itself a kind of, like: Two things can be true, right? It can be true that she's doing interesting, disruptive, fascinating stuff. And she, I would put money down on her having racial attitudes that were not too awesome, right?I think the helpful thing to remember is we don't know, we'll never know, It's not really that interesting to argue about that. But that actually, I think, is the core of some of that alarmism, the unstated core of it. Which is like, “Are you trying to indict Jane Austen?” No, who can do that? What are we doing? It's so fascinating because I would say to a person who said that to me, like, I'm not gonna indict her, I don't have to! It is almost impossible to conceive of a world in which she would formulate her thoughts of how the world works, and how people work, and that she would think that I, a Black woman, am of equal intelligence.… She might - that'd be delightful! There's no way for me to know that! ...But, you know, I actually think it's not that interesting to acknowledge that she was a person. That's, just a person of her time. And so I want to - even among the people who it's fun to have these conversations with - disrupt the sacred, you know, really kill the sacred cow. … We must admit that this person whose work we love … we're being intellectually dishonest if we refuse that. And I actually think that's something that's really hard for us to do. There are still people who would read that Call for Papers who would share my values or do interesting work, but who will still be unsettled if I say to them, that according to today's values, and the way that we construct the idea of racism, Jane Austen was probably racist. That really makes people uncomfortable. Now, you know, it was my intellectual upbringing, like, how I was trained as a scholar, I was raised to be a little polemical. In some ways, I just kind of want to see what happens if I throw that out. ...If I go into a room and say, “What are you going to do with that? Here's the way that works” But outside of being kind of mischievous, I actually think that's probably true. And that's OK. Like, I don't think it means I shouldn't enjoy her work. I don't think it means anything about anyone who does enjoy her work. I think it means something about all of us. If we are so deeply resistant to a likelihood … I think that requires some interrogation. And that's work that even people who read that call for proposals, lots of those people who are open to different ways of thinking, so they are not themselves villainous. But like, they're not noticing what they're not noticing. Which is maybe their own resistance to the idea that, according to the way that we reasonably assign the label racism, [Jane Austen] is probably racist. What do we do with that? Plain Jane  Well, you're challenging me, Danielle. Because I did have a question on here: In what ways is reading Jane Austen and Jane Austen, you know, of her time, possibly problematic for us? But it was painful to even write that question. And I asked myself, Is that really necessary? And you're telling me, it is necessary. Again, it's another thing that's there or not there, to pull out and talk about, and just make sure, like you say, if, it's uncomfortable, why is it uncomfortable? And it's okay, by the way to be uncomfortable! Something we all need to know. But Danielle, basically, you can solve America, if we can all remember to keep two thoughts in our head. That's the first lesson. And then also just be OK with being uncomfortable. Just if we can all just do those two things. America, we'll be on our way.Danielle Christmas Yeah! To insist that you have some thinking to do does not make you a villain: It means you have some thinking to do. We all have different thinking to do. And then I might not have the same work to do. But I've got my own stuff. It's funny. … This is like when I say this to my graduate students, this is very much me projecting my judgment of myself. In retrospect, I used to call everything “problematic.” My first job out of college was as an organizer. I was a union organizer driving around Missouri - so driving around where you are! - organizing people. Low-income people in downstate Missouri, doing all sorts of, you know, life [challenges.] If I had the mission, my mission was to change the world. Plain Jane  That's a part of your bio I did not know! Danielle Christmas, ladies and gentlemen, driving around the byways, the blue highways of Missouri.Danielle Christmas It's an interesting state. It is an interesting state to be driving around as a 20-something Black woman there to organize low -income folks who are, you know, working their hardest. So that was a formative experience. But because of that quite reasonably, I had an eye for like, everything that is “problematic.” And yes, … and I'm not picking on you for using that word. It's a useful word.Plain Jane  Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm around students, and daughters, you know who, yes, find everything problematic.Danielle Christmas It's just, it's lazy. That's the thing to remember about myself, and what I noticed about my students. And the reason that I push them. It's not because they're calling something out that needs to be examined more closely. It's that it's lazy to call it “problematic” and stop right there. It's like, it is an empty explanation that explains nothing.Plain Jane  So you're right. It's kind of jargon and you do a great job of cutting through the jargon. Especially for an academic, right?.Danielle ChristmasSee, that's my dream!Plain JaneOne thing I have to ask along these lines is that you are spending a lot of time, you say, among Janeites. And you mentioned not everyone would love that Call for Proposals. I mean, what do you think, because these conversations are going on in a really dynamic, fantastic way with race and the Regency in the Jane Austen world. But there also people that would like to see - and they're coming out on Twitter and saying, openly and thoughtfully I think, that they would like to see things going faster. They'd like to see change. They'd like to see a more assertive discussion about diversity and equity. But what is your sense of the JASNA community and its take on equity and diversity and approaching all of these questions in the readings of Jane Austen and her world? Danielle Christmas You know, that is a terrific question. And it's a complicated question. I think that  what's good about this special issue is that, this [is] one corner of what needs to happen, which is intellectual work, that we expressed commitment to prioritizing that thinking. So that intellectual work and making that accessible. That is one corner. And that's one corner that I'm excited to participate in. The voices that are saying that that is not enough, are absolutely right. It would be dishonest of JASNA, were anyone just saying, and I don't think they would say, “You know, that's it, we're checking it off.” … So I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of, JASNA's ambition around this, right? … A part of that is the intellectual work, of making that accessible as a publication. But the other stuff the, like, let's revisit infrastructure. Let's ... look at our mission statement. And let's look at participation, the inclusion of other voices in the way the organization is run. All that absolutely needs to happen. And that work always takes longer, right? It's always messier. It's always more complicated. And I understand people saying, like, you know, “tick tock..” What I'm excited about is that this moment is giving us an opportunity to prioritize the discussions. I would actually say of myself that I am, I'm probably unfairly patient. I am predisposed, maybe because of like, the, ugliness that I work with. And my need to like my particular intellectual project or public-facing scholarship is to figure out how to do that, how to make these conversations. possible, not hostile, really interesting, and move at the pace that people can have those conversations, right?So, do I think we should all burn down the system to stop white nationalism? Sure. Is that going to happen? No. So that means that I've got to talk to a lot of people who really disagree with me ... So I have a sense of pace and scale … So I would not call myself the best measure of pace of change, right? Also, I think, because I have the good fortune of doing what I think is this really important part of the work. And that primarily being, I've joined the editorial board of Persuasions and I'm really excited about making sure that this isn't a single special-issue thing. That this conversation continues and expands, that we're not ghettoizing this work. So I know, that's a commitment they have. And I know those other conversations are happening. And I know there's frustration. There's a reason for optimism, because we're having a conversation. And the most important thing - and this does come from my days as a union organizer - is to cultivate allies where we can find them. So I know that there are people who are part of JASNA leadership, who are all about making this happen, even if we're different people in different corners … So make the make noise - because no change happens without noise. Plain Jane  Do you want to say any more about “Bridgerton?” I mean, I know that you saw it as an escape. Does it in any way advance the conversations, on all of these conversations on race and the Regency?Danielle Christmas I actually think it does really important work. Because there are arguments now about casting of Anne Boleyn in an upcoming film production that has her as a Black woman - a dark-skinned Black woman playing opposite a very … expected casting for Henry. There are dozens of future Jane Austen adaptations to come, because we love them, right? They're going to continue. They will be made as long as we watch them. At what point are .. we going to insist that we see that in those kinds of adaptations? I actually think that's really important. If someone told me, this raises the question of whether we're gonna cast Black women as leads in Jane Austen films … I actually think that's really interesting. I think so many of us like Jane Austen because we are Lizzy Bennet, right? We identify. We all want to be the people, we want to be leading ladyl. We're on the adventure, I would say even more so than lots of other works. And Jane Austen's awesome, because she makes that easy. And her stories make that easy. What does it mean for a new generation of viewer if we insist that you can look different? I think part of my grappling ... in my own journey, is feeling frustration and guilt that I enjoy something that insists that I cannot look like the person who is the lead, right? What would it have meant if that wasn't a thing to grapple with? Because people telling Jane Austen stories today already did the work of saying, “No, her stories really transcend that. It doesn't have to look like … we expect it to look.”That would have made a difference. And I actually think that “Bridgerton” is insisting that he next time there's a production, if they decide to insist on a certain kind of casting, they're being deliberate and intentional about that. And that's provocative, right? It means that if you are making the new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility [you remember]…  that “Bridgerton” was super successful, right? If you're a person who wants something super successful, how much of success of “Bridgerton” could be attributed to - at least our interest at first - because of that strange world Shonda Rhimes [made] for us. So it would be shrewd for the future adaptors of Jane Austen's work to calculate on whether there is any value in being equally provocative and making us curious. And actually, I do, I think that's more important than I would have expected. And I think - this is the mischief-maker in me - I think it's good to make a person be deliberate in saying, no, they're not going to do something. .. [If] you're making an adaptation, you should have to tell yourself now that you're only going to cast the usual suspects.Plain Jane  Yes, it's changed the default in a way, maybe forever. And maybe it's been a long time coming. I mean, if you look back on so many adaptations, I think very soon, if we don't already, we'll be thinking, “Boy, that is a white world they created, and that doesn't even seem realistic.” OK, so very much a random aside: When you're reading Jane Austen's descriptions of her characters now with a kind of an ear and an eye for colorism and depictions and descriptions, a lot of her lead characters - I think Eleanor Dashwood - [are] just described as Brown. So does that make it easier for you as a writer, a reader when you were younger? Did you like Soniah Kamal, who wrote Unmarriageable and who I've talked with. She said, from the very first time reading, Pride and Prejudice, it was Pakistani. Do you do make things what you need them to be in your head? I know I do as a reader as well.Danielle Christmas I think that's the only way that I can really enjoy Jane Austen. But I like that she makes that possible. ...  I wouldn't go so far as to say that that is on a top 10 list of what makes her so accessible. … You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I really actually do think it's .. that she is so accessible because she makes it so easy for us to be the heroine. I do, you know, just as a reader, as a person who reads Jane Austen, for pleasure, it is easier to be transported by her work than lots of other things that I read that I would consider comparable.Plain Jane  And we won't give her more credit than would have been deserved. But it I think one thing that's interesting as we talk about … the experience of reading is that it might have been unconscious. 5here are a lot of things that can be unconsciously happening. … But either way, it's interesting. Do you have anything else to add that we haven't covered? Danielle Christmas I don't have anything else to add, It's such a pleasure. These were great questions. I hope that it is entertaining and fruitful for listeners. That too on my epitaph: “She was entertaining and taught us stuff”!Plain Jane  You are entertaining, and you have taught us stuff, Danielle Christmas! Thank you so much for joining us on the Austen Connection.And thank YOU, Austen Connection readers, listeners, subscribers, engagers.As always, if you liked this conversation, or think of anyone else who would find it interesting and, as Danielle Christmas says, “fruitful” - please share it!You can also sign up for the Austen Connection, if you haven't already, to get these conversations delivered right ot your Inbox.Here are some awesome links to the things Danielle Christmas talked about in this conversation. Keep reading, and let us know your thoughts. Cool Stuff/Links:The current issue of JASNA's Persuasions Online:  http://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-41-no-2/editors/Jane Austen & Co.'s discussion series “Race and the Regency” - it's awesome: https://www.janeaustensummer.org/raceandtheregencyMore on Jane Austen & Co: https://www.janeaustenandco.org/NYT on Chawton House Museum and Black Lives Matter:  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/world/europe/jane-austen-slavery-museum.htmlMore on Danielle Christmas:  https://englishcomplit.unc.edu/faculty-directory/danielle-christmas/ Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Hello dear friends,If you've watched the wildly-popular Netflix series Bridgerton or the wonderful film The Personal History of David Copperfield starring Dev Patel, you might have experienced and appreciated what today's podcast guest saw: People of color in a fictionalized dramatization of 18th and 19th Century Britain. But in Gretchen Gerzina's case - and unlike most of us - she knows the back stories of the real lives of Black residents of Britain in those eras. Professor Gerzina says she is drawn to “biographies and lives of those who cross boundaries of history, time, place or race” - that's on her website - and her work is all about this. In books like Black London, Black Victorians, and Britain's Black Past, Gerzina bridges all of those boundaries for us - connecting us to people across time, place, and history - and introducing us to some of the Black performers, memoirists, activists and everyday people in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. Professor Gerzina joined me a few weeks ago, by Zoom, for today's Austen Connection podcast, and we talked about the lives of some of these Black residents of Britain historically, how she is helping to tell the stories about their lives, and how contemporary fictionalizations of Regency England capture these stories, or not. Enjoy the podcast - and if you prefer to read, here's an excerpt from our conversation. Plain JaneSo, I have been poring through your books, and I really enjoyed Black London [among others]. And … it's just really beautiful the way that you write about what you're doing - reconstructing, repainting history. In a way, you say, to illuminate the unseen vistas of people and places that are part of British history and part of our world history. Really illuminating the stories of the people and the community of Black women and men in [the] Regency era in 18th and 19th century Britain. So would you just talk first, Professor Gerzina, about that, illuminating the unseen? In what ways has this history been erased? And in what ways are you still trying to uncover that history?Gretchen Gerzina So that book was published 25 years ago or so and it's still being read all the time. And in fact, it's available as a free download through the Dartmouth College Library. And it stays in people's minds. The reason I wrote it was that I was actually working on a very different book. And … I went into a bookshop, a very well known bookstore in London, looking for … Peter Fryer's book called Staying Power, the history of Black people in Britain - massive book. And it had just come out in paperback. So I said, “Oh, let me go buy that.” And I went into the bookshop, and I couldn't find it. And I finally went up to a clerk. And I said, “I'm looking for this new this book. It's just been released in paperback.” And she looked at me and said, “Madam, there were no Black people in Britain before the Second World War.” And I said, “Well, no, that's not true.” .. .So I got so angry. I never found the book. I mean, I went to another bookshop, and it was right there. But I got so angry that I went home and put aside the book I was working on and wrote Black London. Now, I wasn't the first to write about this. Other people have written about it. And I wanted to both consolidate some of their research, go back to their research, and really look at everything that I could find. And then try to tell the story of Black people living in England. It was supposed to be called Black London. It was called Black London here but in England it was published as Black England. And of course, the reviewers all said, “Well, this is all about London. Why are you not calling it Black London?” which was amusing. … But I wanted to make people see … that these people are walking the same streets, we're living in the same neighborhoods. And I wanted to make it a living, breathing history. Now a lot of other people are working on this now and have done for a long time. But when I first started working on it, there weren't as many. And it wasn't known. And even now, it's not so much that it's been erased, as has been forgotten. People didn't quite realize that there had been a Black British history that goes back as far as the Romans. And they're still finding, they're excavating, you know, old Roman encampments and finding Black African nobility women. And they are doing documentaries on it. I've been in a few. So it's become quite a well-known issue now. Although there's still a great sense of many British people wanting not to understand or believe that past. I wanted to make people see … that these people are walking the same streets, we're living in the same neighborhoods. And I wanted to make it a living, breathing history.Plain JaneSo I suppose, as you say, this was almost 25 years ago, that Black London came out. You've mentioned in the BBC series that you did, Britain's Black Past, you mentioned that it's a detective job … finding these stories. How have you managed to find the stories that you found? And what was it like putting that into an audio series?Gretchen GerzinaThat was wonderful. And of course, it became a book, which was published when all the new research came out last year. So I was able to update a lot of the things … I've got to say - you're in radio - these producers … who have these independent companies and do the productions for BBC, they're incredible researchers. They sometimes find people that I hadn't been able to find, because we academics think in a very different kind of way than radio and television producers, who are out there finding people. So … I knew a lot of the people and we went to some of the places - but they were able to find some people I didn't know about. And then there were incredible stories … I think I was supposed to originally spend six months doing it. And then I was about to change jobs. And I only had one month. So I think I traveled all over Britain in one month doing the entire series. I would wake up in London and get on the train to Glasgow, spend the afternoon in Glasgow, come back to London. The next day, I go to Bristol, you know, kind of went on and on like that.Plain Jane That [sounds like] a really fun part of it. Gretchen GerzinaYeah, it was very tough. … Going to some of these places to really stand in the houses or on the shore. … But it was quite an adventure, to unearth some of these stories. And to just see how, for many people, these stories still last. People still really care.Plain JaneWhat stories have fascinated you? What have [written about] so many individual stories that are wonderful to hear. But what have you found most surprising and exciting to discover?Gretchen GerzinaThere's one - maybe it's one of the ones you're gonna ask about - which is Nathaniel Wells. And I resisted using that story. But they really pushed me because I hadn't really known it before. Nathaniel Wells was the son of a slave owner. He was mixed race. So he was the son of a [enslaved woman] and a slave owner. The owner … had daughters, but no legitimate sons. … He left this money to this mixed-race son ... He sent him off to England to be educated, as many slave owners did with their mixed-race children. And he went to boarding school and he studied. And then he died when Nathaniel was only 20 or 21, when he became the heir. He spent a lot of money. He was a young guy, and he moved to Wales to Chepstow. And he used the money to buy this enormous place. He built this incredible house. He had acres upon acres of this scenic land that was so gorgeous, that it became a kind of pleasure ground. And people would come - there was an open day - and they could come and walk through the parks and all of the mountains, and it was quite something. But he made his money. His money came from the slave plantation. And in fact, his mother owned slaves, his mother, who had been herself enslaved, and I was very reluctant to tell the story of a - essentially a Black or mixed-race - slave owner living in Britain. He married a succession of wealth, to white women … and his house is a ruin now. But he became the first Black sheriff in Britain. He had this enormous wealth. He didn't die with a lot of money. But his story was one I never expected to find. The one in my heart is always Ignatius Sancho, who's now been a play and everything.Plain JaneWhy is he the one in your heart?Gretchen GerzinaWell, because he was so amusing and so serious at the same time. He was brought as an enslaved child. He managed to get away, he was taken in by the Montague family, finally, away from these “three witches,” I think people call them now, who had owned him, didn't want him to read. So they took him in, he was educated. And he became a butler in their house for many, many years. And then he was a little on the heavy side, and then finally couldn't continue to do all his work. So they gave him a pension, and some money. And he moved to London. And he … set up a shop in Westminster, right near the heart of everything of the movers and shakers of British aristocracy and politics. And people would come into his shop. He married a Black woman, which was unusual at the time. And he wrote these letters, and he knew everybody. I mean, they would come in and talk to him. Laurence Sterne. He wrote to Laurence Sterne and [said], “If you're writing Tristram Shandy, please say something about slavery in there.” And he did. He had his portrait painted by Gainsborough. And it's quite a beautiful portrait. It's unfortunately in Canada - the British realize they made a mistake and are trying to get it back. I don't think they're going to get it. … And he was just somebody that people were so fascinated with - all of his letters have been published, his son arranged that they got published after he died. And he's still considered just a huge character. I mean, he … saw the Gordon riots and wrote about them in his letters. He knew people. And he was kind of the face of 18th century Britain in some ways, even though he's a Black man. He was also the first Black man ever to vote in England.Plain JaneSo many of these people were close to influential people and so therefore having an influence. As you point out, they're the easier ones [to discover], and the people who are able to write their own lives are easier to unearth and to find. But so many of the experiences of Black residents in London during this time were below stairs or quietly or really by necessity a lot of the time having to be under the radar. ...Gretchen Gerzina It's hard because … for instance, the British census doesn't list race. When I first published Black London, some reviewers said that I should have gone to all the rent rolls and seen who was Black. But the rent rolls don't necessarily indicate race. It's really hard to find. But the same thing happens in America. … When my book Mr. And Mrs. Prince came out about 10 years ago - it was about two formerly enslaved people who lived in New England in the 18th century. It was a long time ago. And all the stories that had been written about them were written about other people, most of whom got the facts wrong. They claimed that their ancestor had freed them or things like that, that proved not to be true. I had a publisher ask me if I had a photograph of them. And I said, “There was no photography in the 18th century, you know, what do you expect?” And… in general, you don't have your portrait painted, you don't have a journal, you're too busy getting on in life … If you're literate, you don't necessarily sit down and pen your memoirs, you know. You're just trying to get going. But on the other hand, there were people like Francis Barber, who was the servant of Samuel Johnson, and became his literary executor and heir at the end. And that was much disputed. And people were not very happy about that. So those kinds of people who were educated and were lucky enough to be known [we can learn about]. I actually think that the people who are finding out the most now are people you don't expect - genealogists who are starting to trace back family histories. A lot of white genealogists in Britain, they're finding that they have Black ancestors, and they didn't realize it.Plain Jane I'm a big fan of “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It seems like he ends every episode saying, “See how we're all connected? More than we thought we were?” … So yes, I hear you, that's really fascinating - that so many disciplines are sort of reevaluating and re-seeing, looking again, revisioning, all of this history. You're reminding me, when you talk about no photography from 18th century Britain, you're reminding me that not only are you and scholars like you having to honor these unseen histories, but you're actually having to re-tell stories where there's been a campaign of basically very racist imagery. You write about the constant, reinforcing sexualization of Black women from these times; but then also the pro-slavery imagery and campaigns that were put out there. Even the sentimentality. You say that there's sort of two versions that even those that were anti-slavery at the time, were sort of overly sentimentalized versions, like we think of Harriet Beecher Stowe. And, you know, doing a lot of good work, I suppose, and having an influence; but yet, we need to revision those stories as well. And you mentioned that you're just looking for the real people. They're real people in real places. So [you are] … having to, as you say, repaint these people?Gretchen GerzinaWell, I mean, just remember it's all worked very differently in America, and in Paris. And the way that it's memorialized or remembered is very, very different. There were certainly Black people in Britain from hundreds and hundreds of years. But there was not slavery on their soil in the same way that it was here. So they were able to sexualize women by looking at the Jamaican plantations and what happens there with a lot of rape and a lot of punishments. But this is the country, Britain is the countries, I should say, where Black minstrelsy was a television show until the 1970s. Blackface minstrelsy was not only on television, but it was in all the private homes. But at the same time, in the 19th century Uncle Tom's Cabin was the biggest thing going. People loved it, it really spoke to them. So there was Uncle Tom wallpaper. There [were] Topsy dolls. So you would go into a child's nursery and there could be wallpaper and dolls. So that sense that America was terrible, and “Look at us, we're so great. We abolished slavery before you did,” takes away the fact that for the most part, the British actually supported the American South in the Civil War. Because their cotton came from there that fueled their textile mills in the north of Britain. They didn't have the same kind of racism, it worked a little differently, but it certainly existed. But there were lots of people who were just living among them who were not necessarily known. They weren't necessarily in a book, and they were just sort of living their lives. And that's what I'm trying to write about now. But also I just really want to have a shout out to some people who are working on these things now. Miranda Kaufmann's book, Black Tutors, really sparked a huge response. … It became a huge bestseller in England. And there was a lot of pushback when people said there were no Black tutors. And she would show them the images of the people, and then all the documentation, and they didn't want to believe it. I belong within a group that she started, that is looking into Black people in British portraiture, and trying to identify who those people were. And so far, the list has over 300 British paintings that have Black people in them - they're most often a small boy servant or something, but not always. And they're scattered all over. They're in private homes. They're in museums. But there were lots of people who were just living among them who were not necessarily known. They weren't necessarily in a book, and they were just sort of living their lives. And that's what I'm trying to write about now.So there is a kind of visual reality to all of this, where you can see the people and you can understand a bit about their lives. And so people are going into the records trying to find out, who were these people? Were they borrowed sometimes, some painter would say, “Oh, you know, he's got a Black servant, let's put him in the picture and bring him over to a bigger house for a while.” So you know, trying to track them down is difficult. But there's just more and more evidence of this ongoing presence.Plain Jane You point out now in in your works the way these stories have been played, have been part of popular culture through the ages. And I guess our culture - various cultures - have worked out the stories, have worked out some of these things, either effectively or ineffectively, on the stage. And so that brings me to where much of your research deals with - the Regency era, which happens to be where so many contemporary cultural retellings, fan fiction, and romance is taking place. And then of course, we've got Bridgerton. So let me just start with a general question. We're talking about what people typically miss, but how are you experiencing some of these cultural inventions? Gretchen Gerzina Yeah, you know, I'm enjoying the heck out of this stuff. Just like a lot of [us].Sanditon, I can let go. It was, I felt, a travesty. It kept some of the book, but it actually just took things in a direction that I found very difficult. So, for example, in Sanditon, the Jane Austen novel - the fragment because it's incomplete - the heiress from the West Indies is Miss Lambe … She is not necessarily identifiably Black. They know she's mixed race. In the series, they made her a very dark-skinned woman to point out that she in fact was a Black woman. They wanted to make that visual sense very strong for people like “Oh, we're dealing with a Black woman here.” Whereas I think in Austen it was more subtle and probably more accurate about how somebody like her would have been seen. But Bridgerton just went over the top, and I just thought it was fabulous. Because we do know that Queen Charlotte probably had some mixed-race background. She was the wife of King George III. So she's presented as a mixed-race or dark woman … But then by just making everybody in it, you know, it was like saying, “Okay, what if we recognize that all these people were there? And assuming that they could have made their way into the aristocracy, how would this world have looked?” And I think the visual treat of it all is just really great. And we all know that that is not how Regency England looked. But we can say, “You know what? I would like to see what this looks like. If this could have been true, what would it have looked like?” And of course, it's just like a visual feast anyway. It's not just the racial stuff. It's the clothes and the sets.Plain JaneTell us more, Professor Gerzina, about Queen Charlotte. You did an entire Zoom talk event with JASNA, the Jane Austen Society of North America, about these questions, and this sort of casting and Black Britain and its history. And there were hundreds of people on the Zoom. But you talked about Queen Charlotte, and the chat room just went crazy. … So it was very, very lively. So anyway, all of that to say - tell us about Queen Charlotte?Gretchen GerzinaShe had … Portuguese family so that there were a lot of that movement between North Africa, the kind of what we would think of as North Africa today. But she probably had some ancestry through her Portuguese ancestors who might have been Black. When I was doing some research on Black people who left America and moved to Canada after the Revolutionary War, those who had become the British patriots, the Black ones, a lot of them went to Canada. So I was in Nova Scotia at a center there on Black history in the province. And I noticed they had - I think it was a picture of Queen Charlotte on the wall - and I said, “Oh, what do you think of that? Do you think she was part Black?” And he said that Princess Anne had come to visit many years before and had seen the portrait and was asked about it. And she said, “Well, everybody in the royal family knows she was Black.” So that means to me Meghan Markle wasn't the first. So there's some history there. It can't be necessarily proven, but it's pretty well seen as probably true that she had some Black ancestry, and her portraits do seem to indicate that as well. But you know, the other one I really like is David Copperfield. And what you have to do in this - the same as in fiction - is you have to create a world that you will believe. You may not like all the characters, but you have to create a vision of a world that you are saying, “Okay, I'm, I'm willing to go into this world with you.” And see and believe. It's the willing suspension of disbelief, and I'm willing to do that. Do they create a world that I can believe in Bridgerton? We know it's fantasy, and fun, with some historical elements. And yes, I'm willing to throw myself into that world.Plain JaneI was a graduate student at UCL in London, during 1994 and 1995, and everybody was reading Cultural Imperialism. I literally saw people reading it on the tube in London. And I was falling in love with someone who was an Arab-English person with the name Saidi - close to Edward Said's name. So I was as a grad student in literature and also wanting to dive into our views and our histories and how race plays into that. These conversations are still going. Edward Said even writes about Jane Austen. And he writes about Mansfield Park, and he writes - really similar to you writing at the same time - we need to investigate the unseen in these stories, tell the unseen stories, which is so much what you're doing, as well. So my question is - almost going on 25 years, are we getting any better at this? Gretchen Gerzina  Well, you know, there's more being written and more being published all the time. David Olusoga's books. And all of his television programs in England are very well known. He's quite the face of Black British history and studies now. Others have been writing about it for decades. But I think what's interesting is that there's still a kind of resistance to it, to believing it. There are several things going on. One is ... the report the National Trust put out recently, which ... hired some academics and some others to take a look at the colonial and imperial and slave connections between some of the National Trust houses. And I think they listed 93 houses in the National Trust that have some kind of connection. That wasn't to say that they were houses where there was plantation slavery or anything, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that the money that was earned either out of the slave trade, or out of imperialism, or out of colonialism. [It] funded and help build, and perpetuate those houses. A lot of the money that was earned came from, originally, from the slave trade and slavery, and all of those absentee slave owners who had plantations in the West Indies. But also, from the fact that when they, when slavery ended in the West Indies in 1807, that they decided to compensate the slave owners for the loss of the enslaved people who had lived on those plantations. The enslaved people were not compensated, while the slave owners were. And a wonderful book and study done by Nicholas Draper, about the legacy of all of this showed how all of that money that was made from that compensation - built these houses. It funded the philanthropy; huge swaths of London were built based on that money. And all around the country. So they wanted to just say, “Hey, if you're going to come to one of these houses, this is great. You can look at it, you can see it, you can appreciate the beauty of it. You can see how the generations of owners contributed to the culture and the landscape and all of that. But in fact, you should recognize that the money came from colonialism. And also from imperialism.” You know, the houses were filled with porcelain from China. They were built on land that used to be tenanted, but pushed the tenants off and made a beautiful landscape that made it look like it had always been there. And they had built these houses based on that money. When that report came out, the backlash was quite strong. People did not want to hear about this. They thought, “Why do we fund a National Trust, and it spends its money on being woke?” Plain JaneInteresting. They don't see it as factual. They don't see it as history. They see it as politics happening.Gretchen GerzinaYes, they do. And there's also some work being done now on updating the curriculum in schools. So some more of this is being learned at a younger age.Plain JaneSo when you say in 1993, and you've been doing this ever since, among many other things that you're reconstructing, you don't even just mean that figuratively. I mean, your writing takes us down the streets. And really paints a visual picture ...and I would add to that the landscapes of the houses. Also sugar and so much of the economic foundations are part of what I think Edward Said was calling the interplay. … You you paint a picture of, you know, Elizabethan England and … Regency England then as well, and then even Victorian Britain as being a very cruel and violent place. And I think that in many ways, our PBS adaptations [etc] really do [whitewash] these histories in so many ways. You also point out the cruelty, the disease. But what I want to say, besides the cruelty, the disease, and just the ignorance that was rampant in these times, that we tend to forget about - probably, thanks to our screen adaptations - it was there. You found a community of Black residents in London during these times - not just individual people who were famous; they were portrayed on the stage; they were recounted in stories; and many of them were musicians, writers, very fascinating individuals - but also a community. And that was you've talked about how difficult that was to unearth. Can you talk about how you uncovered this community and the difficulty of doing that?Gretchen Gerzina A lot of that came from people who had been researching this for quite a long time. In terms of community, there are people who've been doing tons of research since my book came out. And they have been finding people and they've been finding communities. We can't be sure how much of a community there was. But we do know that there were communities - people lived in certain places and certain areas, they were part of the fabric of the kind of working class. There were people that we call the Sons of Africa. Some people have questioned whether there were as many and met as frequently as was thought … But we do know that they were there. “Hey, if you're going to come to one of these houses, this is great. You can look at it, you can see it, you can appreciate the beauty of it. You can see how the generations of owners contributed to the culture and the landscape and all of that. But in fact, you should recognize that the money came from colonialism. And also from imperialism.” And it was interesting to just think of the fact that in all of these grand houses that had Black servants, that those servants in the households, they socialized with each other. Those servants were meeting in the kitchen. Those servants were talking. And those servants were marrying the white servants, because they were mostly Black men. And then you get a sense of just this kind of other world where if Samuel Johnson is having dinner with Sir Joshua Reynolds, or with the great actors of the period, that their Black servants are probably hanging out, talking to each other. So there was a kind of network of people, definitely, who were living [among] them. And then, of course, after the Revolutionary War in America, when so many Black people had been convinced to fight for the British in exchange for their freedom. A lot of them ended up in Britain, that had been part of the promise. And so they came over in their hundreds. Plain JaneThat's fascinating - I think that you pointed out that something like 20 percent, of the soldiers fighting on both sides in the Revolutionary War with America were Black soldiers. They came back to England. And then you also pointed out they were not allowed, they were actually banned from learning crafts, learning trades ....?Gretchen GerzinaI'm not sure that they so much were banned from learning trades; they just found it difficult to find work. And also if, if they were poor, it's not so easy to move around in England at that time. I mean, physically, it's difficult. But also, it's often difficult to find work. And if you, Heaven forbid, get sick and die, you can't necessarily be buried where you're living because you're not officially part of that parish. So it's a very different kind of system than we might [envision]. And so a lot of people who worked on the British side, and obviously on the American side, in the Revolutionary War, were not just soldiers but they were doing other things: They were guides, they were helping to lead them through different terrain; they were washing clothes, they were cooking. They were following them and giving them advice.And then they also did fight. So, yes, they worked in a variety of ways and the British said, “Hey, come on our side and we'll give you your freedom and we'll give you a pension.” And then, lo and behold, the British lost then, and they came.Plain JaneOkay. So: Dido Belle and Mansfield Park - basically thoughts on that? There's also the book The Woman of Colour and there's this experience of Francis Barber and some of the others that you've mentioned. But  … what are your thoughts on Mansfield Park and is it possible that Jane Austen knew the story of Dido Belle?Gretchen GerzinaIt's possible. I have to think about the timing of it all. So Dido Elizabeth Belle of course, has nothing to do with Mansfield Park, although her great uncle who raised her was Lord Mansfield, who made a famous court decision that a Black person could not be returned to slavery in Jamaica. And that was taken by many people to say that slavery was no longer legal in England, and people ran away and said, “Hallelujah.” But in fact, that's not what the decision was.He also presided over the case of the Zhong [ship], where a slave ship had thrown over a huge number of people ... in order to collect the insurance. And he came down hard on that case. So Dido Elizabeth Belle was raised by him .. but a lot of research has been done since the film Belle was made. And a lot of that film took a lot of liberties with it. So Dido was mixed-race, and her mother was - [but] Dido was not - born into slavery. And that was a misconception. Her mother actually came and lived in England, near her, with her, for some time. And then went back to Pensacola, where she had been living in [an] old property. Dido was given some money, and so she was able to marry. But she didn't marry an abolitionist, like in the film. She married a man who'd been a steward to an important French family. And so that was still a high-up position, but it was not the big raging lawyer abolitionist [as in the film].… And I think the biggest thing about it was that her portrait was just a double portrait of herself, and of their cousin. It became the cover of my Black London book - and was later re-used by The Woman of Colour. So there's a lot of interpreting this portrait that people try to do.So I've spent a lot of time trying to track down the true story, to use the research of these other people who have done such a good job. Plain JaneWhat would you like people to keep in mind as they're watching and reading Regency era histories and romance? Just realize there are real people behind some of this. We know now that Jane Austen was likely an abolitionist, although she didn't write political things in her novels. We know that in Mansfield Park there are mentions of - and we know that the money came from - slavery. And so there was some reference to sugar and some other things in there. So we know that she's aware of it. But she doesn't make it front and center, because that's not what she does as a novelist. But I think it's really good for people who want to read these books - [to know] that there was a more racially diverse society than people realized. And that there were Black people there. And that in the places where she went and lived - because she lived in a number of places, she had to move around a lot - that she would have seen people like this.And so it's really good to remember that this was a very different world and people have now accepted it. And I think to understand and accept that, it makes it more interesting. It doesn't diminish it at all.——-Thank you for listening, reading and being with us, friends.Let us know your thoughts! Have you watched the increasingly diverse casts making up Regency and 19th century British stories like Bridgerton, A Personal History of David Copperfield, and Sanditon? What would you like to see more of in these retellings and screen adaptations? Want to know more about Queen Charlotte? Write us at AustenConnection@gmail.com.If you like this conversation, feel free to share it!And if you'd like to read more about Black life in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, here are some of the people and projects that Gretchen Gerzina mentioned during this conversation - enjoy!Gretchen Gerzina's website: https://gretchengerzina.com//BBC program on Britain's Black Past:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07wpf5vSee: National Trust research into the connection to the slave trade in its great houses: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/addressing-the-histories-of-slavery-and-colonialism-at-the-national-trustThe report: https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdfAll things Georgian - Gretchen recommends in interview: https://georgianera.wordpress.com/David Olusoga:  https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/magazine/features/david-olusoga/Dido Belle as Fanny Price: http://jasna.org/publications-2/essay-contest-winning-entries/2017/a-biracial-fanny-price/Peter Fryer's Staying Power: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745338309/staying-power/Mirands Kaufmann's Black Tudors: http://www.mirandakaufmann.com/black-tudors.htmlGet these and all our Austen Connection conversations delivered to your inbox, when you subscribe - it's free! Get full access to The Austen Connection at austenconnection.substack.com/subscribe

Neste episódio, falamos sobre a vida da autora de "Orgulho e Preconceito", como os principais temas da sociedade britânica do século XVIII atravessaram seu trabalho e seus traços vistos em grandes nomes da Literatura Brasileira. Nossas entrevistadas são Jackie Herring, diretora do Jane Austen Festival, no Reino Unido, e Adriana Sales Zardini, da Jane Austen Society do Brasil. Este é o segundo episódio da série #LiteratureIsGREAT. Estamos conversando sobre sete dos nomes indispensáveis da Literatura Britânica. O GREATCast é produzido pela equipe de Comunicação e Diplomacia Pública da Embaixada Britânica no Brasil, com produção da Maremoto Podcasts e apoio do British Council. Saiba mais sobre o nosso trabalho nas redes sociais, em @UKinBrazil

John J. Miller is joined by Susannah Fullerton of the Jane Austen Society of Australia to discuss Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park.'

Natalie Jenner is the author of two books, the instant international bestseller THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY and a second novel slated for release in spring 2022. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction, THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY was named one of the best books of 2020 by Amazon, was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller, and has been sold for translation in twenty countries. Born in England and raised in Canada, Natalie has been a corporate lawyer, career coach and, most recently, an independent bookstore owner in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. 

It's a Jane Austen episode on which Kimberly Brangwin Milham from the Jane Austen Society of North America joins Billy Via Zoom to discuss Austen's work and influence. This episode is for: People who like their authors long dead, people who have seen Bridget Jones's Diary, fans of Firth. This episode is not for: Mark Twain, enemies of the early 19th century (you know who you are,) people who confuse Jane Austen with Stone Cold Steve Austin

Have we mentioned how much we love audiobooks? We’ve both been avid listeners for a long time, but between pandemic life and Sara’s Aspen Words reading,  this has been a banner year for audiobooks. Today, we’re each sharing twelve of our favorite listening experiences. With a mix of literary fiction, romance, nonfiction, and YA, today’s episode has an audiobook recommendation for every reader.  Follow Novel Pairings on Instagram or Twitter.  Use our Libro.fm affiliate code NOVELPAIRINGS to get an audiobook subscription for yourself or purchase a gift.  Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get updates on what we're currently listening to.  View all of our recs  and shop our links on the blog.  Chelsey's Favorites: Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Switch by Beth O’Leary // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Voting Booth by Brandy Colbert // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Here for It: Or How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas. // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Sara's Favorites: The City We Became by NK Jemison // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Members Only by Sameer Pandya // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Stamped The Remix by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X Kendi // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Intimations by Zadie Smith // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit // Amazon // Bookshop The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Annaparra // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm The Remains of the Day // Amazon // Bookshop // Libro.fm

"A drinking club with a book problem," Mary Miller gives us the wonderful scoop on Jane Austen. I mean she would know she's been the Indiana Regional Coordinator for the Jane Austen Society of North America. This episode is full of Jane fun for that ranges from the scholar to the recreational user (AKA "Bonnets"). More info at: galsguide.org Patreon: patreon.com/galsguide Facebook: www.facebook.com/galsguidelibrary/ Twitter: twitter.com/GalsGuideLib    

Natalie discusses her debut novel The Jane Austen Society, the long-lasting impact and continued relevance of Jane Austen’s books, the importance of independent book stores, launching a debut novel during the pandemic, and more.The Jane Austen Society can be purchased at Murder by the Book.  Natalie’s 3 recommended reads are:Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc TranThe All-Night Sun by Diane ZinnaCuyahoga by Pete Beatty

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We love to take time to reflect here at Novel Pairings. Each season, we stop and consider our favorite episodes, our favorite reads, and what we’ve learned. Today we’re sharing some personal updates, gushing about our favorite reads of the summer, and giving listeners a peek at what’s to come in the fall.  Shop our Quarterly Favorites on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/lists/quarterly-favorites-spring-2020/ Use our referral code to get two audiobooks for the price of one through Libro.fm: https://libro.fm/redeem/novelpairings   Books we both read: Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo [14:03] The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett [16:45] The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham [18:24] The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavincencio [21:27]   Chelsey: Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert [29:17] The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin [36:15] We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry [40:52] The Duke Effect by Sophie Jordan [47:10] Would I Lie to the Duke by Eva Leigh [55:25]   Sara: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell [25:50] Heavy by Kiese Laymon [32:45] Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan [38:13] The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner [44:52] One to Watch by Kate Staymon-London [50:34]

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Chawton was the final home of Jane Austen, one of England's finest novelists. Now it's home to a few distant relatives and their diminishing estate. With the last bit of Austen's legacy threatened, a group of disparate individuals come together to preserve both Jane Austen's home and her legacy.

We’re Ellie and Traci, two bookish friends who read in every spare minute that we have!  In this episode, we will talk about atmospheric books - namely hot books.  Join us at instagram @literally_reading.  What we are Literally Reading: 3:07 - Tweet Cute (Ellie) 4:28 - The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes (Ellie)  5:56 - Eight Perfect Murders (Traci) What we are Literally Listening To: 10:09 - Tell Me Three Things (Traci) 12:06 - What to Say Next 12:15 - Admission 12:56 - Stand All the Way Up (Ellie) Hot Books: 19:07 - Beach Read 20:18 - The Great Alone 22:06 - The Great Gatsby 23:48 - Beartown 23:49 - Us Against You  24:14 - Little Women 24:30 - Louise Penny 25:31 - The Dry 28:06 - The Lost Man 28:33 - The Lola Quartet 28:38 - Station Eleven 28:41 - The Glass Hotel 33:15 - Where the Crawdads Sing 37:08 - Dune 38:16 - Red Rising 38:49 - The Secret Life of Bees Reading Goals: 40:17 - The Jane Austen Society 41:02 - Beach Read Using the Amazon affiliate links costs the same for you but we receive a small portion back.  Thank you for supporting our show! Happy Reading!

Book Talk @ 14:40   Join the Zoom Chats: Tuesday is 5am Eastern (for New Zealand and Australia & the UK) Register in advance for this meeting:   After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Thursday is 7pm Eastern: Register in advance for this meeting:  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Brush H2O petit by Kuretake (at Joanns! ) in general - how to fill the water brush pens with a black gasket: How to fill/use the water pens withOUT a black gasket: NEW MASK fabric research:  and thus, NEW mask version using Olsen Mask pattern:  and a video to the Convertible Mask pattern: And the convertible mask  (under it you'll find links to her site) Aimee's yarn store: DyeHouse Yarns. Aimee's LYS yarn line. (Brick & mortar going out of biz).  Kathi's podcast: Bonnets at Dawn - scale of 0 to Thornton:     Tuesday Book Chat Naada - just fun! Thursday Book Chat Kathi - Scaramouch on Classic Tales Podcast....(surprisingly relatable to current world) -  Kathi: Classic Tales start page for Sacramouche  Kathi: Bonnets at Dawn Podcast   Jennifer - Frank Lloyd Wright socks:  Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy Sayers (YAY!!!!) -  Peter Wimsey (Edward Petherbridge):  Edyta - reading Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer -   Heather: Outsider in Amsterdam (Grijpstra & de Gier Mystery #1)  Mary: The Happiness Project - by Gretchen Rubin (audiobook read by her) -  Dianne - Bellweather - by Susanna Kiersley -  - (historical novel with bits of spookiness) Dianne--1955  - Stillmeadow Daybook - Gladys Taber -  - Month by Month (kind of like Elizabeth Zimmerman) but for her the big thing is The Bomb Dianne - listened to Jane Austen Society narrated by Richard Armitage The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton "Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day"  Mary: July 15-19 Vogue Knitting Live 2020 - now online! Regina's perfect lipstick color: Cherries in the Snow, Revlon -  -- Folk shawls - making shawl with pockets20:51:04   Okay Fine Whatever:  Candace: Okay Fine Whatever - The Year I Went from Being Afraid of Everything to Only Being Afraid of Most Things - by Courtenay Hameister -  --They did bad things by lauren a. forry -  one of the NoWhere BookShop books! Jennie Lawson - the Bloggess (in San Antonio TX)  Dianne: Acorn TV - Victorian House of Arts & Crafts -  Sarah (scarahliz) :  - @QueerRoulette Sarah -  yarn - botany color way with Shrug To live & defy in LA - how gangsta rap changed america felicia angeja viator -  Heather: Gary Larson's back!!!!   Edyta: Mycophelia - weird world of mushrooms - - Eugenia Bone Jessica - Handspun shawl - pebble and beach shawl - simple crescent with simple lattice -  Jessica: Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park -  (not for under  Kelly - Ulysses by James Joyce  -   Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage - by Kurt Vonnegut - NY Times Crossword subscription:  -  Deathnote Anime - good (don't watch live action) Heather: really goofy Kung Fu Fighting video - from Mr Manos  Aimee: Fastest musicals - ‘Hamilton’%20Is%20The%20Very%20Model%20Of%20A%20Modern,%20%205.0%20%201%20more%20rows%20 (Not) getting married today (Madeline Kahn) -  Aimee: DyeHouse Yarns. Aimee's LYS yarn line. (Brick & mortar going out of biz).   Ways of seeing by John Berger - 01-  02 -   - 03 -  Connections -  Contrapoints on cancel culture - 

For those of us in need of an uplifting, comforting, and escapist read about pulling together in troubled times and finding solace in community, the highly anticipated 2020 debut The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner is the perfect pick and I’d love to suggest Jenner as a guest on your show for May/June. Plus, the audiobook is narrated by Richard Armitage (British actor from North & South, The Hobbit, and more) – what could be more soothing than that? Plot: World War II has just ended and Austen’s Chawton estate is at risk of being broken up and sold off to the highest bidder. Despite battling demons of their own, an unlikely group of locals and Austen fans (a schoolteacher, a local doctor, a Hollywood actress, a Sotheby’s auctioneer, a farmer, and a young house servant) fight to ensure that her legacy lives on, finding hope and healing in the process. A powerful and moving novel that explores the tragedies and triumphs of life, both small and large, and the universal humanity in us.

For those of us in need of an uplifting, comforting, and escapist read about pulling together in troubled times and finding solace in community, the highly anticipated 2020 debut The Jane Austen Society (St. Martin’s Press, on sale May 26) by Natalie Jenner is the perfect pick and I’d love to suggest Jenner as a guest on your show for May/June. Plus, the audiobook is narrated by Richard Armitage (British actor from North & South, The Hobbit, and more) – what could be more soothing than that? Plot: World War II has just ended and Austen’s Chawton estate is at risk of being broken up and sold off to the highest bidder. Despite battling demons of their own, an unlikely group of locals and Austen fans (a schoolteacher, a local doctor, a Hollywood actress, a Sotheby’s auctioneer, a farmer, and a young house servant) fight to ensure that her legacy lives on, finding hope and healing in the process. A powerful and moving novel that explores the tragedies and triumphs of life, both small and large, and the universal humanity in us.

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Natalie Jenner. Natalie Jenner was born in England, raised in Canada, and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in English Literature and Law. She worked for decades in the legal industry and also founded an independent bookstore in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. The Jane Austen Society is the first published novel for this lifelong devotee of all things Jane Austen and is out now. In this episode Natalie and I discuss: How Jane Austen inspired her to begin writing again after a break. Why Jane Austen is an excellent influence for contemporary writers. Her method for getting started on a book (hint: you can do it too!). Plus, her #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/313

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” These words, from Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are, perhap, some of the reasons why many readers swoon over his character and develop a love for Austen and her works. Other readers, though, like our guest this week, Amanda Beverly, see their families or people they know in the quirky individuals who make up Austen's communities. Whatever your reason for liking Austen's world, there is a way you can immerse yourself in it, which is through The Jane Austen Festival, an annual event that, due to COVID, is virtual this year. Running from July10-12, the festival includes a variety of workshops, author talks, and Q&A that helps attendees get a taste of what the Regency Period and Austen are like. In our episode this week, Amanda talks about how she became involved with the Jane Austen Society of North America--Greater Louisville Region and what their meetings are like, how it seems the things she can learn about Jane Austen's books and her time period are endless, and why newbies shouldn't feel intimidated, and why the Louisville chapter of the society is known as the Fashion region. Book Discussed in This Episode Jane Austen books 1- Pride and Prejudice 2- Sense and Sensibility 3- Emma 4- Persuasion 5- Northanger Abbey Other books discussed 1- Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder 2- The Redwall series by Brian Jacques 3- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis 4- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 5- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith 6- Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters 7- Among the Janeites : A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe 8- Unmarriageable by Sonia Kamal 9- This is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope by Shayla Dawson 10- Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson 11- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 12- Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan 13- This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel Movies mentioned: 1- Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth - 1995 miniseries 2- Bride and Prejudice (Bollywood) - 2004 3- Clueless - 1995 Podcasts mentioned: 1- Bonnets at Dawn   You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.        

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” These words, from Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are, perhap, some of the reasons why many readers swoon over his character and develop a love for Austen and her works. Other readers, though, like our guest this week, Amanda Beverly, see their families or people they know in the quirky individuals who make up Austen’s communities. Whatever your reason for liking Austen’s world, there is a way you can immerse yourself in it, which is through The Jane Austen Festival, an annual event that, due to COVID, is virtual this year. Running from July10-12, the festival includes a variety of workshops, author talks, and Q&A that helps attendees get a taste of what the Regency Period and Austen are like. In our episode this week, Amanda talks about how she became involved with the Jane Austen Society of North America--Greater Louisville Region and what their meetings are like, how it seems the things she can learn about Jane Austen’s books and her time period are endless, and why newbies shouldn’t feel intimidated, and why the Louisville chapter of the society is known as the Fashion region. Book Discussed in This Episode Jane Austen books 1- Pride and Prejudice 2- Sense and Sensibility 3- Emma 4- Persuasion 5- Northanger Abbey Other books discussed 1- Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder 2- The Redwall series by Brian Jacques 3- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis 4- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 5- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith 6- Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters 7- Among the Janeites : A Journey Through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe 8- Unmarriageable by Sonia Kamal 9- This is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope by Shayla Dawson 10- Miss Buncle's Book by D. E. Stevenson 11- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 12- Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs by Jennifer Finney Boylan 13- This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel Movies mentioned: 1- Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth - 1995 miniseries 2- Bride and Prejudice (Bollywood) - 2004 3- Clueless - 1995 Podcasts mentioned: 1- Bonnets at Dawn You can find us on FB, instagram (@perksofbeingabookloverpod) and on our blog site at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com Perks airs on Forward Radio 106.5 FM and forwardradio.org every Wednesday at 6 pm, Thursdays at 6 am and 12 pm. We have purchased the rights to the theme music used.

For those of us in need of an uplifting, comforting, and escapist read about pulling together in troubled times and finding solace in community, the highly anticipated 2020 debut The Jane Austen Society (St. Martin’s Press, on sale May 26) by Natalie Jenner is the perfect pick and I’d love to suggest Jenner as a guest on your show for May/June. Plus, the audiobook is narrated by Richard Armitage (British actor from North & South, The Hobbit, and more) – what could be more soothing than that? Plot: World War II has just ended and Austen’s Chawton estate is at risk of being broken up and sold off to the highest bidder. Despite battling demons of their own, an unlikely group of locals and Austen fans (a schoolteacher, a local doctor, a Hollywood actress, a Sotheby’s auctioneer, a farmer, and a young house servant) fight to ensure that her legacy lives on, finding hope and healing in the process. A powerful and moving novel that explores the tragedies and triumphs of life, both small and large, and the universal humanity in us.

I had the best conversation with Natalie Jenner who is a debut author of The Jane Austen Society. Her historical fiction depicts eight extremely different people at the end of World War II who are all dealing with trauma and loss in different ways, and bond over an unknown shared love of Jane Austen. It’s based on an account of the actual formation of the first Jane Austen Society during World War II. Her book is transportive, and you can feel how inspired she was writing it. Plus, her own life story about opening a bookstore with her husband before finding out he was sick gives a unique perspective on hope.  

For a new kind of interview, Carol is joined this week by Suzanne Skyvara, who is the Vice President of Marketing & Editorial at Goodreads, and Danny Feekes, the Managing Editor at Goodreads. As one of the most useful resources for book lovers, Goodreads has a big hand in sharing great and exciting new reads. A whole host of incredible books have just come out, or will be out soon, ranging from thrillers to literary fiction to memoirs and more. As they make recommendations for great reading, Suzanne and Danny are sharing their thoughts about some books that are trending with Goodreads members that may be flying under the radar, as well as more well-known titles. Both Suzanne and Danny have been meaningful voices in the reading community for quite some time, so we're happy to have them with us this week! Books discussed in this episode: A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45046796-a-bad-day-for-sunshine Beach Read by Emily Henry https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52867387-beach-read Safe by S.K. Barnett https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51591889-safe The Girl Beneath the Sea by Andrew Mayne https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50938104-the-girl-beneath-the-sea Ghosts of Harvard by Francesca Serritella https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52179715-ghosts-of-harvard Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53152636-mexican-gothic The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44074800-the-southern-book-club-s-guide-to-slaying-vampires The Prisoner's Wife by Maggie Brookes https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48890235-the-prisoner-s-wife The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51791252-the-vanishing-half Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49235526-hollywood-park Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44131181-saving-ruby-king The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43557477-the-jane-austen-society Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50157769-daughters-of-smoke-and-fire The Women With Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II by Katherine Sharp Landdeck https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51701648-the-women-with-silver-wings Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52516332-clap-when-you-land Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50253429-rodham When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49933185-when-time-stopped

Please join us for an interview with debut author Natalie Jenner, whose delightful book THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY was released in May 2020 from St. Martin's Press (NA) and Orion (UK). The book follows a group of unlikely Janeites in postwar England who come together to save Chawton cottage, and wind up saving themselves instead (through reading Jane, of course!). We discuss Natalie's personal relationship with Austen, her connection to Chawton, and what inspired her to create her story and characters. We also delve into some fascinating insights about Austen's work that are woven into the book. As a meditation on what Austen can mean to us through difficult times, The Jane Austen Society is the perfect book for First Impressions listeners, especially those ready to experiment with reading Austen-related fiction. SPOILER NOTE: Although we attempt to avoid major spoilers in this podcast, we do discuss the book's characters and relationships in depth. If you like to be completely unaware of these details when you begin a new book, we recommend only listening to the first 15 minutes or so of this podcast!

This week, Annie recaps the fourteen books she read during the month of May, all of which can be purchased on The Bookshelf’s website: Meet Me at Midnight by Jessica Pennington The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker American Royals by Katherine McGee You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Beach Read by Emily Henry Old Lovegood Girls by Gail Godwin Sea Wife by Amity Gaige All Things Reconsidered by Knox McCoy Kristy's Great Idea by Ann M. Martin (Buy your own Babysitter’s Book Club bundle here!) The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.  Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.  This week, Annie is finishing The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner. If you liked what you heard on today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on iTunes. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us on Patreon, where you can hear our staff’s weekly New Release Tuesday conversations, read full book reviews in our monthly Shelf Life newsletter, follow along as Hunter and I conquer a classic, and receive free shipping on all your online orders. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.

Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2xYMg3r 'A wonderful book, a wonderful read' Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club 'Hope can sometimes be just enough.' It's only a few months since the war ended but the little village of Chawton is about to be hit by another devastating blow. The heart of the community and site of Jane Austen's cherished former home, Chawton estate is in danger of being sold to the highest bidder. Eight villagers are brought together by their love for the famous author's novels, to create The Jane Austen Society. As new friendships form and the pain of the past begins to heal, surely they can find a way to preserve Austen's legacy before it is too late? And there may even be a few unexpected surprises along the way... A heartbreaking and uplifting novel of hope, loss and love. Perfect for fans of Miss Austen by Gill Hornby and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2xYMg3r 'A wonderful book, a wonderful read' Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club 'Hope can sometimes be just enough.' It's only a few months since the war ended but the little village of Chawton is about to be hit by another devastating blow. The heart of the community and site of Jane Austen's cherished former home, Chawton estate is in danger of being sold to the highest bidder. Eight villagers are brought together by their love for the famous author's novels, to create The Jane Austen Society. As new friendships form and the pain of the past begins to heal, surely they can find a way to preserve Austen's legacy before it is too late? And there may even be a few unexpected surprises along the way... A heartbreaking and uplifting novel of hope, loss and love. Perfect for fans of Miss Austen by Gill Hornby and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

In this episode Philippa reviews “The Curator” by M W Craven (out next month), “Flake” by Matthew Dooley (Graphic Novel), “Cows” by Dawn O’Porter (Paperback), “Beating About The Bush” by M C Beaton (Hardback) and “The Jane Austen Society” by Natalie Jenner (Audiobook). Such fun!

Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2xYMg3r 'A wonderful book, a wonderful read' Karen Joy Fowler, bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club 'Hope can sometimes be just enough.' It's only a few months since the war ended but the little village of Chawton is about to be hit by another devastating blow. The heart of the community and site of Jane Austen's cherished former home, Chawton estate is in danger of being sold to the highest bidder. Eight villagers are brought together by their love for the famous author's novels, to create The Jane Austen Society. As new friendships form and the pain of the past begins to heal, surely they can find a way to preserve Austen's legacy before it is too late? And there may even be a few unexpected surprises along the way... A heartbreaking and uplifting novel of hope, loss and love. Perfect for fans of Miss Austen by Gill Hornby and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer

If you hadn't heard, Maggie and Kristin recently attended the Jane Austen Society of North America's Annual Meeting! Are you ready to hear about all the fun we had at JASNA 2019 in Williamsburg? Wondering what new insights we have into the conference's theme, Northanger Abbey? Or just wondering if Kristin and Maggie managed not to embarrass themselves? Check out this JASNA recap episode where we share funny stories, fascinating details, and all our favorite moments from the conference.

This week, we discuss our afternoon at the Jane Austen Society of North America Southwest event - what we learned and who was there! ~~~ Send us your questions or comments at: thepemberleypodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook: @thepemberley Visit our website: thepemberleypodcast.com  Join JASNA here!

This week on Can I Just Say, we discuss the 1996 and 2009 adaptations of Jane Austen’s Emma and we will try not to kill Knightly’s dogs….Listen to our discussion of the book EmmaVisit the website of the Jane Austen Society of North AmericaSupport us on Patreon for Black Sails commentary tracks, bonus episodes, and our undying love.Buy Elizabeth's Book or See Daphne's JewelryFollow us on Twitter! @JustSayPodcast and use the hashtag #CanIJustSayE-mail us at Podcast@CommonRoomRadio.comMusic - Me and Billy Barnum by Josh Woodward. Free download: www.joshwoodward.com

This week on Can I Just Say, we discuss Jane Austen’s Emma, our well meaning and often misguided heroine of a very different sort than we have met up until this point. We talk of responsibility and pride and what may be the true meaning of ‘extensive grounds’Listen to the podcast about Austenistan: www.npr.org/2018/07/10/627779858/austenistanThis is the article Elizabeth referenced:https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/05/jane-austen-emma-changed-face-fictionListen to our podcast on Jane Austen’s book Pride and Prejudice hereand on Sense and Sensibility with Louise Barnes as our guest hereVisit the website of the Jane Austen Society of North AmericaSupport us on Patreon for Black Sails commentary tracks, bonus episodes, and our undying love.Buy Elizabeth's Book or See Daphne's JewelryFollow us on Twitter! @JustSayPodcast and use the hashtag #CanIJustSayE-mail us at Podcast@CommonRoomRadio.comMusic - Me and Billy Barnum by Josh Woodward. Free download: www.joshwoodward.com

This week on Can I Just Say, Andrew Dyce joins us to discuss the 1995 and 2005 adaptations of Pride and Prejudice. We had a fantastic conversation, a crazy revelation mid-podcast, and sadly some tech problems and not our usual standard of audio quality (sorry!) We find great enjoyment in professing opinions which in fact are our own.Find Andrew Dyce on twitter as @andrewbdyce and his writing at SreenRant.com – and especially his piece on the Black Sails finale (SPOILERS) hereListen to our podcast on Jane Austen’s book Pride and Prejudice hereVisit the website of the Jane Austen Society of North AmericaSupport us on Patreon for Black Sails commentary tracks, bonus episodes, and our undying love.Buy Elizabeth's Book or See Daphne's JewelryFollow us on Twitter! @JustSayPodcast and use the hashtag #CanIJustSayE-mail us at Podcast@CommonRoomRadio.comMusic - Me and Billy Barnum by Josh Woodward. Free download: www.joshwoodward.com

This week, Yolanda and Jillian report LIVE (somewhat) from the Jane Austen Society of North America Southwest conference. It was splendid, educational, and delightful! ~~~ Learn more about JASNA here: http://jasnasw.com/ Send us your questions or comments at: thepemberleypodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook: @thepemberley

This week on Can I Just Say, our Jane Austen discussions continue with the beloved 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. We sing the praises of Emma Thompson, we have a really hard time picking one favorite thing, and we have a great time discussing the relationship between a book and a well done adaptation.Find our discussion of the book Sense and Sensibility hereVisit the website of the Jane Austen Society of North AmericaSupport us on Patreon for Black Sails commentary tracks, bonus episodes, and our undying love.Buy Elizabeth's Book or See Daphne's JewelryFollow us on Twitter! @JustSayPodcast and use the hashtag #CanIJustSayE-mail us at Podcast@CommonRoomRadio.comMusic - Me and Billy Barnum by Josh Woodward. Free download: www.joshwoodward.com

Jane Austen is one of Britain's favourite authors, but Austen's appeal reaches far beyond the shores of her birthplace; her writing is universal. In this podcast, we met Laaleen Sukhera, British-Pakistani writer, media consultant, founder of the Jane Austen Society of Pakistan and creator of 'Austenistan'. The anthology of seven short stories are inspired by Jane Austen's work, and set in contemporary Pakistan. We caught up with Laaleen along with one of the contributors, molecular biologist Gayathri Warnasuriya, at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka to find out more about how the collaboration came about, and the parallels it draws between Austen's Regency era England and modern Pakistan. Read the blog: https://literature.britishcouncil.org/blog/2018/q-a-kristina-sabaliauskaite/podcast-austenistan Find out more about 'Austenistan': https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/austenistan-9789386950260/ Find out more about the Galle Literary Festival: https://galleliteraryfestival.com/

This week on StoryWeb: Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. For my mother, Bonnie Burrows, in honor of her birthday “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” There are few opening lines to novels as famous as this one. The novel in question is, of course, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Published in 1813, the novel spins out from this opening line. Indeed, Pride and Prejudice is a classic – maybe the classic – example of a “marriage plot” novel. This type of novel drives forward to marriage, a wedding (or two!) by novel’s end. It will seem in a marriage plot novel (or marriage plot film) that the star-crossed lovers will never find, meet, and/or reconcile with each other – but inevitably they do, and by definition, they marry. (For a thoughtful take on the marriage plot, see Adelle Waldman’s New Yorker article, “Why the Marriage Plot Need Never Get Old.”) While Austen didn’t invent the marriage plot, she is perhaps the greatest creator of novels in this genre. The fun of Jane Austen is in seeing the challenges she subjects her characters to, what twists and turns they’ll confront as they make their way to the altar. In this case, will Elizabeth marry Collins, or will she fall for that haughty, opinionated Darcy? And if you cast your vote for Darcy, how on earth will Austen ever get these two headstrong characters together at the same time? Though Austen’s novels were first published anonymously and though they did not bring her fame in her lifetime, she is practically a cottage industry now. More than a cottage industry – more like an industry giant. She is an institution, and a money-making one at that. One of the most beloved novels in the English language, Pride and Prejudice has sold over 20 million copies, and Austen’s five other major novels are still read and enjoyed by many as well. There have been too many film and television adaptations to count (though Colin Firth’s portrayal of Darcy is so good that we may as well stop, don’t you think?). There have been inventive rewrites, such as Helen Fielding’s 1996 novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary (my favorite of the modern takes on Pride and Prejudice), and even the 2009 parody, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. What are your favorite scenes from Pride and Prejudice? What moments stand out to you? Of course, the scene where Elizabeth reads Darcy’s letter is at the heart of the novel, as Elizabeth realizes she must confront both her pride and her prejudice. At the end of this podcast, I’ll read one of my other favorite moments, this one near the novel’s opening as Elizabeth races across fields that are wet and dirty after a downpour, determined to tend to her ailing sister. It is the perfect introduction to this delightfully spirited heroine. She’s been with us for over two hundred years, but she still leaps off the page and seems every bit as bold, new, and fresh as she must have seemed when Austen created her. Ready to meet or reacquaint yourself with Elizabeth Bennet? You can read the novel for free online – but of course, this is one book you’ll just want to curl up with in hard copy with a cup of tea at your side. If you need help keeping track of the novel’s many characters and their intricate relationships with each other, you might consult a diagram of their relationships or a family tree. If you want to delve a little deeper into all things Austen, visit Jane Austen’s House Museum, which bills itself as the “heart of Hampshire,” or the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. And if you’re really a devoted fan, you might want to travel to Bath for the annual ten-day Jane Austen Festival held each September. The festival features Regency reenactors, “theatre, music, food, a ball, workshops, readings, dances and the famous Regency Promenade.” You’ll also find Austen resources at the Jane Austen Society of North America and the Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom. For links to all these resources, visit thestoryweb.com/austen. Listen now as I read Chapter Seven from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.     Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds. She had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to their father and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and to a milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions; their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the headquarters. Their visits to Mrs. Phillips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. Phillips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a store of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign. After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed: "From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced." Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London. "I am astonished, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however." "If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it." "Yes—but as it happens, they are all of them very clever." "This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish." "My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in his regimentals." "Mamma," cried Lydia, "my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library." Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read, "Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love." "It is from Miss Bingley," said Jane, and then read it aloud. "MY DEAR FRIEND,— "If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day's tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.—Yours ever, "CAROLINE BINGLEY" "With the officers!" cried Lydia. "I wonder my aunt did not tell us of that." "Dining out," said Mrs. Bennet, "that is very unlucky." "Can I have the carriage?" said Jane. "No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night." "That would be a good scheme," said Elizabeth, "if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home." "Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton, and the Hursts have no horses to theirs." "I had much rather go in the coach." "But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are they not?" "They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them." "But if you have got them to-day," said Elizabeth, "my mother's purpose will be answered." She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back. "This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield brought the following note for Elizabeth: "MY DEAREST LIZZY,— "I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me—and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.—Yours, etc." "Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness—if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders." "Oh! I am not afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage." Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. "How can you be so silly," cried her mother, "as to think of such a thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there." "I shall be very fit to see Jane—which is all I want." "Is this a hint to me, Lizzy," said her father, "to send for the horses?" "No, indeed, I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner." "I admire the activity of your benevolence," observed Mary, "but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required." "We will go as far as Meryton with you," said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together. "If we make haste," said Lydia, as they walked along, "perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes." In Meryton they parted; the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise. She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother's manners there was something better than politeness; there was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast. Her inquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, however, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them together, could attempt little besides expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended her. When breakfast was over they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it; advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment; nor were the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had, in fact, nothing to do elsewhere. When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer of the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to Longbourn to acquaint the family with her stay and bring back a supply of clothes.    

In this week's Movie Date podcast, Rafer and Kristen look at strange array of movies, including an indie documentary ("Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction"), a horror flick ("Insidious: Chapter 2"), and an aging mobster comedy ("The Family"). They also look at "Austenland" with the help of Meg Levin, one of the New York City coordinators of the Jane Austen Society of North America. 

This week, Kelley gets a chance to talk with Amy Clarke Moore, editor of Spin-Off and Jane Austen Knits magazines from Interweave. Amy shares her story of how Jane Austen Knits started and talks about her collaberation with members of the Jane Austen Society who provide the depth and details in the wonderful articles throughout the magazine. If you are a fan of Jane Austen, you'll love this behind the scenes look at this wonderful publication.

Susannah Fullerton is a popular literary lecturer and author. She is a leading authority on 19th and 20th century writers with a special interest in Jane Austen - she is president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia. She also leads literary tours to the UK every year. Her latest book is "Brief Encounters: Literary travellers in Australia 1836-1939". Interview by Valerie Khoo, director of Sydney Writers' Centre. www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au www.valeriekhoo.com