Congratulations to Nancy! She won last week’s prize of the Jane Austen notecards. Nancy, check your inbox for instructions on receiving your prize.
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is such a popular novel, largely due to the fascinating cast of characters found on its pages. As we take a look at some of those characters this week, we thought we’d ask our Regency Reflections authors who their favorite characters were. There seemed to be a bit of a pattern…
Ruth Axtell
From an 1895 illustrated edition of Pride and Prejudice.
Lizzie.
She, in my opinion, is one of the best heroines of all time, with just the right amount of spunk, wit, compassion, intelligence, and unconventionality.
Vanessa Riley
My favorite would be Elizabeth. Her love for her sisters, particularly Jane is touching. In the book, Austen shows us more of Darcy’s struggles and how he’s falling for Elizabeth, more so than what the movies do, but who can’t love Collin Firth.
Susan Karsten
It’s been years since I read those books, even thought Pride & Prejudice is on my all-tome favorites list. I have to say that the patience, virtue and purity exemplified by Elizabeth Bennet makes her my favorite Austen character.
Naomi Rawlings
Well, my absolute favorite character has to be Elizabeth. I love a woman who can face a man that’s supposedly her superior and treat him as an equal instead. However another character I love is Elizabeth’s mother. Well, I don’t actually love Mrs. Bennet; it’s more of a love-to-hate relationship. That woman is so obnoxious she makes me squirm in horror at times, yet she embodies the ambition of every well-intentioned, marriage-minded mother who’s ever lived. Her scheming adds a wonderful layer suchto the story. Jane Austen did a great job when she created Mrs. Bennet, however horrifyingly obnoxious the she might seem at times.
Kristi Ann Hunter
So hard to choose. The cast is built in such a way that they all add richness and depth to the story. It would lose something were any of them to disappear. While I love Elizabeth – it’s hard to like the book if you don’t! – I really like Darcy. While I’d like to think I’m more, um, personable than he is, I identify with the awkwardness and strong opinions being misinterpreted and having to patch things up once those opinions change.
Who is your favorite character? Wednesday we’ll be taking a closer look at the men of Pride and Prejudice. Friday will be the Ladies’ turn.
This week we’re giving away a lovely copy of Pride and Prejudice. The book is hard cover with a ribbon book mark. The pages are rough cut to simulate the cut edges an original print would have had after binding. All comments on this week’s posts will be entered in the drawing. Must have a United States mailing address in order to win. Winner will be announced August 19, 2013.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Jane Austen
So begins the words to the novel, Pride and Prejudice, and with it the love affair we have for 1800’s England. Now many of us may have been introduced to Jane Austen because of a high school literature assignment or catching a BBC or a Hollywood version of one of her books. I have come to know and appreciate her talents for unlike me, she was a contemporary author writing of her times, of the societal norms and taboos. Austen excelled at capturing the mood of the classes and the roles of women. Her words allow us to visit that time and space we lovingly call the Regency.
So today, I’d like to spend a few moments highlighting the amazing woman, Jane Austen.
Her Birth
Born December 16th, 1775, Jane Austen was the second daughter, the seventh child of eight for Reverend George Austen and Cassandra Austen. They lived in Steventon, Hampshire. They weren’t a rich family at £ 600 per annum. So Jane would find herself very much like her character, Elizabeth Bennett, with nothing more than her charms to recommend her.
Jane’s Father’s Church, Her Home
Her Education
She learned as most girls did at home, to draw, play the piano, and the running of a household. From 1785 to 1786, she and her sister, Cassandra were sent to an aunt in Oxford for more studies. They were later sent to the Abby Boarding School in Reading.
Her Love of a Good Book
By 1801, Jane’s father possessed a large book collection of over 500 books. She is described by family members as a great reader. Her favorites included Fanny Burney’s Cecilia and Camillia and Samuel Richardon’s Sir Charles Grandison, and Maria Edeworth’s Belinda.
In Jane’s Northanger Abby, she puts up a defense of the reading and novels:
“There seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them… In short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
Her Love Life
From her letters, one can see a few men came a courtin’ but she found most wanting: Heartley, Powlett, Lefroy.
In one of her correspondences, she writes:
“Tell Mary that I make over Mr. Heartley and all his estate to her for her sole use and benefit in future, and not only him, but all my other admirers into the bargain wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I do not care sixpence. Assure her also, as a last and indisputable proof of Warren’s indifference to me, that he actually drew that gentleman’s picture for me, and delivered it to me without a sigh.”
Then later we find this: “At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow at the melancholy idea.”
And with the end of things with Mr. Lefroy, Jane’s friend (Mrs. Anne Lefroy, cousin to Tom Lefroy) even tried to play match maker. Mrs. Lefroy tried to fix Jane Austen up with the Rev. Samuel Blackall, a Fellow of Emmanuel College. It didn’t work out (See our take on Blackall). Perhaps her joy of writing claimed all her love. Or was she too poor to make a man fall violently in love with her.
Her Writing
Jane started her writing “career” with short stories. These pieces varied from witty to satirical. Many of these short stories were collected together and called the Juvenilia. Over 20 different shorts fill this collection with the most famous being: The Beautiful Cassandra, Love and Friendship, and The History of England.
Her published works (the ones published during her lifetime or posthumously by family members are included below: (S=Synopsis, W=Link to the Whole Work. Go ahead and download a copy provided for free.)
Jane Austen died in 1817 at the age of 41. She began to get ill in 1816 and the yearlong decline, tapped her energy and made her in the end bed-ridden. The cause of her death is disputed. Some venture it was lymphoma. Others Addison’s disease. Another view is she died from bovine tuberculosis contracted by drinking unpasteurized milk. As I check the label, on the milk cartoon for my coffee, I’ll add a final potential cause, typhus, a recurrent form of the disease developed from a childhood illness. Her death left two more manuscripts unfinished, Sanditon (1817) and The Watsons (1804). She is buried at Winchester Cathedral in Winchester, Hampshire.
Winchester Cathedral
Well, I think we should all agree, her life was too short. Nonetheless, judging by the longevity of her work, she may just have accomplished what she was born to do. Share with us a favorite Jane Austen line or scene and why it sticks with you.
References:
Images are from Wikipedia/Wiki commons.
Wikipedia
Project Gutenberg
Pemberly.com
This week we’re giving away a lovely set of Jane Austen note cards.
Win This Prize.
For a chance to win, please leave a comment on any of the posts this week. winner will be drawn Monday, August 12. Winner must have a mailing address within the United States.
Two centuries ago, a book was published that would impact the world of romantic literature forever. This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
You don’t have to be a fan of Jane Austen, a lover of Mr. Darcy, or kindred spirit to Elizabeth Bennet to see the impact this book has had on modern culture and literature, particularly the Regency romance.
All this month, we will be looking at the different aspects of Austen’s book, her life, and her legacy. Do you have a favorite character? Movie adaptation? Modernization? Maybe you’re an avid reader of the many Austen spin off novels. Perhaps the main fascination Austen and her best-selling book have for you is the lasting legacy they have inspired.
Jane Austen
We’re going to look at all of these things through the month of August. And, as always, it wouldn’t be complete without you entering in on the discussions.
As if a lively discussion about Pride and Prejudice wasn’t enough to get you excited, we’ll be giving away a Jane Austen or P&P themed gift every week. Participate in one of that week’s three post discussions and you’ll be entered to win. It’s that simple.
So let the celebration begin!
No prize will be rewarded today, but we’d love to hear about the first time you remember reading Pride and Prejudice. Did you love it? Hate it? Absorb it until it’s such a part of your being that you dream of transporting through the shower and taking Elizabeth Bennet’s place… oh wait. That’s Lost in Austen.
Harriet Tubman, photographed by Harvey Lindsley. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.
-Harriet Tubman, 1896
The Underground Railroad—the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War—refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage. Wherever slavery existed, there were efforts to escape. At first to maroon communities in remote or rugged terrain on the edge of settled areas and eventually across state and international borders. These acts of self-emancipation labeled slaves as “fugitives,” “escapees,” or “runaways,” but in retrospect “freedom seeker” is a more accurate description. Many freedom seekers began their journey unaided and many completed their self-emancipation without assistance, but each subsequent decade in which slavery was legal in the United States, there was an increase in active efforts to assist escape.
The decision to assist a freedom seeker may have been spontaneous. However, in some places, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Underground Railroad was deliberate and organized. Despite the illegality of their actions, people of all races, class and genders participated in this widespread form of civil disobedience. Freedom seekers went in many directions – Canada, Mexico, Spanish Florida, Indian territory, the West, Caribbean islands and Europe.
A set of cards created by H.L. (Henry Louis) Stephens of working in the field to reaching freedom. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/H.L. STEPHENSA United States map showing the differing routes that freedom seekers would take to reach freedom. NPS
Wherever there were enslaved African Americans, there were people eager to escape. There was slavery in all original thirteen colonies, in Spanish California, Louisiana, and Florida; Central and South America; and on all of the Caribbean islands until the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and British abolition of slavery (1834).
The Underground Railroad started at the place of enslavement. The routes followed natural and man-made modes of transportation – rivers, canals, bays, the Atlantic Coast, ferries and river crossings, road and trails. Locations close to ports, free territories and international boundaries prompted many escapes. As research continues, new routes are discovered and will be represented on the map.
Using ingenuity, freedom seekers drew on courage and intelligence to concoct disguises, forgeries and other strategies. Slave catchers and enslavers watched for runaways on the expected routes of escape and used the stimulus of advertised rewards to encourage public complicity in apprehension. Help came from diverse groups: enslaved and free blacks, American Indians, and people of different religious and ethnic groups.
Maritime industry was an important source for spreading information, in addition to offering employment and transportation. The Pacific West Coast and possibly Alaska became destinations because of ties to the whaling industry. Military service was an additional option; thousands of African Americans joined from the Colonial Era to the Civil War to gain their freedom. During the Civil War, many freedom seekers sought protection and liberty by escaping to the lines of the Union army.
A mural of the 54th Massachusetts regiment photographed by Carol M. Highsmith. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ CAROL M. HIGHSMITH
This week we’re giving away a lovely copy of Pride and Prejudice. The book is hard cover with a ribbon book mark. The pages are rough cut to simulate the cut edges an original print would have had after binding. All comments on this week’s posts will be entered in the drawing. Must have a United States mailing address in order to win. Winner will be announced August 19, 2013.
Two centuries ago, a book was published that would impact the world of romantic literature forever. This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
