Thanks to films and television, Jane Austen's six novels, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are now world-famous, and apart from visual adaptations have been translated into nearly forty modern languages.
But how many of those who read the novels know that some of the letters Jane wrote during her brief lifetime have survived, and that these letters were first collected and published in the last century? Most of them are addressed to her beloved sister Cassandra, and afford a unique and irresistible insight into the daily life of the novelist: intimate and gossipy, observant and informative - the equivalent of telephone calls between the sisters - and read much like the novels themselves. They bring alive her family and friends, surroundings and contemporary events, all with a freshness unparalleled in other modern biographies, and also give us the unmistakable voice of the author herself, as she shifts from witty descriptions of the social life of town and country to thoughtful considerations of the business of literary composition.
Other letters are addressed to her eldest niece, Fanny Knight, and are those of an "agony aunt" in the modern sense, giving advice on affairs of the heart to this motherless teenager. There are cheerfully teasing letters to her favorite nephew James-Edward Austen, as he grows from schoolboy to undergraduate, and much shorter joking letters to other younger nieces; and to her sailor brother Frank, away at sea for long periods, she sends bulletins of information about all members of the family and her life at Chawton in Hampshire.
A fourth edition "Jane Austen's Letters" [Oxford University Press, $28.79], prepared by Deirdre Le Faye, has just been published and from this book readers can find out at least ten things which perhaps they didn't know about Jane Austen:
Here is my take on all of that:
http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2009/11/catherine-morlands-home-run.html
Cheers, ARNIE PERLSTEIN
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
Today Im sure her independent thoughts would be pretty mild, and considered absolutely normal. Im just reading between the lines of the information I've gathered k?;)
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays.
Cheers, ARNIE PERLSTEIN
sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com
I am reading Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen mysteries at the moment. Would you know if the diary entries are really Jane Austen's letters?
Merry Christmas!
Fanned
She was obviously fully aware that the names Darcy (that name still occurs in England) and DeBourgh were of French aristocratic origin. In my opinion she deliberately gave these names to the two families on the top rung of the social ladder. All other families had to do with common English names such as Bennet or Lucas or Collins. I even have a hunch that she knew that a well-known French knight named D'Arcy sailed with the army of William the Conqueror and fought with him at Hastings. Jane must have read voraciously herself and she was well rounded and well educated. I believe that she gives herself indirectly a pat on the back when Darcy says "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading".
I could not agree with you more about the TV sitcom aspects of the dialog in P&P--except this is the TV sitcom that God watches---because her dialog makes even the incredibly good writing of a show like Frasier--which is the wittiest, most intelligently written TV sitcom ever--look amateurish.
For example, just read the scene at Netherfield which comprises the entire Chapter 11. The way the repartee leaps back and forth in four directions with lightning speed, and with amazing subtlety, is like listening to The Marriage of Figaro, with a constant flow of voices back and forth, one more brilliant than the next.
Cheers, ARNIE
1. She predicted the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano.
2. She always wore plaid undergarments. No one knows why.
3. She preferred to eat head cheese with a straw.
4. She was with her sister, Agatha, when the latter was mysteriously killed in a chainsaw accident.
5. She was really a man (how else could she get published in the 1700's).
6. She had a dog named Krakatoa.
7. She wrote these lyrics to a once-famous ditty: "Krakatoa, East of Java, You're the volcano that spewed up all the lava."
8. She rode in the Tour de France, but her skirt got caught in the spokes and she had to drop out.
9. She had an tumultuous affair with Karl Marx, even though he was born one year after her death. Their breakup left him bitter about the upper classes.
10. She was ambidextrous, anorexic and aromatic because her favorite letter was "A".
Good to know, I'm sure.
The above-linked post is an excellent illustration of how Jane Austen's letters echo her novels---in this case, how Pride & Prejudice is strikingly and repeatedly echoed in Letter 14 dated December 18-19, 1798, written just after Jane Austen's 23rd birthday (and over 14 YEARS before Pride & Prejudice was finally published in January 1813!). Cheers, ARNIE