I have read Jane Austen's Lady Susan several times, including with my local Jane Austen group in 2014 (my review). That now being ten years ago, we decided it was time to read - and consider - it again. However, as my time was tight, I decided to try an audiobook version, and found a … Continue reading Jane Austen, Lady Susan, revisited (#BookReview)
18th century literature
Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the third (#Review)
This month my Jane Austen group completed our reading of Jane Austen's Juvenilia. (Click the links for my thoughts on the first and second volumes.) Volume the third is a little different to the other two, as it contains just two unfinished works: EvelynCatharine, or The bower Both were written in 1792, when she was … Continue reading Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the third (#Review)
Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the second (#Review)
Last November, my Jane Austen group read the first volume (my review) of Jane Austen's Juvenilia, with a plan to read the next two volumes during 2021. This month, we read the second volume, which contains pieces written, it is believed, between 1790 and 1793, when Austen was 14 to 17 years old. As with … Continue reading Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the second (#Review)
Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the first (#Review)
Jane Austen's Juvenilia, which range over three manuscript notebooks, contain twenty-seven items, which, says Austen scholar Brian Southam, she put together "as a record of her work and for the convenience of reading aloud to the family and friends." While only four of the pieces are specifically dated, Austen scholars have worked out an order … Continue reading Jane Austen, Juvenilia, Volume the first (#Review)
Bill curates: Jane Austen and the information highway
Bill curates is an occasional series where I delve into Sue's vast archive, stretching back to May 2009, and choose a post for us to revisit. Jane Austen comes up over and over in Sue's posts, and as I'm as fascinated by her as Sue is, that suits me fine. Here though we are not … Continue reading Bill curates: Jane Austen and the information highway
Noah Webster, On the absurdity of a Bill of Rights (Review)
If you've read my last post you may have guessed from the title why I've chosen Noah Webster's "On the absurdity of a Bill of Rights" as my next Library of America (LOA) Story of the Week to discuss. For those of you who haven't read that post, or who, like me, have a memory like a sieve, I discussed the play adaptation … Continue reading Noah Webster, On the absurdity of a Bill of Rights (Review)
Jane Austen, Lady Susan (Review)
It is a truth universally acknowledged - I know this is a tired old joke but I seem programmed to do it - that Jane Austen fans will collect multiple editions of her works. There are many reasons for this behaviour, but one of them is our interest in different introductions. And so, although I … Continue reading Jane Austen, Lady Susan (Review)
Jane Austen on reading novels
Jane Austen's defence of the novel in Northanger Abbey is famous. Not only does the hero, Henry Tilney, tell the heroine Catherine, that: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid ... but Austen, in an authorial comment early in the book, says ... … Continue reading Jane Austen on reading novels
William Gilpin and travel photography
Yes, I know that William Gilpin, about whom I wrote in my last post, died before photography, though only just. He died in 1804 and, according to Wikipedia, the first permanent photograph produced by a camera was made in 1826. However, the notion of cameras - through the camera obscura - was already well known. … Continue reading William Gilpin and travel photography
William Gilpin, Jane Austen and the picturesque
I was introduced to William Gilpin by Jane Austen. Well, not by her so much as by her brother, Henry, who told us* that she was "enamoured of Gilpin on the Picturesque at a very early age". This month my local Jane Austen group decided to look a little more deeply at Gilpin, his Picturesque, … Continue reading William Gilpin, Jane Austen and the picturesque
Whispering Gums 