Another Trip to the UK: London and Windsor

I'd made two trips to London so far since we moved overseas, and I hadn't planned on going back to the UK for a while, but I'd been dying to see Hamilton and last November I found out more tickets to the West End production were going on sale. They are far, far easier and cheaper to get than tickets in New York (since scalping of tickets is strictly forbidden in the UK!). Seven months ago my husband and I  anxiously hovered over our laptops the minute the tickets went on sale and we scored four seats for June! Sadly, my oldest daughter had to miss it (she had an amazing internship opportunity that she just couldn't pass up), but my mother had been planning to visit so we combined a trip to London with a Jane Austen pilgrimage.

After a very early morning flight, we wandered around Hyde Park since our hotel room wasn't ready yet. I'd never been to any of the royal residences so I walked over to Kensington Palace. There was a nice display of some of Princess Diana's dresses, and you can tour the rooms where Queen Victoria lived when she was a girl. I think my favorite part was the Sunken Garden.

The gardens at Kensington are free to the public. 

As I walked back to my hotel, I found this statue of Queen Victoria:

We had tickets the first night to The Play That Goes Wrong which is HILARIOUS (it's also playing in New York and is touring the US starting in the fall). But first we had a pre-theater meal at a wonderful Italian restaurant near Covent Garden called Cicchetti. It's all small plates, similar to Italian tapas. Everything was wonderful but the desserts (for two) were the highlight:

The next day my Mother and I went to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is truly impressive. Sadly, no photos are allowed inside the cathedral, so I had to be satisfied with shots of the outside and from the top of the dome. 

I didn't ride any red London buses this trip but I do love them. So iconic.

I've gotten pretty good at climbing stairs since I moved to a four-story house on a hill. I feel justified in eating more gelato if I've climbed 47 flights of stairs. You can just see the London Eye near the bend of the Thames. 

After St. Paul's we walked through the City to Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, a historic pub that Charles Dickens frequented. I forgot to take a photo outside, but after lunch I decided to visit the Dickens House Museum which was just a short walk away at 48 Doughty Street. 

This is the home where Dickens moved in 1837, just before Queen Victoria acceded the throne. While he lived here, he wrote The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, and one of my favorites, Oliver Twist. 

Many of the original furnishings remain, including his desk:

One of the top floor bedrooms has a display of items relating to Dickens' childhood, including some bars from the window of the Marshalsea prison and a window from his childhood home. I was struck most by this display of blacking bottles. As a child, Dickens had to leave school and work in the blacking factory, pasting labels on the bottles of blacking. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, when he was only twelve years old. 

The Dickens house is only a five-minute walk from Lamb's Conduit Street so I couldn't resist popping into Persephone books for a quick look round! I visited two years ago and there was scaffolding covering the front, but now you can see how pretty it is. I especially love the boxes of geraniums. I could have happily bought a stack of books but I knew I'd be moving my suitcase around a lot for the next week, so I practiced self-restraint and bought just one dove-grey book, The Godwits Fly, and one from their table of "Books We Wish We'd Published" -- The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria by Annie Gray.

Then it was time to go home to eat and change before Hamilton !!!!

I really wish I'd taken a photo from the front of the theater. Once you go inside, you can't leave until the performance is over and by then it was dark. The theater inside is newly refurbished and absolutely beautiful. I did get this lovely photo of the ceiling interior. 

I'm no theater critic but Hamilton is probably the best musical I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few in the past ten years. I'm not really a fan of rap but it's so much more than that -- it's got all types of music, dancing, drama, humor -- it has everything. All the performers were brilliant, but one of the stand-by performers did the role of Aaron Burr and he was absolutely mesmerizing. I cannot say enough great things about this play and I would love to see it again someday. 

The next day my mother and I checked out of the hotel and made our way to Slough where we picked up a rental car, then drove over to Windsor for lunch and to see the castle. 

It has everything you'd expect -- turrets, towers, and a moat which is now a beautiful garden. 

We also saw the church where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were recently married. It's really beautiful but the interior is different than I expected (naturally, no photos allowed.) 

I especially liked the lion and the unicorn guarding either side of the steps out front. The unicorn is on the right and the lion on the left. 

We had a little time to walk around in Windsor before heading out towards Bath. Outside a souvenir shop I was particularly amused to see this historic marker:

Several years ago I read H. G. Wells' Kipps, the story of a young draper's apprentice who unexpectedly inherits a fortune. It was also adapted into a musical called Half a Sixpence which I saw on my trip to London in 2017. 

And finally I couldn't resist taking photos of this massive hat display in a department store -- it was a few days before the Ascot races and the hats were gorgeous. 

Next stop: Bath and Lyme Regis!

Holiday Surprise in the Deutsche Post

Yesterday I had a lovely surprise via Deutsche Post -- a present for ME that I had completely forgotten with all the holiday bustle! About a month ago, Adam at Roof Beam Reader generously offered a lovely giveaway from The Folio Society -- a brand new illustrated edition of Mansfield Park! Naturally I entered and was absolutely delighted to find out that I'd won! I gave him my address and with all the holiday excitement, promptly put it from my mind until the doorbell rang with a package for me that I didn't recognize.

To my delight, the package included the beautiful copy of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, plus a few extras! Here's what was inside:

First, a little note saying they were "Handpacked by Emma" -- how appropriate!

This GORGEOUS hard-cover volume of Mansfield Park, in a slipcase. Isn't the cover pretty?

(Yes, that is Star Wars gift wrap.)

What lovely illustrations! And the introduction is written by Lucy Worsley. 

There's Fanny with her uncle Mr. Bertram. 

I suspect he's unhappy because she won't marry Henry Crawford. 

And there were some extra surprises in the package as well:

Some beautiful bookish notecards -- they are so pretty I probably won't mail them to anyone!

And finally, this beautiful 2018 planner! It has gorgeous illustrations reproduced from the 13th and 14th centuries-- almost too beautiful to mar with my terrible handwriting!

Thank you again to Adam, The Folio Society, and to Emma for packing my box! It was such a lovely holiday surprise! I hope everyone has such wonderful bookish gifts under the tree this holiday season. 

The Semi-Attached Couple is like Jane Austen But With Extra Added Snark

As a longtime fan of Jane Austen, I'm always sad that she only completed six major works. There are far, far too many books claiming to be the heir to Jane Austen.  Somewhere in my bookish searches, I found The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden, a Victorian writer who is largely unread these days. These two novellas are out of print but available for free online or inexpensively as used paperbacks, and are one of the closest things I've come to next-generation Jane Austen. 

My edition was published in one volume, and though the novels have similar names, they are unrelated. The Semi-Attached Couple concerns two neighboring families, the Douglases and the Eskdales. They had children about the same time, but as the children have grown, the families have grown apart, and Lady Eskdale, higher socially, has married her two daughters off before Mrs. Douglas, who is full of hilarious snide comments, much like Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, only with a sharper tongue. 

In the beginning of the novel, the youngest and most beautiful Eskdale daughter Helen is about to be married to Lord Teviot, who is considered quite a catch. Helen is young and her expectations of marriage are different than those of her husband, which creates friction in their new marriage. He's jealous of her affection for her family. One thing leads to another and the marriage appears doomed. There are also side plots about unmarried friends and family and who's going to end up with whom. 

Also, soon after their honeymoon, her husband invites a large party to visit his estate, including the treacherous Lady Portmore. Here's an excerpt of a conversation between her and the newlywed Lord Teviot. Lady Portmore is trying to stir up trouble between Lord T and his bride: 

Lady P:  “Is that Helen's new horse she is riding?"

Lord T:  "No; Miss Forrester is on Selim."

[Lady P]:  "Well, I wonder Helen did not prefer your gift. I am sure that from sentiment I should never allow any human being but myself to ride a horse that had been given to me by the person I loved best in the world.

Lord T:   "That is an interesting and romantic idea; but as I shall probably have the honour of furnishing Lady Teviot's stud to the end of our days, it is not very likely that she will refuse to lend a horse to her friends when they come."

Lady P:  "Oh dear, no, that would be selfish; and you know how I hate selfishness. I often say there is nobody thinks so little of self as I do. Still I wonder Helen did not ride Selim."

Lord Teviot was silent.

Lady Portmore is everyone's best frenemy. She reminds me of a cross between Caroline Bingley from Pride and Prejudice and Mrs. Elton from Emma (with just a hint of Lady Catherine de Bourgh). There are a lot of similarities between these two novels and Jane Austen's works, and there's even a mention of P&P in a letter, from young Eliza Haywood asking permission from her mother to be allowed to read it. Clearly, Emily Eden was a fan of our Jane.

Naturally, all goes right in the end, with some good plot twists. I did wait a bit before reading the second novella, The Semi-Attached House, which I also enjoyed.  I was going to review both books in the same post but this has gotten longer than I expected so I'll save it for another day. These works don't have nearly the depth or the great writing as Jane Austen, but for plot, characters, and wit, they are just the thing if you are a Janeite or if you're looking for light Victorian read.

Austen in August: Guest Post and Giveaway at Roof Beam Reader

Welcome to Austen in August! Today I have the honor of a guest post at Roof Beam Reader! Please click on the link and take a look as I'm reviewing John Mullan's What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved -- and I'm giving away a copy! 

Update: The winner of the giveaway is . . . AUSTIN!!  Please contact me at karenlibrarian13 [at] yahoo [dot] com with a good mailing address so I can mail your prize! Congratulations!

Jane Austen and Crime by Susannah Fullerton

"Crime became a part of her plots, crime revealed character, crime emphasized duty and responsibility, and crime even united some of the heroines with the heroes."

For five of the past six years, I have been lucky enough to attend the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (also known as the JASNA AGM). Every year, hundreds of Jane Austen fans gather in a large hotel and discuss all things Jane Austen, from academic analyses to pop culture phenomena. There are costumes, dancing, lectures, discussions, and it's great fun if you're a literature geek like myself.  

Every year, I buy at least one book from one of the vendors that provide the retail therapy at the convention, usually from the wonderful Jane Austen Books -- if a book exists with any connection to Jane Austen, they probably sell it.  At my very first AGM, in 2009, I purchased Jane Austen and Crime by Susannah Fullerton, which examines how crime relates to Jane Austen's fiction and how it would have affected her personally during her lifetime. True crime and Jane Austen -- what is not to like?

Jane Austen lived from 1775 to 1817, during the Georgian and Regency periods.  Life was pretty brutal back then -- if caught, criminals could get the death penalty for offenses as minor as setting straw on fire or cutting down a tree.  Austen's own aunt was arrested for supposedly shoplifting some lace, and spent months in jail before she was finally acquitted, and Austen herself actually visited her aunt in jail.  Austen's own works are full of crimes, though some are not immediately obvious to the reader.  In this book, Fullerton examines actual crimes of the period and how they relate to the novels.    As a fan of history, Jane Austen, and crime writing, this was a literary triple threat. The book includes sections about crimes against life; crimes against property; crimes of passion (including adultery and elopement); social crimes (like dueling, smuggling, gaming, and poaching); gothic crime (regarding the gothic novels so fascinating to readers of the time period, including Jane Austen herself); and punishment and the law.

This book isn't long, but it did take a while to finish. Sometimes I find that history books are just packed so full of facts that I can only read so much at a time. This book has only 218 pages of text, but it took me about ten days to finish it (and of course I'm also juggling other reads as well).  I did learn lots of interesting facts, including the following:

• Nearly every book by Jane Austen includes adultery, illegitimate children, fallen women, or an elopement. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennet could have sued George Wickham for damages because he'd ruined Lydia's reputation, but ironically, Lydia herself could not.

• Emma's Harriet Smith commits a crime when she is accosted by gypsies and pleads with them to leave her alone. Theoretically, merely speaking to a gypsy was a hanging offense.  

• The laws regarding the shooting of game during the time period were horribly skewed to the wealthy and privileged. Essentially, if you didn't own enough property, you couldn't kill a pheasant, but you could sit on a jury and sentence a person to hang for killing a pheasant.

• Owning a hunting or sporting dog was also reserved for the privileged few who were allowed to hunt.  So, if I had lived in Regency times, it would have been illegal for me to own my Golden Retriever (except they didn't exist back then). Theoretically, I would not have been allowed to own this couch potato:

An extreme close-up of my dog Lucy. On the couch. 

• Jane Austen's early works are full of murders and crimes. I've read all of her novels multiple times, but I've never read the juvenilia.  I suppose now I need to put this on my birthday wish list:

I'm always looking for a good reason to buy another Penguin Clothbound Classic.

So that's one more book crossed off my TBR Pile Challenge list!  I'm halfway finished and it's only April, so I should have no trouble finishing the list by the end of the year.  How's everyone else doing with the TBR Pile Challenge?  And which other nonfiction books about Jane Austen or the Regency period do you recommend?  

Austen in August: Mansfield Park

I know that many, many people in the blogosphere are writing about Mansfield Park this year, mostly because it's the bicentenary of its publication.  This is my second reading of the book, though technically, it's a listen, since I have the wonderful Naxos audiobook version narrated by the brilliant Juliet Stevenson (who played Mrs. Elton in the 1996 version of Emma).

If you don't know the set up, here's the short version:  Fanny Price is the poor cousin of the wealthy Bertrams who live in Mansfield Park.  She's the daughter of one of the three Ward sisters -- the one who made a crap marriage and is living in Portsmouth with a drunkard and a passel of kids.  One of her aunts married a wealthy landowner, Sir Thomas Bertram, and the other married a clergyman who got the living at the local parish.  This sister, known as Aunt Norris, gets the bright idea to take one of her sister's kids off her parents hands, though she actually pawns her off to her sister and wealthy brother in law -- brilliant!

So young Fanny comes to live in a strange house at the age of ten, and every one pretty much treats her like crap, except the second brother, Edmund, who's actually nice to her.  Things get interesting when Fanny turns 18 and Aunt Norris' husband dies.  The living is assigned to another clergyman, Dr. Grant, who brings his wife and is shortly followed by Mrs. Grant's half-sister and half-brother, Mary and Henry Crawford, who proceed to stir up all kinds of trouble with the Bertrams.  Henry flirts with both the daughters, Julia and Maria (who is engaged to a wealthy but boring guy), and Mary sets her sights on Edmund, to the chagrin of Fanny, who's secretly in love with him.  So, lots of love triangles in sight.

I hadn't actually read this in several years -- I actually tried listening to the audio last year, but I got so disgusted by the dishrag personality of Fanny Price I got bored and gave up halfway through.  I only gave it another go because I'm gearing up for the upcoming Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA), which I'm attending in October.  This year the theme is Mansfield Park, so I though I'd better give Fanny and company another chance.  And I was very glad I did, because I liked it so much better this time around.

Frances O'Connor as Fanny and Alessandro Nivola as Henry Crawford.  

I was really inspired to try it again after reading this wonderful essay by Paula Byrne, author of Jane Austen:  A Life in Small Things.  Byrne points out that instead of an innocent girl going from the country to the big city and being corrupted, the Crawfords come to the country and corrupt everyone around them.  It's also Austen's sexiest novel.  Mary Crawford makes her infamous quip about "rears and vices;" also, there's a lot of symbolism when Henry is trying to corrupt cousin Maria.  So, I gave it another try, and was very glad that I did.  Yes, Fanny's a little wimpy, but she's really a product of her environment.  Nobody except Edmund has paid much attention to her, other than to treat her as a de facto servant, like Aunt Bertram or Aunt Norris, or to constantly put her in her place, like Julia and Maria -- and Aunt Norris, who spends the entire book trying to beat her down.

The lovely Penguin clothbound classic.  Those are the gold chains that Fanny wears to her first ball -- will she choose the one given to her by her cousin Edmund, or by Mary Crawford?

This time, I really enjoyed Austen's dry wit as she describes Aunt Norris' hypocrisy, the self-absorption of Aunt Bertram, and Edmund's starry-eyed adoration of Mary Crawford.  All the faults and foibles of the Bertram clan are filtered through the eyes of Fanny, the novel's moral center. Sure, sometimes she's a bit too wimpy for my taste, but all the other characters are so well developed I can give her a pass.  Lord Bertram is a lot nicer than I remembered, and Aunt Norris is by far one of the most delicious villains in English literature.  Henry Crawford is kind of charming yet sleazy, and I kept wanting to shake some sense into both Fanny and Edmund.  If I liked Fanny's character better, it would be one of my top novels by Austen.

And now I'm going to have to watch one or both of the Mansfield Park adaptations available on DVD.  Years ago, I fell in love with the story after watching Patricia Rozema's 1999 film adaptation (before I'd actually read the book).  After becoming a devout Janeite, I discovered that many people pooh-pooh this version though I can't see that the more recent 2007 version is any better.  I still think the casting in the 1999 version is spot-on, though Frances O'Connor plays Fanny as a little spunkier than she is in the book.  The casting of Billie Piper as Fanny in the 2007 BBC miniseries is just wrong, though Blake Ritson is pretty dishy as Edmund.   There's also a 1983 version which I've heard is just awful, though it stars Anna Massey, which intrigues me.  I actually own an entire box set of 1980s BBC adaptations of Jane Austen novels, but I've never gotten around to watching it.

So -- how does everyone else feel about Mansfield Park?  Like me, can you put up with Fanny because the rest of the novel is just great?  Do you love Mary Crawford and wish she was the heroine?    And has anyone seen the 1983 BBC version of Mansfield Park?

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

When the Classics Circuit featured Georgette Heyer in the author spotlight back in 2010, I pooh-poohed the Regency romances and chose a mystery instead.  It was good but not nearly on the level of Agatha Christie, so I kind of gave up on her -- I'm not much of a romance reader and I'd heard that the Regency stuff was Jane Austenish, and I am a total snob when it comes to Austen.  I rarely read any of those sequels/prequels/readalikes, et cetera.  They just never measure up to my beloved Jane, and I get annoyed when authors borrow characters that someone else has created.  [Note:  I'm not trying to belittle anyone who does like such books, it's just my little quirk].

Anyhow, my Jane Austen book group is meeting this weekend, and this time around we decided to try some of Heyer's Regency books.  Honestly, we have to be really creative to keep it fresh -- Austen only wrote six complete novels, and we've been meeting every month for almost three years, so you do the math.  I don't think we've repeated a book yet -- we stretch it out with movie viewings, related books, and, yes, the occasional sequel.  The library didn't have enough copies of any single novel, so just for fun we decided to each just pick one and we can do a general discussion, kind of like a series of mini-booktalks.  So I chose The Grand Sophy, which is supposed to be one of the best.  And I am SO sorry I didn't read Heyer before, because it was a hoot!!  I was delighted.

In a nutshell:  Sophy Stanton-Lacy is the twenty-year-old daughter of Sir Horace, a widower and some sort of British diplomat.  After years of dragging his only child around the continent, he's going off to Brazil and can't take her along or leave her unattended, so he foists her off on his sister, Lady Ombersley, who lives in London with her spendthrift husband and a gazillion children, some of whom are about Sophy's age.  They're hoping they can get Sophy married off before he returns from Brazil, and Sir Horace has plenty of cash to foot the bill.

However, Sophy is no shrinking violet.  Within weeks of her arrival, she has turned the household upside-down and is rearranging everyone's lives -- she's trying to prevent two of her cousins from making unsuitable matches -- her cousin Cecilia is in love with a poor but aristocratic Byronic-type poet wannabe, and her older cousin Charles from marrying a shrew named Eugenia.  Charles is independently wealthy since his great-uncle made him the heir, so he's paid off all his father's debts and is calling all the shots.  Naturally, he and headstrong Sophy clash from the beginning.   Will this be a Darcy/Lizzie romance?  Will Sophy find a suitable husband for Cecilia?  All will be revealed, naturally!

Sophy reminds me a lot of Emma Woodhouse -- if Emma was in London and had moved in with, say, Mr. Darcy's family (with way more kids) -- and if he was engaged to Caroline Bingley!   Naturally, the writing is not on par with Austen's satire, but it's pretty funny, and Heyer packs in a lot of Regency vocabulary which shows how much research she did on the period.   Her attention to detail is very impressive.

The plot itself was fairly predictable, and I found the characters a little flat.  And I have to admit the ending was a little silly -- it sort of reminded me of a Regency screwball comedy, a bit like an Oscar Wilde farce.  However,  I really enjoyed spending time with the characters in Sophy's world.  It was a fun, light read, and a nice contrast to the rather depressing Zola novel which I finished the week before.  It's definitely a potato chip book, but a very high-class one. So, I guess you could call it a quality potato chips book.  Quality Regency potato chips?  Anyway,  I can see why her books were so popular, and why they've endured.  Heyer wrote more than 30 other Regency romances, most of which are available at my library.

Northanger Abbey

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” -- Henry Tilney in Northanger Abbey.

It's Gothic Literature this month at The Classics Circuit!!  And my author of choice is . . . Jane Austen!!  You would think after spending five whole days discussing Jane Austen with a bunch of other Janeites would be enough, wouldn't you? Well, I did too (and I do admit I'm just the tiniest bit sick of Sense and Sensibility), but after picking up Northanger Abbey, I'm in love with Austen's works all over again.  

For those who are not familiar, NA is the story of Catherine Morland, a young lady who is neither particularly accomplished or clever -- she grew up something of a tomboy and has really only become fairly pretty rather recently.  She's from a large family and her father is a clergyman living in the country. Mrs. Allen, the childless wife of the local landowner, has befriended her, and invites her to spend several weeks in Bath, where Mr. Allen will be taking the waters for his health.  There Catherine is introduced to some eligible young bachelors and makes some new friends, including Isabella Thorpe, who is coincidentally the sister of John Thorpe, friend and Oxford classmate of Catherine's older brother James. She also befriends Eleanor Tilney, a lovely young lady who happens to be the sister of the handsome Henry Tilney.  Following all this so far?

JJ Feild and Felicity Jones as Henry and Catherine in Northanger Abbey

While in Bath, Catherine attends balls, strolls around the pump room, and discusses shocking and decadent Gothic novels with her friends.  When she is invited to spend time with Eleanor and her family at their home, Northanger Abbey, she jumps at the chance, since it sounds exactly like the sort of thing she's been reading about in her beloved novels -- and the idea of spending more time with Henry is pretty enticing too.  She envisions secret passages, winding staircases, and things that go bump in the night.  Of course, her imagination begins to run away with her and hilarity ensues.  

This is my second read of Northanger Abbey, and quite honestly, I liked it even more this time around.  I read it for the first time several years ago and was unimpressed -- it's one of her earliest works and also one of her shortest, and it's obvious to anyone who's read Austen that her other novels are much more complex and well-developed.   But this time I was really struck by how funny it is!  I saw glimmers of her trademark wit, and it's far more satirical than her other novels.  Pretty impressive for a first book (though it was published posthumously in 1818, it was the first novel she completed, in 1803).  It's not even really that much of a Gothic novel -- our heroine Catherine doesn't even visit the eponymous abbey until the second half of the novel.   

Northanger Abbey is not considered one of Jane Austen's best works, and it's not among her most popular.  But having read it the second time, my only real complaint is that it's too short -- I wanted to spend more time with Catherine and her world. 

Packing for Ft. Worth

I'm almost on my way to visit Ft. Worth, Texas!  I'm a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) and this week I'm going to their Annual General Meeting, also known as the AGM.  I didn't get to go last year to the one in Portland, but I went two years ago to the 2009 AGM in Philadelphia and had a wonderful time.

Last time I went with my mother, who can't attend this year, but this time I have two other Texas friends coming with me from our local chapter, so I'll have two roommates.  I'll be spending five days in downtown Ft. Worth meeting other Jane Austen fans, learning English country dancing, playing whist, and attending lectures and seminars about Jane Austen.  I'm such a literature geek, I can hardly wait!

Last time, I naturally packed waaaay too many books in my carryon -- I don't know how I imagined I'd have time to do much reading!  I did actually read two books last time, so I'm cutting back from six books packed last time, to only four.  Hey, I need to have choices!  Here's what I may be bringing with me:


The Annotated Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen -- I recently finished The Annotated Persuasion, which was wonderful.  The theme for this years' AGM is Sense and Sensibility, in honor of the 200th anniversary of its publication.  So of course I'll need my own copy close at hand.

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer -- considered by many to be the Queen of Regency Romances, Georgette Heyer wrote more than twenty books set during the Regency period.  One of my book groups is a monthly Jane Austen group, and we have to alternate her works with other related books.  In November we're each going to talk about a different novel by Heyer.


A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin -- I know, it's the complete opposite of Jane Austen!  But I've been dying to read the second volume after loving the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones.  I've been saving this one, since I want to stretch the series out -- book five was just published, so who knows how long it will take before Martin finishes the next volume?  This is a big fat book, perfect for reading on planes, shuttle buses, etc., because it's lots of very short chapters, which make it easy to pick up and read just a little at a time.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen -- one of my possible reads for the October Classics Circuit -- which will also fulfill my fourth book for the RIP challenge.  

A Warning to the Curious by M. R. James OR The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime -- a couple more choices for the RIP Challenge.  It's always nice to have a book of short stories on hand, for the airport or for a quick read at bedtime -- though ghost stories might not be ideal right before I go to sleep!

And I'm also packing a few extra books about Jane Austen -- there are quite a few authors attending and they'll hopefully be able to sign my books.  But those don't count since I probably won't be reading them, just getting them signed.

I just recounted and I'm up to seven books which is more than I brought last time to Philadelphia! Am I the only one who packs books first for a vacation -- and packs way too many??  Which ones should I bring, and which ones will I have to save for later?

The Annotated Persuasion by Jane Austen (edited by David M. Shapard)

Best. Book.  EVER.

You know, I complain to myself all the time that the combination of blogging, book groups, and a library job have killed all my time for rereading, but I am so glad I made an exception and read this again.  I've read Persuasion several times (and watched the movies more times than I can count), and I still can't get enough of this book.  It's my favorite Jane Austen novel, EVER.  My apologies to Lizzie and Darcy, but Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth are her most romantic couple.  

Basically, here's the setup:  Anne Elliot is 27 and unmarried; when she was 19, she fell in love with Frederick Wentworth, a poor but promising naval officer.  Her family and friends persuaded her to break off the engagement, but she has never stopped loving Wentworth.  Now, he's successful and back in the picture -- but does he still love her?  And can he forgive her for her earlier rejection?

This is Austen's final novel, written just before she died, herself unmarried at the age of 41.  It's a little melancholy, but to my mind also the most romantic of the novels.  There is some great comic relief, some satire, and some deliciously nasty characters as well.  Of all her novels, I think this is the one with the most social commentary, especially regarding class and rank.  

If you are a Jane Austen fan (and I assume if you've read this far, you are) I cannot stop recommending David Shaphard's Annotated editions of these novels.  These are amazing -- the novel itself is on the left-hand pages, and every right hand facing pages has corresponding explanatory notes -- vocabulary, history, drawings of items in Jane Austen's world (now I know exactly what kind of ships Wentworth sailed on!), etc., etc.  The notes also delve deeper into some of the social conventions on the time, and they include commentary on why certain plot devices do or don't work, minor plot holes, etc.  

HOWEVER -- I must point out that if you have NOT read all of Jane Austen's works, I would not read these editions -- the explanatory notes also include spoilers -- and not only for this book, but for her other books as well!!  For example, a note might mention that "Such and such turns out to be _________, just like ________ in her other book, "____________." So, if you are not familiar with the major plot points Jane Austen's novels, I'd recommend waiting until you've read all the books first.  

But if you're a Jane Austen fan who's read all the books like me, please, do yourself a favor, and get these!  You will not be sorry.  So far Shaphard has also annotated Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility (which I'm reading right now); Emma is scheduled for publication in the spring.  Hopefully Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey won't be far behind.

Blogoversary Giveaway Winner!

Thanks to everyone who entered my Second Blogoversary Giveaway!  And the winner is . . . .

The Book Whisperer!!!

She's won a copy of Germinal by Emil Zola, one of my very favorite reads this year.  I know she'll love it as much as I did. Congratulations!  And please visit her blog, she's a new blogger to me but I'm so happy to have found her in the blogosphere.  

And guess what???  I was a winner this week too!  I was the lucky winner BBAW Giveaway: a $20 gift card to Amazon.com, courtesy of one of my very favorite bloggers, Jenners at Life. . . With Books.  If you haven't read her blog yet, please do yourself a favor and check her out because she is hilarious!!  Thank you so much, Jenners!  I'm trying to decide on what I'm going to get with my gift card. 

Bloggers, help me out!  I want to use the gift card to get something in honor of the upcoming Jane Austen Society meeting which I'll be attending in Ft. Worth, Texas.  This year, the meeting's theme is Sense and Sensibility, in honor of its 200th anniversary of publication.  So should I buy this:

Or what about this:

I can't decide but I need to get ready for the meeting, it's only three weeks away!  It's five days of Jane Austen discussions, lectures, movies, English country dancing, whist, garden walks -- it's going to be great!!!  I attended the 2009 AGM in Philadelphia and I loved it.  I can't wait to go!

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I belong to three face-to-face book groups, and I have to admit that I'm terrible about getting the books read on time -- I usually leave them to the last minute, and it's a rare month in which I finish all three books.  It does not help that two of them meet back-to-back on the same day (in the same library branch) and frequently, the other group meets the same week.  It's crazy, but I love all my groups and I'd hate to give up any of them.

Anyhow, I was really pleased with myself for finishing one of the selections so early -- North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I'd been looking forward to this one all year, and copies were limited, so I was resolved to read it quickly and return it for the next book club member.  However, I couldn't have imagined I'd read it so quickly!  It's more than 500 pages but I zipped through it, could hardly put it down.  Needless to say I really enjoyed this book.  I loved Cranford and Wives and Daughters is one of my all-time favorites, so I had great hopes for it.  I was not disappointed.

Essentially, it's another story of a young woman and man who fall in love after first disliking each other, with verbal sparring and witty repartee.  However, it's much more than that.  This one is set during the Industrial Revolution, with a background of factory strikes, a dirty, gritty Northern town, and the working poor.  Young Margaret Hale was raised in a privileged background, as the companion to her wealthy cousin.  After her cousin marries, she returns to live with her parents in a small, idyllic town in the South of England, where her father is a curate.  Her mother married beneath her to the parson of a small living, where she is miserable.  Mr. Hale has a crisis of faith and leaves his position, taking a job as a tutor to wealthy industrialists in the Northern town of Milton (based on Manchester).  Here Margaret meets John Thornton, a self-made industrialist who owns a cotton mill.  Margaret is at first unimpressed by this man in trade (gasp!) who is one of his father's pupils (he was too busy pulling himself up by his bootstraps for a classical education).  They clash but of course they care for each other.

This has been described over and over as a Victorian re-working of Pride and Prejudice.  Normally, retellings and sequels and prequels of classic lit make me run the other way, but I gave it a chance.  I suppose it's a bit like P&P, but it's pretty loose.  Of course, you have the young unmarried woman and the gruff man who start out hating each other and fall in love -- it's such a trope that it hardly seems like a reworking, but maybe Jane Austen was the first one to use it.  This story has much more social commentary; apparently Dickens lifted this idea for Hard Times, causing a rift between himself and Mrs. Gaskell.  Trust me, this is by far the better novel, as Hard Times is the Dickens novel I like least.

I actually finished this a couple of weeks ago, and over the weekend I watched the BBC miniseries adaptation starring the dreamy Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton.  It was so good both my daughters watched it with me, and one night we stayed up until almost midnight!  Am I a good mother for exposing them to quality literature or a bad mother for letting them stay up that late?