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Pride and Prejudice Quiz

June 9, 2007 by Vic

How much do you know about Pride and Prejudice movies? This quiz by ExpertRating Quiz might surprise you. Warning: the quiz was designed for movie buffs.

Click here to begin.

Posted in Film adaptation, Popular culture |

Finding Information About the Regency and Georgian Eras

June 7, 2007 by Vic

In researching information for this blog, I am discovering that public libraries and museums are becoming increasingly creative in featuring their collections online. Because Jane Austen lived during the Regency and Georgian eras, my searches use both tag lines.The New York Public library’s website describes the Regency Style and features related books on its shelves. Click here to read some short, insightful descriptions, such as this quote:

This period saw a continuous search for novelties in design. Chinoiserie and the “Hindu,” or Indian, styles became fashionable, along with nationalistically inspired Gothic or Tudor decorative elements. The Greek chair with sabre legs, elegant sideboards, revolving bookcases, and couches with claw feet were popular.

The Victorian and Albert Museum website goes through great lengths to describe period styles, including Palladianism, Neoclassicism, Chinoiserie, and more. In addition to learning something about the era, the V&A also showcases some of its objects to illustrate their point.
Museum and libraries aren’t the only organizations interested in imparting good information on their sites. This fireplace company, West Country Fires Limited, located in Hampstead U.K., sells Georgian style fireplaces. The company’s website contains this description:

Georgian interiors were as important as exteriors, with a new-found emphasis on home entertaining, and were intended to illustrate a cultural wealth alongside the material wealth. The fireplace was inevitably the focus of the room, and fireplace designs from this period incorporate many Classical elements. In the evolution of fireplace design the fire surround itself was an invention of Renaissance Italy and was in the first instance designed along Classical lines, namely a pair of jambs either side of the hearth with an entablature linking the two.

The site offers a veritable wealth of information about fireplace surrounds! What a great place to get started on the subject. In writing this blog, I find it is simply amazing how many diverse ways there are to uncover information about Jane Austen’s world on the World Wide Web. These resources are in addition to the traditional scholarly articles, books, and journals. I’m sure I won’t have enough time in the day to discover them all.

Posted in Architecture | 2 Comments »

Balls and Dances in Jane Austen’s Day

June 6, 2007 by Vic

Many country towns had a monthly ball throughout the winter, in some of which the same apartment served for dancing and tea-room. Dinner parties more frequently ended with an extempore dance on the carpet, to the music of a harpsichord in the house, or a fiddle from the village. This was always supposed to be for the entertainment of the young people, but many, who had little pretension to youth, were very ready to join in it. There can be no doubt that Jane herself enjoyed dancing, for she attributes this taste to her favourite heroines; in most of her works, a ball or a private dance is mentioned, and made of importance.

Many things connected with the ball-rooms of those days have now passed into oblivion. The barbarous law which confined the lady to one partner throughout the evening must indeed have been abolished before Jane went to balls. It must be observed, however, that this custom was in one respect advantageous to the gentleman, inasmuch as it rendered his duties more practicable. He was bound to call upon his partner the next morning, and it must have been convenient to have only one lady for whom he was obliged

To gallop all the country over,
The last night’s partner to behold,
And humbly hope she caught no cold.

From the Memoirs of Jane Austen by J. Edward Austen-Leigh, p 34

This is Mrs. Bennett’s account to Mr. Bennett of the local Assembly Room ball when Jane met Mr. Bingley:

“Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear, he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he inquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger–‘”

In a personal account, Jane writes of a ball she attended in 1799,

“We were very well entertained, and could have stayed longer, but for the arrival of my list shoes to convey me home, and I did not like to keep them waiting in the cold. The room was tolerable full, and the ball opened by Miss Glyn. The Miss Lances had partners, Captain Dauvergne’s friend appeared in regimentals, Caroline Maitland had an officer to flirt with, and Mr. John Harrison was deputed by Captain Smith, himself being absent, to ask me to dance. Everything went well, you see, especially after we had tucked Mrs. Lance’s neckerchief in behind, and fastened it with a pin.”

Chandelier, Assembly Room, Bath

Click here to read more about dancing on this blog

Also click on this link to learn about the dances in Becoming Jane. The post is quite thorough and detailed.

Posted in Dancing |

First Impressions

June 6, 2007 by Vic


First Impressions is a fan listing created for fans of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett. Click here to view the site and join as a fan, or to download a code and link the site to your own website.

The first two rules on the site are explicit:

1. you must be a fan of the relationship between Lizzy and Darcy

2. this is not a fan listing for Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, Keira Knightley or Matthew Macfadyen

Posted in Popular culture |

New Features on Jane Austen’s World

June 4, 2007 by Vic

Gentle readers,

My favorite part of the day is when I spend an hour or two reading Jane Austen’s words or researching information about her. New features on this blog, which I find exciting, are the audio podcasts and short videos I have found about her world and era.

These links sit on the sidebar under Audio and Visual Media. I am NOT including YouTube videos, since they are easy to find.

Make yourself a pot of tea, then click on one of the links, such as the Biography video, or Tea With Jane Austen, and spend a delightful time listening to learned individuals discuss your favorite author and her era. Click here to listen to a podcast from Australia about the truth about Mr. Darcy, or go the the ABC website in Sydney, Australia.

Ms. Place

Comment: Austen.blog rightly points out that Professor Penny Gay has confused her actors. She mistakenly thinks Matthew McConaughey was Mr. Darcy in PP-05. Ah, what a perfect Jane Austen moment of folly! Despite her mistake, Penny’s observations about Mr. Darcy seem well informed.

Posted in jane austen |

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