Category Archives: Jane Austen
Contribute your story: The Dear Jane Project
Calling all Austen Addicts: Gabrielle of a new blog called the Dear Jane Project wants to publish your personal stories of what Austen means to you and how her works have touched your life. Simply submit your story in the form of a letter to Jane Austen at dearjaneproject@gmail.com, and Gabrielle will post them on the blog.
Photo by Cathryn Lavery
Here’s what Gabrielle says about her vision for the Dear Jane Project: “Hopefully, this project will allow fans from around the world to share their stories, and create a community…Each one of us has a story, and my goal is for us all to be able to share them. I think it is a great way to commemorate the life of Jane Austen as we approach the 200th anniversary of her death. What would you write to Jane?”
The Austen in August party has started
Enjoy group reads, movie watching, Twitter parties, discussions, giveaways, and more at this yearly event.
Summer fun with Jane Austen
If you can’t get enough of Jane Austen on your own, at home, re-reading her novels and watching all those film and TV adaptations, help is just around the corner. It’s the Jane Austen Summer Program! Here are the deets, straight from the official press release:
“Mansfield Park & Its Afterlives”
June 16 to 19, 2016
Hosted by the University of North Carolina, CH and JASNA-NC 
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — This summer, more than 100 people, including Austen fans, established scholars, graduate students, K-12 teachers, and aspiring authors, will have the opportunity to hear expert speakers and participate in discussion groups on Austen’s most controversial novel, Mansfield Park. Attendees will also partake in an English tea, dance at a Regency-style ball, join in a Regency-themed pub crawl, and visit special exhibits tailored to the conference. (more…)
Shapewear Nightmare
It may be the third millennium, but not much has changed* since the days of getting laced into a corset so stiff that one could barely lean over, let alone breathe. It’s no wonder ladies had to carry around smelling salts, or “vinaigrettes,” as they were called in Jane Austen’s day. Those Mr. Darcy types may have been swoon-worthy, but it was likely more a lack of oxygen than romantic flutterings that caused ladies to faint.
It wasn’t only ladies who were wearing corsets or “stays.” The Prince Regent was a favorite target of cartoonists for trying to mask his size with a corset. 
Today, we call these instruments of torture “shapewear.” Sounds friendly and appealing, doesn’t it? After all, who doesn’t want to have a shape?
The promise and the reality of shapewear, however, can be two very different things. If you’ve ever had a shapewear nightmare of your own, you will love Melissa McCarthy’s story. Click here to read more…
EMMA 200th Anniversary Edition
This luxurious new edition of EMMA features a series of pieces by Austen scholar and professor Juliette Wells, who informs us in her introduction that this is “a reader’s edition, not a scholarly one.” With the needs and wishes of her students in mind, Dr. Wells has included in this edition an abundance of extras that make EMMA’s world and its language as accessible as possible. There are tips for first-time readers of Austen, a series of short pieces that illuminate aspects of everyday life that Austen’s contemporaries would have taken for granted but which often elude today’s readers, a glossary of words that are now either obsolete or have evolved in meaning, plus maps, illustrations, and more.
EMMA is a novel that, like all of Jane Austen’s major works, I have read at least twenty times. A great part of Austen’s genius is that there is always something new to be discovered in her novels, no matter how many times one reads them. Now, thanks to this lovely new edition, there is even more. For there is enough substance in this annotated edition to enlighten and entertain not only novice readers, but Austen devotees.
As an object of beauty, this book deserves high marks as well, with its eye-catching graphics that express both contemporary relevance and period authenticity, its textured, matte apricot-colored background, and its deckle-edged pages that remind us of the days when books had uncut pages to be opened by their first readers.
A conversation with JULIETTE WELLS, Editor and Introducer of EMMA: 200th-Anniversary Annotated Edition