Pride & Prejudice Anniversary Merchandise

Commemorative stamps issued by the Royal Mail will be available starting February 21st.

Pride and Prejudice anniversary Journal and Mug from BBC America.

Pride and Prejudice T-shirt, BBC America

T-shirt - I'm not single, I'm just waiting for Mr. Darcy

Pemberley Christmas ornament

iPhone 5 case

iPhone 4 case

Tall, Dark and Darcy tote

Darcy quote vinyl wall decal

Elizabeth and Darcy bookends/shelf pillows

Set of 3 Pride and Prejudice votive candles

Handcut paper silhouettes

Jane Austen Silhouette

Book purse

Valentine Cards

Jane Austen reproduction ring

Jane Austen gypsum plaster bust

Jane Austen in London

Jane Austen arrived at her brother Henry's new London residence in Hans Place on August 22, 1814.  Henry had moved from his previous house in Henrietta Street near Covent Garden to this recently developed area off Sloane Street.

The house now occupying the spot at #23 Hans Place is a Victorian reconstruction, very unlike the house in which Austen stayed.  Below, the blue plaque on the house, commemorating her stay on the premises.

Around the crescent from #23 Hans Place there is a Regency-era house which is probably what Henry's house looked like in 1814.  Of course, any vehicle that might have been in the road in those days would not have resembled the one here.

The neighborhood around Hans Place was relatively new, developed just off Sloane Street as part of the Cadogan estate and opened out onto uninhabited fields to the west.  The Hans in the name honors to Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), president of the Royal Society and benefactor of the British Museum, for whom Sloane Square is named.

The general neighborhood has been much in the news lately because the Ecuadoran Embassy is located nearby, the place Julian Assange sought asylum.

A quick check of property values in the area shows that these tall Victorian houses, now mostly institutions or condominiums, are extremely pricey. 

Jane Austen described Henry's house in a letter to Cassandra dated Tuesday 23-Wednesday 24 August, 1814. After sharing a few details of her journey to London, she wrote:  “It is a delightful place—more than answers my expectation. Having got rid of my unreasonable ideas, I find more space and comfort in the rooms than I had supposed and the Garden is quite a Love. I am in the front Attic, which is the Bedchamber to be preferred.  Henry wants you to see it all…”

From Ackermann's Repository, April 1814

In early September, Jane Austen wrote from London to Martha Lloyd, who was staying in Pulteney Street, Bath.  She shares her impressions of London fashions: "I am amused by the present style of female dress; -- the coloured petticoats with braces over the white Spencers and enormous Bonnets upon the full Stretch are quite entertaining..."

From Ackermann's Repository, 1814

Miss Austen went on to make observations on a recent art exhibit:  "I have seen West's famous painting and prefer it to anything of the kind I ever saw before. I do not know that it is reckoned superior to his Healing in the Temple, but it has gratified me much more and indeed is the first representation of our Saviour which ever at all contented me. 'His Rejection by the Elders', is the subject.--I want to have You and Cassandra see it."

Benjamin West, Christ Rejected, 1814,

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Jane Austen wrote further of  her brother's house (his wife, Eliza de Feuillide Austen had died in April 1813): "I am extremely pleased with this new House of Henry's, it is everything that could be wished for him and I have only to hope he will continue to like it as well as he does now, and not be looking out for anything better.--He is in very comfortable health; -- he has not been so well, he says for a twelvemonth."

Henry Austen was his sister's favorite brother, for his talents and charm.  He had several careers, first at Oxford, then in the military, and in various business ventures.  His bank failed in 1816 and he went into the church, as curate in the Chawton parish and later as rector in Steventon.  Henry assisted Jane in her publishing ventures, making deals for the sale and repurchase of her books.  He oversaw posthumous publication of   Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Today: Garden in Hans Place, London

Miss Benn Dines with Jane Austen

The Jane Austen House Museum, Chawton

On May 25, 1811, Miss Mary Benn dined at Chawton Cottage with Jane Austen, and -- one assumes -- her mother Mrs. Cassandra Austen and their co-resident, Martha Lloyd. 

We learn this in Jane Austen's letter of Wednesday, 29 May 1811, to her sister Cassandra who was staying at Godmersham, the Kent home of their brother Edward Austen and his children.  This letter is filled with rambling accounts of family and friends -- from seedlings to disinheritances. 

Syringa (Lilac)

Jane tells her sister that the Pinks and Sweet Williams are blooming and the Syringas coming out.  She relates family news, upcoming journeys  and that very day a second encounter with Miss Benn  over their tea table.

Miss Benn is a poor spinster who lives in reduced circumstances in Chawton; though we know little about her, she is mentioned in Jane Austen's letters more than a dozen times in the few years between the Austen's arrival in Chawton and Miss Benn's death at age 46 in early January, 1816.  Some biographers have speculated that her extreme poverty caused the Austens to invite her for meals frequently.  In her 1997 biography Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin  writes, "'Poor Miss Benn' appears very much oftener in Jane's letters than their few better-off neighbours; she was not very interesting, but then nor were they" (p.210)

In January 1813, Jane Austen reported from Chawton to her sister in Steventon that "I have got my own darling Child from London..." meaning a copy of the three-volume first edition of Pride and Prejudice, Austen's second published novel.  In the letter of Friday, 29 January 1813, Jane tells Cassandra that she had read half of the first volume to Miss Benn, who was "amused, poor soul." Miss Benn "seemed to admire Elizabeth."

In her next letter, Austen writes that her mother had read further in the novel to Miss Benn.  Austen did not care for "my Mother's too rapid way of getting on...Upon the whole however I am quite vain enough and well satisfied enough.--The work is rather too light and bright and sparkling..." -- an opinion that generations of readers would deny, finding precisely the correct light, bright and sparkling qualities in the novel.

Mary Benn was the sister of Reverend John Benn (1766-1875) who presided over the parish of Farringdon, nearby Chawton in rural Hampshire.  Mr. Benn and his wife had as dozen children, which probably meant they could not do much to help Miss Benn.

Nevertheless, Miss Benn has found her place in the eternal pantheon of Jane Austen fans.  I am sure she would be surprised even to be mentioned in the year 2012, two hundred years after that dinner in Chawton.

I was alerted to this less-than-earth-shattering meal in my weekly perusal of  A Year with Jane Austen: A Calendar for 2012, the production of JASNA-WI.  Events from Jane Austen's life and/or events in her novels fill almost every day of this wonderful calendar, accompanied by appealing color reproductions of the 1898 illustrations for editions of Austen's novels by artist C. E. Brock.

These calendars are still available -- and you have half of 2012 left to enjoy one.  Go to the JASNA-WI website  here and click on Merchandise.

A Day with JASNA-GCR

On May 5, in the Crystal Ballroom of Chicago's Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, JASNA-GCR (Jane Austen Society of North America, Greater Chicago Chapter) held its Spring Gala, Chawton Comes to Chicago, a day of excellent presentations, good food, shopping, meeting and greeting old friends and new.

Jeff Nigro, JASNA-GCR's regional coordinator, welcomed everyone and enumerated the events of the day.

Elizabeth Garvie, long a favorite of Janeites as the "real" Elizabeth Bennett for her role in the 1980 BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, gave a charming performance of selections from Jane Austen's life and works, "Jane Austen Delights."

I particularly enjoyed her reading from Lesley Castle (from the Juvenilia), in which the writer of a letter pleads with her correspondent for pity over her disappointment at having prepared a wedding feast which could not now be eaten as intended because the groom had been stuck down, completely ignoring the real tragedy. She thinks only of her own wasted expense and effort -- and how they will ever consume the victuals she has prepared.  The ironic humor of the passage has never before struck me with such vivid force.

Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul as Lizzy and Darcy

Clearly the audience's favorite part of the performance was Ms. Garvie's portrayal of Emma's Miss Bates. Every nuance of the lady's overwrought arrival at the ball (Ch. 38) was perfectly articulated and left us all laughing and applauding.  We could have listened all day!  Despite the fact that Ms. Garvie has played innumerable characters by a wide variety of authors since her turn as Lizzy Bennet, we were all convinced of her special affinity for the works of Jane Austen.

Elizabeth Garvie

Author Lindsay Ashford told the story of how she moved to Chawton and became immersed in the life and times of Jane Austen.  As she learned more and more about the writer, reading in the very rooms in which Jane herself might have read, eating where she would have frequently dined, Ashford was more and more obsessed with Austen and her early death at a mere age 41.

Victoria Hinshaw and Lindsay Ashford

When she learned arsenic had been detected in an analysis of a lock of Jane's golden hair, her imagination took flight.  Could the author -- - also beloved daughter, sister and aunt -- have been murdered with arsenic?  And by whom?  Now Ashford has published The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen, a novel in which this is exactly what happens.  Written from the point of view of Jane's dear friend Miss Anne Sharp, once the governess to Edward Austen's children, the novel has enjoyed considerable attention around the world.

Ashford is the partner of Steve Lawrence, CEO of the Chawton House Library.  Below they are pictured in the costume promenade at last October's Fort Worth, TX, JASNA AGM.

Following Ashford's talk, Steve Lawrence brought us up to date on activities at Chawton House Library, showing pictures of the latest projects, such as the "new" 18th C. barn discovered nearby and rebuilt on the edge of the property. 

It seems impossible that the library is already about to celebrate it's tenth anniversary.  Where have all these years gone?  On the other hand, it his hard to imagine the world in the village of Chawton, of Austen studies, or of on-line availability of many heretofore impossible-to-find novels without the library and its holdings.  For more information, here is the website.

JASNA-GCR Program Chair Elisabeth Lenckos and Steve Lawrence

The luncheon was enjoyed by all, and featured short readings from works by four members of the organization --  whose writings are "inspired" by Jane Austen.

JASNA-GCR Readers

Victoria Hinshaw read from her novel The Fontainebleau Fan; Holly Bern read from her story "People of the Book" in Wooing Mr. Wickham," a collection of prize-winning stories chosen in a Chawton House Libary contest and edited by Lindsay Ashford; Elisabeth Lenckos read from her story, "Jane Austen 1945," also a winner in the Wooing Mr. Wickham collection; and Karen Doornebos read a selection from her novel Definitely Not Mr. Darcy.  Karen's website is here.

Karen and Victoria with a Chawton House Library poster

Sandy Lerner, seated, and Diane Capitani, JASNA-GCR education outreach coordinator

Dr. Sandy Lerner, aka Ava Farmer, author of Second Impressions, related her experience fulfilling her long-held ambition of writing a sequel to her favorite novel, Pride and Prejudice.  One of her motivations for assembling the collection of books which form the nucleus of the Chawton collection today was to immerse herself in the world and sensibilities of Jane Austen's times, aimed at finishing that novel.  It was published recently, and is available everywhere.

Dr. Lerner is the founder and benefactor of the Chawton House Library; all proceeds from the sale of Second Impressions are donated to the library.  She told us of her many acquisitions of novels by early women writers whose work, while popular at the time, was never catalogued in libraries or preserved in any organized fashion.  She particularly was interested in works such as letters and diaries which might never have been published but had been saved among family papers.  Of particular note, she said, were accounts of travels in the 18th and early 19th centuries, often recorded for the enjoyment of family members.

Sandy Lerner; Marsha Huff, past president of JASNA; Elizabeth Garvie

Gail Murphy, Laura Whitlock, Debra Miller and William Phillips enjoy the program.

Tempting our pocketbooks were lovely items from Vintage Pine (http://www.vintagepine.com/), Figaro Interiors, and Jane Austen Books (http://www.janeaustenbooks.net/).

The lively and active JASNA-GCR group has recently updated its website, here.  Please visit soon.