Interesting Jane Austen News

[CoyoteChris]

The Wall street Journal wont let you use their URL links but just go to Google and put in
"Wall street journal jane austen" and you will find it. It is the Jan 24th one.
Or you can click on screen shots here and blow them up.
http://sharonlathanauthor.com/austen-power-in-the-wall-street-journal-i-am-featured

You can sit through a commercial and what this too,,,
http://live.wsj.com/video/austen-es...0F.html#!AB7ABD1D-C730-45EF-A85E-7A77C6B9E90F

 

[Olympia]

I find it fascinating that of all the British authors of prose from the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, only two have lasted--Sir Walter Scott and our Jane. (The poetry is a different story: Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge; some of the greatest giants of literary history.) Such a delicious irony. In those days it was considered so uncouth for women to publish that Jane released her first book under the name of "a lady." And look at her now.

 

[LRK]

Well, there's "Frankenstein"....

Also Maria Edgeworth is still good, and a few of her books in print, but not widely known, I concede.... (I like her, though.)

 

[Olympia]

Of course! Frankenstein! Excellent point. And apt in several directions, because she's also affiliated with the Romantic poets through Shelley. Thanks, LRK.

Maria Edgeworth isn't well known over here. Not sure about England, but I don't remember seeing a lot of her work when I was there. Hee, hee, they haven't made a big effort to make a BBC series from her works, have they?

 

[LRK]

Well, they haven't made much effort to make BBC series of any classic work lately... (This is a general gripe of mine - nothing to do with Maria Edgeworth - though I don't think a series of "Belinda", for example, would be bad at all... ) Though we are getting, apparently, a new War and Peace...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/war-and-peace.html

I'm not sure why we needed yet another one, when there are so many classics left basically unexplored? And I'll keep my opinion of this quote from Andrew Davies to myself, shall I?

"Natasha Rostova just beats Lizzy Bennet as the most lovable heroine in literature.”

 

[Olympia]

In defense of the BBC, I'm sure many filmmakers are just avid to work with Tolstoy's immortal characters. After all, how many versions of Pride and Prejudice are there? And versions of one of my other favorite stories, Little Women? (In addition to the movies, there is not only a musical but also an opera.)

What besides Maria Edgeworth would you want to see made into a BBC program?

 

[LRK]

Well, they could suprise me. I'm sure they could find something - if we were sticking with Jane Austen, for instance, then why not an adaptation of "Lady Susan" - that could be fun. Or a few years back Andrew Davies said that he had intended to follow up his adaptation of Little Dorrit with one of "Dombey and Son", but been told to work on one of "David Copperfield" instead - and then we ended up getting neither! I'd like one of "Barnaby Rudge", as I don't think there's really - anything? Not Dickens' best by any means, but why not? - I probably like it better than "The Old Curiosity Shop", anyway. Or if they want to go with old war-horses, it's been awhile since the last "A Tale of Two Cities", I think?

Then there's Anthony Trollope, they started doing a few, but the man wrote around 40-50 novels, and most of high quality - so there's a lot to mine there! They could do Elizabeth Gaskell's "Mary Barton", or what about George Eliot's "Adam Bede"? Maybe some Thackeray - other than "Vanity Fair", of course. Fanny Burney - I think "Evelina" especially could be loads of fun...

Now, I'm far from an expert on Russian lit - goodness knows! - but Tolstoy did write other things than "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" - couldn't they bring some lesser known work to a wider audience? What about Alexander Pushkin, or Ivan Turgenev?

Well, suffice to say, I think they could probably find something.

ETA - Oh, I came to think of something I'd really love to see: Charlotte Brontë's "Shirley"! I'd not mind "Villette" either - talking of the Brontës - what about Anne's "Agnes Grey"? Ok, I really will stop now.
'

 

[plushyfan]

Oh, I just found this thread! I'm a big fan of Jane Austen! And I adore the Pride and Prejudice! I prefer the BBC's series with Colin Firth! So many times I've read the novel and seen the BBC series, I've learned some part of it.:

 

[plushyfan]

I find it fascinating that of all the British authors of prose from the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, only two have lasted--Sir Walter Scott and our Jane. (The poetry is a different story: Keats, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge; some of the greatest giants of literary history.) Such a delicious irony. In those days it was considered so uncouth for women to publish that Jane released her first book under the name of "a lady." And look at her now.

I like the Bronte sisters, too...

 

[Olympia]

I like the Bronte sisters, too...

Me too, Plushyfan! I wasn't counting them because they're later, in the Victorian era. By that time, there were a lot of British writers who were producing immortal works. I just looked it up, and Jane Eyre (my favorite Bronte book) was published in 1847. That was about ten years after Dickens' early work The Pickwick Papers had come out (in serial magazine form at first). So everything was in full swing. Thackeray's Vanity Fair was published in the 1830s also. Britain had entered the peak of its tremendous output of immortal literature.

That's one of the amazing other things about Jane. She was an early harbinger of the great age of British literature. She didn't just follow along. It certainly doesn't make Jane greater than the Bronte sisters, but it shows that from the time Jane wrote, very little else proved to be as timeless and as enduring.

 

[plushyfan]

You have a lot of knowledge, I just love the novels....

 

[Olympia]

I do too, both the Brontes (well, the ones I've read) and Austen. It's amazing how fresh they remain. And I love that people have made movies of so many of them. I wonder what these women, who all lived such quiet, secluded lives, would think of the worldwide circle of friends they have now.

 

[LRK]

I hope it would make them really happy - especially the Brontës who received some really scathing reviews in their time. (I have a book of Poisonous Quotes, I can look up at least one that is coming to mind later... )

I suddenly remembered, apropos Jane news, that the UK mail has issued six stamps in celebration of the P & P bicentennial - they're really pretty. (I saw them on the blog Austenprose for anyone who's interested.) If I had them, and lived in the UK, I'd never use them to send to anybody, though, but hang on to each and every one of them.

 

[Olympia]

I hope it would make them really happy - especially the Brontës who received some really scathing reviews in their time. (I have a book of Poisonous Quotes, I can look up at least one that is coming to mind later... )

I suddenly remembered, apropos Jane news, that the UK mail has issued six stamps in celebration of the P & P bicentennial - they're really pretty. (I saw them on the blog Austenprose for anyone who's interested.) If I had them, and lived in the UK, I'd never use them to send to anybody, though, but hang on to each and every one of them.

Here's a link. The stamps are beautiful!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...H84UbKaJ--K0QHpxIDoAw&ved=0CHcQ9QEwCg&dur=732

 

[CoyoteChris]

Thanks folks! These are great! In the US, we can have our own stamps made...for a fee.....the neat thing is you can give permission to put your design on the company web site and if anyone buys them, you get a cut IIRC. A small problem is you cant legally use a copywrited pic, like of Kierra Knightly, without permission.

Here's a link. The stamps are beautiful!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...H84UbKaJ--K0QHpxIDoAw&ved=0CHcQ9QEwCg&dur=732

 

[LRK]

Here's something else that could be fun - BBC are going to recreate the P & P ball:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/pride-prejudice-having-a-ball.html

 

[Olympia]

Doesn't that look wonderful? Let's all go!

...of course, I don't have the right dress....

 

[ManyCairns]

Well, it's probably been discussed, but == Best Film Elizabeth Bennett? For my money, although my favorite film version overall is the Colin Firth-Jennifer Eley one, the best Elizabeth is Elizabeth Garvie. Eley is still delightful, but Garvie seems both ladylike and refined, and warm and approachable, at the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQPknmw2pkc

 

[Olympia]

I liked Elizabeth Garvie, too. She has what Georgette Heyer calls "a speaking pair of eyes." (Maybe Heyer got that phrase from Jane.) David Rintoul, her Darcy, was a bit aloof as I recall, but Garvie was wonderful.

 

[LRK]

I've not seen that version, but I looked at the clip rallycairn linked to, and I think that aloofness actually worked in favour - well, of that scene at least. I mean, I can clearly see here why Elizabeth might feel more offended than flattered by this proposal! The words are the same, of course, but here you feel as if Mr Darcy is really angry with himself for feeling anything for her at all...