Diana Birchall

Author's posts

Birth in Venice by Diana Birchall

Lady Catherine de Bourgh was used to being well served. Therefore when she was awakened by the unaccustomed spectacle of her bedchamber filled with sunshine from a sun already fairly high in the sky, she was startled. Why, it must be past nine o’clock. Where was her maid?  No one had come to pull back …

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Letters from Venice

  Many changes had come to Longbourn since the day on which Mrs. Bennet had got rid of her two mostdeserving daughters. Once she would have protested that with all her daughters married, she would have nothing else to wish for, but the reality was something different, and Mrs Bennet had perhaps more complaints now …

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Bloom Where You are Planted – Lydia Blooms in Venice by Diana Birchall

August was hot in Venice, as might have been expected, and the Darcy party sat outside in the garden, fanning themselves and taking some comfort from the shade offered by the olive and persimmon trees. There was no coolness to be derived from the canal below the terraces of the Palazzo Mocenigo, as no breeze …

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Lydia in Venice Part Two: Rebirth and Regeneration

There was a silence following Lydia’s announcement. She looked around questioningly, from her sister and Mr. Darcy, to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, all of whom sat as if frozen. “Why, what is the matter? You act as if I said something queer. I only said that Lord Byron is my child’s father,” she protested. Elizabeth …

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Lydia in Venice: Rebirth and Regeneration

  Mrs. Darcy looked concerned as she seated herself at the breakfast table and sought her husband’s eyes with her own. “Mercy, what a night,” she murmured. “I am past apologizing for my sister.” He put his hand over hers. “My only concern is that you should feel discomfited, my love. Please do not, on …

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Young Bennets by Diana Birchall

It had been a quiet three weeks at Longbourn, to Mr. Bennet’s satisfaction. His wife and daughters were having all the enjoyment of a visit to her brother Gardiner’s house in London, and since their leaving the countryside in a wild and noisy burst of excitement, Mr. Bennet had not been sorry to be left …

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The Darcys in Venice – Part 12

  “And so another New Year begins,” Darcy said thoughtfully gazing out at the Grand Canal. Large flakes of snow were gently falling, and decorating the iron railings above the water. A little ice tinkled about the edges, but the canals were not frozen, and light from the candelabra in the palazzo opposite reflected in …

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Adventures at the AGM, Part 2

As Shannon Winslow said yesterday, in her delightful post about her own adventures at the JASNA AGM in Victoria, B.C.: “Frequent attendees say that every AGM has its own personality and flavor, and there will be something uniquely special about each one.”  I am nothing if not a frequent attendee, having attended my first Annual …

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Finery and Folly: a Lydia Story by Diana Birchall

“When Lydia went away, she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where …

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Flights of Fancy in Jane Austen by Diana Birchall

“Flights of Fancy” is our theme this month, so let us take a flight into seeing how Jane Austen used the concept of fancy in her novels. The meaning of the word itself is not so much changed since her day as many words are; we might still say that we fancy something (or someone!) …

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