As this month’s theme has to do with Jane Austen and School, let us begin with a visit, in fact and in story, to the school Jane Austen herself attended. Other treatments of the theme might deal with her characters at school – or university – or threatened with working as governesses – or anything …
Books are everywhere in Pride and Prejudice, once you start looking for them, and it is interesting to consider how Jane Austen uses her characters’ book choices and reading habits to shed light on themselves. She does this as intentionally and skillfully as she does everything, and reveals much about her characters, often to hilarious …
A nearly full moon shone, spreading a path of white light on the Venetian canals, as the black gondola glided along the Grand Canal. Each palazzo was like a grand darkened cavern, with only candlelit chandeliers glittering out from the interior, and the two cloaked and masked couples in the gondola were silent with enchantment. …
The Darcys’ eldest boy, Charles, was old enough, at five, for some alphabet lessons, and Elizabeth had used her scissors to cut out letters of paper, which were now spread over the table. Charles and Jane, a year younger, were playing with them, not learning very seriously, while the baby, Fitzwilliam gurgled in a basket …
“My dear Mrs. Darcy,” said Mrs. Hoppner, wife of the English consul, seated in her pretty drawing-room overlooking the Grand Canal, “we are most gratified by your calling upon us. You live far too retired a life here in Venice, indeed you do.” She was a plump Swiss lady, whose husband, son of a well …
As the gondola pulled away from the Grand Canal, and out into the wide lagoon, the waves began to toss and the shifting, sun-filled clouds made dappled reflections on the silvery sea. The ancient buildings with their delicate tracery silhouetted against the magnificent expanse of sky and shining water, merged into a series of exquisite …
“I believe we will be quite comfortable here, and the dampness need not be a concern,” Elizabeth told her husband after an inspection of their fantastical and antique “new” quarters at the Palazzo Moncenigo. “These crumbling palaces on the Grand Canal have such a ruinous beauty, there is a strange enchantment about them.” “I always …
In early December, I had the joy of a trip to Venice. Naturally, I tried to relate my experiences and sights to Jane Austen (as one would do). In her day, wealthy young men were often sent on a Grand Tour, which generally included Italy; and her own brother Edward was one of these travelers. …
In Thanksgiving week, it is natural to think about turkey; and it is equally natural for Austen Variations members to think about turkey in Jane Austen’s life and writing. We need not wonder, however, whether she ate turkey, or liked it; for it is known that she did both. There are symptoms of turkey enthusiasm …
As a long time member of JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America), I’ve been to many of their annual conferences, held in different parts of the country every October. The one that took place in Huntington Beach, California, last weekend, was one of the best ever. I live about an hour’s drive north of …
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