Regional member and author Collins Hemingway will doing another lecture in our area, at the Cornelius Public Library for a lecture and reading on Sunday, May 15, at 2 p.m. He will be reading from his new novel, The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen. 

Click the link below for more info: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/author-collins-hemingway-reading-of-the-marriage-of-miss-jane-austen-tickets-24848708155

We have previously featured the 2015 title, The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, written by our own regional member Collins Hemingway, on our website (here in Nov. 2015 and here in Jan. 2016), and we are pleased to further highlight two new audio interviews spotlighting Collins and his work.
 
Audio interview with JASNA Philadelphia, March 2, 2016 (45 minutes) 
​http://austenmarriage.com/jasna_interview/
 
Audio interview with book reviewer Diana Jordan (7 minutes) 
http://austenmarriage.com/diana-jordan-podcast-interview-collins-hemingway/

You can read more about Collins Hemingway and his works on his website, Austen Marriage, here at http://austenmarriage.com/ 

Here are the sources for the Bath presentation by Margaret Harshbarger for our January 10, 2016, reading group meeting and discussion:

1. Oxford English Dictionary
2. Pamphlet of #1 Royal Crescent Bath Museum
3. What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan
4. England’s Thousand Best Houses by Simon Jenkins
5. Austen Country by Tom Howard
6. The Touring Book of Britain
7. A Frivolous Distinction by Penelope Byrde
8. A Dance with Jane Austen by Susannah Fullerton
9. All Things Austen Vol. 1 by Kirstin Olsen
10. Jane Austen by Brian Wilks
11. Jane Austen’s Town and Country Style by Susan Watkins
12. Jane Austen’s Letters edited by Deirdre Le Faye

Here's an excellent piece by Slate's Laura Miller about Emma ​and the perfect novel:  http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/12/jane_austen_s_emma_is_the_perfect_novel.single.html

Below is an excerpt from the article:

An article from The Guardian, suggested by our own Pauline Beard, about how Jane Austen's Emma changed the face of fiction. An in-depth and interesting take on how Emma is so revolutionary a novel.

​Here is an excerpt from the article:

Click here to read the entire article:  ​http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/05/jane-austen-emma-changed-face-fiction

Collins Hemingway, a member of our local JASNA region and author of several books, will be giving a book reading of his novel, The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, at 2 p.m., Saturday, December 5, at the 23rd and Thurman branch of the Multnomah County Library. Collins will also be giving another reading on Sunday, December 6, at the Wilsonville Library.
 
The novel reimagines the largely blank period of Austen’s life, 1802-1809, to ask how marriage might have changed her as a person and writer. It is not light fare but a serious look at life for women in the early 1800s. 

You can read more about the book, and enjoy extras like podcasts and book reviews, on the book's website, ​http://austenmarriage.com.

~ A woman especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can. ~
 
Dear Janeites,  
 
The tiny book Jane Austen Speaks to Women (Edith Lank, 2000) that inspired this month’s readings contains many quotations from the novels and letters of Jane Austen, sometimes advice as above, so Deb and I wondered what other “advice” books were in vogue during Austen’s time.

​What was Austen reading when she writes the above? What inspired the spirited reply of Elizabeth to Mr. Collins’ proposal: “Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart” (Chapter 19). Various commentators have pointed out the echo from Mary Wollstonecraft’s: A Vindication of the Rights of Women Chapter 5: “ Speak to them the language of truth and soberness, and away with the lullaby strains of condescending endearment! Let them be taught to respect themselves as rational creatures, and not led to have a passion for their own insipid persons” (emphasis added). Thus Deb and I thought it would be interesting to look at the Vindication (only pieces from Chapter Five and Ten you’ll be glad to hear) to find other resonances with Austen’s lines about women…. Then after reading Susan Ford’s insightful essay on Fordyce’s Sermons (see Lydia’s reaction to Mr. Collins choosing that edifying treatise… end of Chapter 24…), we asked ourselves:

**“What do these works and Austen speaking to women mean for men and women in the 21st century?” **

Attached are Chapters 5 and 10 from Wollstonecraft [scroll down to view or download in PDF format], and here is the link to Susan Allen’s essay: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol34no1/ford.html, and then some prompts to aid in our discussion that we hope to arrange first in small groups then coming back to the large group… a system that has worked very well in the past. 

Some points to ponder (as much or as little depending on time of course).

1) Answer the question above. **

2) Within the small discussion group (we will divide up the large group as smoothly as possible), you will be asked for two quotations from Austen’s works or the letters to aid in the discussion focusing on categories such as Marriage. Money. Old Age. Courtship. Mothers… these categories might help focus the discussion. You won’t know the category assigned to your group until the very moment… just to keep things exciting!

Finally, read the 1950s so-called advice sheet (a fake?) and see how far men and women have come… or not! http://www.snopes.com/history/document/goodwife.asp. For fun, check back to Wollstonecraft’s last paragraph in Chapter 5 in response to Dr. Fordyce…
 
Deb and I look forward to the discussion! Sunday November 8.

Deborah Eley referenced several sources during her presentation about "women's work" during Jane Austen's time, at last weekend's reading group discussion event. Below are the titles and links to the sources she used.

There is a new title in a planned trilogy about Jane Austen and the places she lived and loved; the series, by British author and graphic designer Terry Townsend, is part of the Halsgrove Discover Series. The first title, "Jane Austen's Hampshire," was published last summer, in August 2014, and the second, "Jane Austen and Bath" was published last month, in April 2015. The final title in the series, "Jane Austen's Kent" will be available this summer, in early June.

Click here for more background info about the upcoming title, "Jane Austen's Kent," at http://www.halsgrovemedia.co.uk/imagebase/data/albums/KB41/KB338/Jane%20Austen_s%20Kent.pdf.

There is also an interesting interview with Terry Townsend about the book series, as well as his background and interest in Jane Austen, on the My Jane Austen Book Club site here at http://thesecretunderstandingofthehearts.blogspot.com/2014/08/talking-jane-austen-with-terry-townsend.html.

The topic for the upcoming Reading Group discussion, scheduled for this upcoming Sunday, March 8, is Jane Austen's final work, Sanditon. The discussion leaders will be Jennifer and Sam Snoek-Brown. Please read the following in preparation for the reading group discussion:

While Sanditon is an unfinished novel, comprised of only 12 chapters, there are so many opportunities for rich discussion and so many themes that we could potentially discuss as a group. While Sam and I were discussing the unfinished novel this weekend, within only a few minutes we had listed multiple potential discussion topics, including (but not limited to):

• Health fads and treatments in Jane Austen's time
  
• Seaside resorts and the commercialism and allure of sea-bathing in Jane Austen's time
  
• Jane Austen's own failing health at the time of writing Sanditon
  
• The theme of communication -- and miscommunication
• The theme of extreme change represented in Sanditon in multiple ways
• Comparisons to other works of Jane Austen
• Speculating what Sanditon reveals of Jane Austen's writing if this were the FIRST work of hers you read
• The meaning and importance of "subscription libraries" in society during Jane Austen's time
• Commentary of other novels and authors mentioned in Sandition
• Connections between Northanger Abbey and Sanditon
• Connections between Mansfield Park and Sanditon
• The writing and drafting process evident in Sanditon -- as well as the editing process of its subsequent publication
• The numerous versions and popularity of the continuations Sanditon has spawned

As you can see, there is so much potential represented within so few pages!

So how to narrow this down to a single discussion? Sam and I decided to go back to the source -- or rather, the source of Sanditon's initial presentation to the public, which was in 1870 through J.E. Austen-Leigh's memoir of his aunt Jane Austen. In that memoir, in Chapter XIII, Austen-Leigh described the writing of Sanditon and included his own personal summary of it, along with substantial excerpts from Austen's text. The full manuscript of Sanditon was not published until 1925. (Scroll down to the bottom of this message for links to his memoir online.)

Therefore, Sam and I have pulled out the following discussion questions/themes relating to J.E. Austen-Leigh's original introduction of Sanditon. 

• What do we make of the title, Sanditon? The nephew refers to Sanditon only as "The Last Work," but says it was untitled. The family named it "Sanditon," but some sources indicate Jane Austen's original working title was "The Brothers."

• Is there any indication as to why Jane Austen began this last work, and why did she set it aside a few months before her death? The nephew very clearly lays out the start and end dates of Austen's work on Sanditon, and uses metaphorical language to describe his own view of why Austen worked on this "last work" while she was ailing:  "...it is certain that the mine at which she had so long laboured was not worked out, and that she was still diligently employed in collecting fresh materials from it." 

• Is there a primary heroine? The nephew states, "...nor was any heroine yet perceptible, who, like Fanny Price, or Anne Elliot, might draw round her the sympathies of the reader."

• What indications are there of the story's direction? The nephew states, "... there was scarcely any indication what the course of the story was to be."

• And finally, what can we, as readers, judge about the work's quality? The nephew states, "It is more difficult to judge of the quality of a work so little advanced."
  

For sources and/or further reading, please feel free to explore the following:

• E-text of Sanditon available online in multiple formats at https://archive.org/details/Sanditon
• E-text of J.E. Austen-Leigh's 1870 memoir available online through Project Gutenberg (scroll down to Chapter XIII, "The Last Work")
• Links to more info about seabathing, seaside resorts, health issues, etc. relating to Sanditon here on the Austenonly website, http://austenonly.com/about/jane-austens-sanditon/