Susannah Fullerton
President
JASA

Letter from the President

In Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen depicts Elizabeth Bennet trying to account for her change of feelings towards Mr Darcy.

But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude. Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection.

Jane Austen could never have dreamed that, as well as creating a strong feeling of gratitude in her heroine, she would also create it in her readers nearly 200 years after writing Pride and Prejudice. Working on Jane Austen: Antipodean Views, I was impressed again and again by how grateful people were to Jane Austen for the various ways in which her works had enriched their lives. One woman met her husband through acting in a dramatic version of Pride and Prejudice, another endured an illness which left her permanently in a wheelchair and was helped through this trauma by reading Jane Austen. Many who had written books about Jane Austen had felt their lives had been altered and improved by the experience, while others were grateful to the excellent teachers who had brought Jane Austen into their lives. No contributor was paid for writing a piece for the book, yet most seemed very happy to spend time writing up their experiences of Jane Austen because they were so grateful for the pleasure she had given them.

As I reach the end of my fifth year as President of JASA, I share Elizabeth’s feeling of gratitude. Because of Jane Austen I began my lecturing career, joined JASA and made some wonderful friends, travelled to conferences, brought out my first book (having fun collaborating with Anne), spent far too much money on my Jane book collection and gained an absorbing interest in English history. All that, quite apart from the untold hours of pleasure that reading her novels has given me. thank you, jane austen.

Jane Austen lived much of her life in a country at war. I’m sure you will all join me in hoping that that is one experience we will NOT share with her. I would like to wish all JASA members a peaceful, healthy and happy Christmas.

Susannah Fullerton

Current JASA Publications

The December 2001 issues of JASA publications Sensibilities and the JASA Newsletter, have been sent to all JASA members. 

You can read short online extracts of each of these articles from Sensibilities . The articles in this latest issue of Sensibilities are: 

• ‘She learned romance as she grew older': Persuasion as the 'natural sequel' to Sense & Sensibility - Hugh Craig
• 'You have delighted us long enough' – Art & Artifice in Jane Austen's Singers - Janet Rutledge
• Sewing the Seams of the Novel: Needlework and Clothes in the Life and Writings of Jane Austen - Andrea Richards

JASA 2001 Conference papers. Theme: Jane Austen & Love

• ‘The Doctor is In’: How Jane Austen’s Lovers Go from Boys to Men to Boys - Joan Klingel Ray
• Jane Austen and Adultery - Susannah Fullerton
• Falling in Love with Jane: The Pleasures and Problems of being an Austen Fan In Australia - Brigid Rooney

Book reviews

• Recreating Jane Austen – John Wiltshire - Reviewed by Pamela Nutt
• A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family 1705-1806 –  Jon Spence - Reviewed by Dennis Nutt

Items from the Newsletter (and from Practicalities, JASA's news update sheet published in March and September) are reproduced on this website. 

Most past issues of Sensibilities can be purchased for A$6.00 each. See the Sensibilities list of articles.

For another taste of what members enjoy in Sensibilities, the JASA refereed journal praised for its consistently high literary standards, read a longer extract from a talk by Penny Gay to a JASA meeting in 1994, as reported in a previous Sensibilities: 'Emma and the Battle of Waterloo'.

Letter from Chawton

Dear Friends,

Such is our business here that we reach the autumn before I have had time to alert you to events from earlier in the year. Mercifully our own County of Hampshire has not so far suffered from the dreadful outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, and though we took the advised precautions, we were not affected. But affliction of another kind we did have. Incessant rains commencing from October last year continued through to March saturating the ground like a sopping sponge. The Lavant Stream which runs through the recreation ground opposite ‘our Chawton home’ became so swollen that it overflowed and inundated the footpath to and cellar of our beloved parish church of St Nicholas, Chawton. The heating system boiler was totally submerged. In the emergency, we of course offered the Rector whatever help we could, and much to my satisfaction were able to make available our Granary outbuilding as the temporary accommodation for all the services for almost five months, until a new system had been installed; and by Easter we could take up our customary pew again.

Of course this meant there was an unusual extra expenditure on the Parish’s meagre resources, so there have been special fundraising efforts. These have included an entertaining evening in the Church with Mister Alan Tichmarsh, who is a distinguished and widely known expert here in the field of horticulture (especially I am told through the new medium which I cannot pretend to understand of television and programmes called Gardeners’ World and Ground Force). He lives in Beech only a mile or so from us, and next door to Wyards farm where my niece Anna Lefroy and Ben resided and whom I would so often walk over to visit. Though he himself has also dabbled in the skills of authorship, I remain confident in my own position ahead of the competition – but he certainly established himself as a raconteur. It was the desire of some parishioners that I should express our thanks for his efforts. What could I say but by surrogate through my pen? My Elizabeth B said ‘One cannot always be laughing at a man without stumbling on something witty’. However, I was able with some glee to expound on our own garden, now delightfully with our full encouragement looked after on a weekly visit by Mrs Celia Simpson; a pupil at one time of Mr Tichmarsh when he was at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I mentioned that, as when at Southampton in February 1807, ‘we desire he [the gardener] procure some syringas. I could not do without syringas for the sake of Cowper’s line’. In fact at Chawton we really have Mock Orange – Philadelphus – but I must not complain because they are substantial and put up splendid blossom on our Winchester Road frontage. We have been experimenting on our west wall with an Apricot of the Moor Park variety – you remember the contretemps between Aunt Norris and Dr Grant in my MP – well we had been hopeful likewise of an Apricot, but after blossoming well, the shoots withered on catching a cold, and we now nurse it like a sick child! The Blush Noisette climbing roses by the garden entrance door flourish with great vigour in bloom from June to September. Our Portland Rose, and Rosamundi in the border beyond the back lawn do well too, but are exhausted after their exertions for just three weeks in June. Our vegetable patch though much smaller now than in my mother’s time, has given us large size squash, delicious leeks, parsnips, and broccoli, but the carrots inexplicably are but a baby size and rather distorted in shape, though still edible. We shall have to replace the failing raspberry canes next year.

As you know you are always all welcome to call by despite the distance of your journey, so the above may be a small taster of your visual reward.

Time precludes my continuing further at the moment, but I am given to understand that there is a new quick method for delivery of this missive – and that I may entrust its circulation despatched by Mr Carpenter to you all.

Yours sincerely

Jane Austen
pp Tom Carpenter

[No further news has been heard of the dreadful proposed residential development in Chawton Village. We hope that means that the developer has decided against an appeal! Ed]

A. A. Milne & Jane Austen

A.A. Milne, poet, playwright, pacifist, novelist and creator of the immortal Winnie-the-Pooh, was an ardent fan of Jane Austen. Throughout his life Pride and Prejudice remained his favourite novel and he tended to judge people on their responses to this novelist.

Milne first encountered Jane Austen as a schoolboy. In 1893 he entered Westminster where, at that time, there was virtually no teaching of literature. ‘With the English language we never had any official dealings’ (p.64) he later remarked. But he could still read for himself and the school library, open from 5.15 to 6.15 every evening became a haven for the rather lonely and permanently hungry schoolboy. ‘Nobody asked you what you were reading, or minded what you read, but the books were there and you were there ... Of all Westminster institutions this seems to me to have been the best.’ (p.65) There he first met David Copperfield, Becky Sharp and Elizabeth Bennet and was so intrigued by their adventures that he was unable to leave the unfinished books behind when the library closed. The boys were not officially allowed to take books out of the library, but young Alan Alexander slipped Pride and Prejudice up his waistcoat to return it when finished.

Although an ardent pacifist, Milne was sent to the Somme during World War I. Rather like a character from Kipling’s war story The Janeites, he tended to judge other soldiers on their acquaintance with Jane Austen. He was once with a group of soldiers in a trench and they became completely isolated – someone had to get a line out of the trench so that they could get help and Milne was chosen by his Colonel to be the one to go. He had to pick another soldier to go with him for part of the way. ‘I knew nothing of my section then’, he recorded in his autobiography, ‘save that there was a Lance-Corporal Grainger who shared my passion for Jane Austen, unhelpful knowledge in the circumstances.’ After huge risks, which he was lucky to come through alive, Milne found that Grainger had done far more than was originally asked of him and had closely followed Milne through the whole enterprise. He recorded his response in his autobiography: ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I said. [Grainger] grinned sheepishly ... ‘I thought I’d just like to come along, sir.’ ‘But why?’ He looked still more embarrassed. ‘Well, sir, I thought I’d just like to be sure you were all right.’ Which is the greatest tribute to Jane Austen that I have ever heard.’ (p.176-77)

In 1935 Milne set to work, spending almost a year on the task, to write a dramatization of his favourite Pride and Prejudice, which he called Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Originally he started out thinking he would write about Jane Austen herself. ‘The characters began to assemble on the stage. Mr and Mrs Austen, Cassandra, the cheery brothers, Uncle Leigh; and at her table in a modest corner, busy, over the chatter, at what the family would call ‘Jane’s writing’, Miss Austen herself. Soon she will have to say something. What sort of a young woman is she? What will she say? And as soon as she had said it, I knew that it was just Miss Elizabeth Bennet speaking. So the play, then, must be about Elizabeth Bennet. It must in fact be a dramatization of Pride and Prejudice. Quite impossible, I decided at last, but considerable fun to try. I tried ... Six months later it was finished; and on the day upon which it was finished I read that a dramatized version of Pride and Prejudice was about to be produced on the New York stage ... There was still England. Should one hurry to get the play on with any cast that was available, or should one wait for the ideal Elizabeth, now unavailable? In the end the risk was taken; arrangements were made for the early autumn; the Elizabeth I had always wanted began to let her hair grow; the management, the theatre, the producer, all were there ... and at that moment the American version arrived in London.’ (p.412-13)

This American version was Pride and Prejudice by Helen Jerome. Reviewers who read Milne’s script were more impressed with his efforts than with Helen Jerome’s. ‘This dramatization is vastly more scholarly than the version now visible at the St James’s Theatre. Even Mr Milne trips up occasionally. But these are tiny blemishes compared with the enormities of the American version’ (p.413), wrote the New Statesman reviewer. But Jerome’s version had got in first and, in spite of its faults, ran for some time in London. Miss Elizabeth Bennet did get a successful run at the Liverpool Playhouse and Milne was there for the first night in September 1936. ‘In the absence of Miss Austen’ (p.413), he made a brief and modest speech. It was to be another eighteen months before the play was seen in London and its run was a short one. The theatre-going public had had their fill of Jane Austen for a time!

Milne continued to write plays, but he also went on to write children’s books. His creations – Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Owl, Kanga, Tigger and Eeyore – have become part of our language and mythology. Did Milne have Fanny Price in mind when he created the timid (yet actually very courageous) Piglet, did the restless and confident Henry Crawford inspire bouncy Tigger, does the maternal Kanga owe something to motherly Mrs Weston, and is there just a touch of Mary (‘my headaches are always worse than anybody’s’) Musgrove in Eeyore? We will never know, but it is nice to think that their creator, A.A. Milne, had such endless pleasure from the novels of Jane Austen.

Note: All quotes and anecdotes in this article are taken from: A.A. Milne: His Life, by Ann Thwaite, Faber and Faber, London, 1990

The 40-watt Harriet. Toni Collette (left) as Harriet Smith in the 1996 film adaptation of Emma.

Some have Austen thrust upon them

Harriet is an unusual name these days and people often ask ‘Where did that come from’ (what? Like Mars, you mean?)

Actually of course, it came from my parents, but they got it from Jane Austen. They were trying in a hurry to think of a girl’s name because until I arrived they had been expecting a boy called Stephen. Fortunately for me, they checked the baby’s accessories before racing off to the Registry. But they had to think of a name quickly, and one that wouldn’t put anyone’s nose out of joint on either side of the family.

So Austen seemed the answer as they both liked her and both liked the name Harriet, and thus I escaped Rosamund or Ishbel (my grandmothers’ names). In the end, so did my sisters Sarah and Emma. (Thank heavens the parents didn’t like Shakespeare as much, or we could have ended up Ophelia, Titania and Desdemona.)

Harriet was actually an odd name to grow up with, in the days before Olde Englishe names got popular again and herds of Sarahs and Emmas and Rebeccas and Amys appeared on the landscape. In those days, most children seemed to be named after members of the Royal Family and people would look at me vaguely and say ‘Oh. My grandmother was called Harriet.’ ‘Oh thank you, there’s no answer to that.’

But at least I always knew I had JA behind me. Some people had enough schooling to say ‘um, Jane Austen?’, which is a lot nicer than ‘That’s an odd name, is it French?’ I could always say snottily ‘No, Jane Austen’ to the ignorant sort, but at least it started the conversation on something more interesting than the weather.

This meant however, that from an early age I had to know something about Jane and Harriet to keep the conversation going. So I started reading Emma. Imagine my disgust when I found Harriet Smith, that sweet, stupid little thing. I was named after this mawkish little miss? Whose idea was this anyway? The girl is a dill, a pretty and well-meaning one, but a dill nevertheless. There had to be something better.

More Jane Austen revealed Harriet Forster, the wife of Wickham’s colonel in Pride and Prejudice, but she was nitwitty enough to let Lydia Bennet have her head. I couldn’t win.

It never has been any use to re-read Emma. I’ve changed my mind about most of the characters over the years, and most of the characters in all of the books, but not Harriet. She’s a 40-watt bulb and you can’t get over it.

At one point I wondered if perhaps her only excuse was that she was a hint to a family secret. Hang on, Harriet Smith is illegitimate, when exactly were my parents married? Fortunately a little counting on my fingers (all right, but I’m named after a literary character, not a mathematician) showed that I might have been a nine and a half month baby, but wasn’t a ‘natural daughter’ of anyone, I was just stuck with a twit.

My mother tried to calm me by suggesting that I read Dorothy L Sayers, whose wonderful creation is Harriet Vane, detective writer then bride of the delectable Lord Peter Wimsey. This was much more my idea of a Harriet, but it didn’t get me over Jane’s Harriet.

However, putting Miss Smith to one side, what Jane Austen did give me as a birthday present, was a world. Madame Lily Bollinger once said about champagne that she drank it when she was happy and when she was sad. Sometimes she drank it when she was alone and with company she considered it obligatory. She trifled with it a little if she wasn’t hungry and drank it when she was. Otherwise she never touched it, unless she was thirsty. That’s Jane Austen for me.

Pride and Prejudice is for cheerful days, and love wins in the end. Emma is for clever days, when her sparkle is just what you need, or for superior days when you can laugh at her determination to be wrong about everyone (and love wins in the end). Sense and Sensibility is for tired days, to confirm that Willoughby is as big a bastard as you thought (and love . . .). Northanger Abbey is for mad, carefree days when you want to hug Catherine for being so cute, and again see how superior you are to the Thorpe family (and love wins for the right people). Mansfield Park is for worthy and intellectual days, even if, most of the time, you just want to slap Fanny (and love wins in the end). Persuasion is for sad, misty days (and love ...)

Jane very generously passed me on to many other writers too. Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre have given me many years of delight, although I could never get the hang of Emily’s Wuthering Heights. The Brontës led me to Dickens, he took me a while, but I had to do it, and Bleak House got me at last. I’m still wrestling with George Eliot.

I was led to gothic novels in general, thanks to the parodies in Northanger Abbey. Once you have the habit of reading it will take you to all sorts of places that you never imagined. Dorothy L Sayers, who had the aforementioned Harriet, pointed me to Nancy Mitford and PG Wodehouse, God bless her.

Jane gave me the music of Mozart, Handel and Beethoven. She also gave me the Regency period in general, a wonderful period for dress and furniture, and politicians and hard-drinking, hardbitten rakes to swoon over even if you know perfectly well you wouldn’t want to touch them (or smell them).

This led to Georgette Heyer’s books, mocked by some as mere bodice-rippers, but never bettered for scholarship married to delightful heroines in exquisite danger.

Jane even added to my social life. One day I was reading Pride and Prejudice on the bus and the woman beside me, who was reading it over my shoulder, said, ‘You should join the society’, and thrust a pamphlet for JASA into my hand, so here I am.

Nowadays, Harriet is more popular as a name, which meant a couple of years of jumping every time a mother screamed at her toddler Harriet on the street, and the Jane Austen films have become so popular that people can say ‘Oh, that’s Jane Austen’ to me, even if they haven’t read her.

The bad side to this is that it is now terribly fashionable to be in love with Mr Darcy, and I resent this. A note to any Janie-come-latelys out there, he’s mine and he has been since long before you ever got gooey over Colin Firth. Keep your mitts off him.

But this doesn’t lessen the fact that Jane inadvertently sent my life in a direction it would never have gone if I had been called Rosamund.

Now we have to work on my niece. She inherited the Rosamund, and, judging by the common remarks today, the poor thing will spend her life saying, ‘No, it’s not Shakespeare, that was Rosalind,’ until someone does something literary for her.

Harriet Veitch

The story of B, or The Ubiquitous Jane Austen

Listening to Books and Writing on Radio National recently I heard a talk given at the Edinburgh Writers’ Festival by the author Brian Aldiss. He told of his friendship with a most charming and intelligent little bee. ‘B’, as he called her, was eager to learn how to read and as he thought she would make an excellent pupil, a first lesson was arranged. He decided to let B choose what she would read and she opted for Pride and Prejudice. To encourage her he slipped grains of sugar between each word and so they began. He was a little taken aback when B insisted on reading from right to left – ‘.wife a of want in be must fortune good a of possession in man single a that, acknowledged universally truth a is It’

Somewhat disconcerted, Aldiss did not want to discourage B and arranged to see her again the next day. He suggested she might prefer to start on another book but she insisted on returning to Pride and Prejudice and began on the 2nd paragraph – ‘?last at let is Park Netherfield that heard you have’, day one him to lady his said ‘Bennet Mr. Dear My’

B was beginning to look a little discouraged but readily agreed to come next day for her third lesson. That night Aldiss wracked his brains to think what he should do. At this rate B was going to lose interest rapidly and he decided that he must offer her something less challenging than Jane Austen. Scanning his bookshelves he caught sight of a book of limericks and realised that this would be the very thing, simple, short and amusing. When B arrived for her next lesson he brought out the book and while she was settling herself on the table he scanned the first page:

There was a young man from Tralee
Who had an affair with ————

He was appalled. ‘My God, 1 can’t let her read this, such a sweet, sensitive creature.’ Making a lame excuse he told B that he would have to discontinue her lessons and sadly watched her fly away.

…

Both the Editor and I thought that this ending was a bit too abrupt, so, undeterred by the awful example of those misguided persons who have written sequels to our favourite Jane Austen novels, I have replaced Brian Aldiss’ ending with one of my own:

B looked on in bewilderment as Aldiss hurriedly thrust the limerick book back on the shelf. ’Aren’t we going to read the rest of Pride and Prejudice?’ she asked. ‘Ever since the hive and I saw it on the Bee Bee C, they have been wanting to hear it read and I had set my heart on doing it for them.’

‘I’m sorry, B’ said Brian, ‘but you must admit we are not making much progress and I doubt if it is any use continuing our lessons.’

B’s face fell, then brightened as she had an idea. ‘Would you possibly consider reading it to us? Just one chapter a week? We would be so grateful.’

And so it came about that Brian Aldiss found himself, a few days later, before the most attentive and appreciative audience he had ever had. When the reading finished B came up to him and took his hand. ‘That was wonderful,’ she said. ‘But are you quite sure that you want to do this for us?’

Looking at her fondly, Brian replied ‘Of course I am. It’s given me the most terrific buzz.’

Marjorie Jones

Jane Austen as  Victorian

Had Jane Austen survived into her nineties, say, how would the Victorian era have affected her writing? How would the Victorians have received it? She might well have been judged ‘old-fashioned’. Forced to adapt to a different world, she would live through many changes – the advent of the young Queen Victoria, the development of the Industrial Revolution, the coming of the railways. Would she have become used to travelling on those railways or have had her characters use them in an everyday sort of way, as Trollope does?

Would she have lost some of her country-born reserve and met some of the great people of that age? Would she have talked to the humourless Charlotte Brontë? The latter might have avoided her – whereas that mentor of Brontë and others, G.H. Lewes, as an admirer, certainly would have been keen to meet her.

There were two faces to Victorianism: one was all about earnestness and worthiness, the other about materialism and hypocrisy. Jane Austen, a creature of the decadent German Georges, could hardly have been uninfluenced by those broader-minded times of her youth. Later, however, she may neither have allowed Mary Crawford’s knowingly suggestive remark about ‘rears and vices’ nor have hinted that an unfortunate girl might need some months in seclusion at a remote farmhouse. Male authors might have alluded to such matters, but certainly not pure-minded authoresses.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that many a person with strong radical views can undergo a change of heart with passing years. I fancy that Jane Austen would have been a conservative with a small ‘c’. Letters to Cassandra reveal that with the approach of middle-age she was already growing less tolerant of the young, nor – apart from a few favourites – was she over-fond of small children. Would she have become a ‘perpendicular, precise, taciturn piece of single blessedness’? The phrase was Mary Russell Mitford’s and she based it on hearsay only. Despite it, that lady enjoyed ‘the poker’s’ novels.

And what of Jane Austen’s writing in Victorian times? It would, in essentials, I believe, be very much what it ever was; but yet she wrote enough of Sanditon, her last and (sadly) unfinished novel, to show that she could move with the times. The theme was so novel, so up-to-the minute with what was actually going on then that we can only regret once again what the world missed by her early death.

Christene Evans

Chapter X - The cancelled chapter of Persuasion

One of the few pieces extant showing Jane Austen at work as an author (in ‘the act of greatness’ that Virginia Woolf found so elusive in her), is the cancelled chapter of Persuasion. This chapter was replaced by two new chapters (the present chapters 10 and 11), to which she wrote Finis on 18 July 1816, just a year before her death, the final chapter 12 being largely unaltered. Any lesser author would have been more than satisfied with this chapter, but most readers would agree that the final published version improves on the ‘excellent’ to reach the ‘superb’ we expect from our favourite author. Compare it to the tautness of the final work: the conversation with Harville demonstrating Anne’s principles and strengths, the tension of Captain Wentworth writing his famous love letter, the symbolism of the dropped pen that would no longer write…

Members will recall that the previous chapter had been devoted to Anne’s contact with Mrs Smith, and the exposé of Mr William Elliot’s true character.

Read the cancelled chapter of Persuasion, from A Memoir of Jane Austen
by her Nephew, by JE Austen-Leigh, at http://labrocca.com/index.html

Hugh Thomson’s sketch of Wentworth and Anne and the most poignant love letter in all of English fiction. 
This scene is part of Austen’s re-write, which is Persuasion as we now have it.

Reports

2001 JASA Annual Conference, 14 July 2001, Jane Austen and Love

The theme of the 2001 JASA conference seemed to be pretty self-evident – Jane Austen and Love. After all, according to some (heretics), isn’t that all that she wrote about?

By the end of the day, however, the 160 or so JASA members who attended the conference in Sydney’s National Maritime Museum had seen some wildly different takes on how to connect Jane with love.

The opening speaker was our overseas guest Professor Joan Ray from the University of Colorado, President of JASNA. In her talk, ‘The Doctor is in’: or, Jane Austen’s male lovers change from boys to men to boys, Joan attempted to separate Jane’s men from her boys by applying a system for assessing their ‘stages of moral development’.

Using a framework first developed by Dr Lawrence Kohlberg, Joan argued that as Jane’s writing progressed, the psychological and moral complexity of her male characters also deepened. Joan quoted the example of many of the characters in the Juvenilia as being at the lowest level of development (which is apparently normally shown only in children and adult criminals). Certainly Mr Wickham would seem to slot very nicely into this category.

In category two are those men who are basically decent but whose behaviour is governed by social strictures. In other words, they do things because they’re supposed to, not because they are the right thing to do. In this category, Joan includes James Morland from Northanger Abbey and Edward Ferrars from Sense and Sensibility.

Darcy, Mr Knightley and Colonel Brandon were, according to Joan, at the highest level, reflecting their preparedness to act against the social norms if they thought best (and I’d like to get on record here that I was and remain personally disappointed that Captain Wentworth did not rate higher than the middle or conventional level!).

Our next speaker was our own Susannah Fullerton, who spoke on The costly pleasures of adultery. Susannah gave a run-down of the famous affairs of Jane’s time (referred to as ‘The Age of Scandal’) and outlined the costs to the participants of engaging in extra-marital activities. Usually the men were able to get away with it just by paying a bit of cash in ‘damages’, while for the women the cost was in terms of reputation. Although it seems that for some women notoriety was a benefit!

Susannah’s talk certainly made it clear that life in Georgian England was seamier than the various BBC ‘bonnet dramas’ and adaptations would imply. Except of course for the recent Patricia Rozema version of Mansfield Park, which of all Jane’s novels deals most obviously with adultery and its consequences.

The final talk before lunch was Dr Brigid Rooney’s presentation Falling in love with Jane: The pleasures and problems of being an Austen fan in Australia. Brigid’s talk proved to be rather controversial, covering issues ranging from Aboriginal land rights, postmodern literary criticism, early Australian literature, and of course Jane’s works themselves. One conference delegate rather conspicuously walked out of the session half-way through, and while Brigid’s talk was of a completely different nature to the other presentations during the conference, it was certainly a highly personal talk and, if one was brave enough, thought-provoking. At one stage Brigid asked us to compare the England of Jane’s time and the young Australia of the same time – certainly they would have been as alien to each other as our world now is to Jane’s world. [Thoughtful debate is always invited from our members on any paper delivered to or published by the Society: we encourage and would welcome your input if you wish to agree or disagree with any issue raised. Ed]

After a very tasty lunch, we settled down to some visual delights. Carolyn McDowall from the Academy of Design and Decorative Arts in Brisbane gave us a mouthwatering slide show entitled Love Jewellery from Cupid to Candlelight, Castellani to Cartier. The slides featured beautiful examples of jewellery and other craftworks either especially commissioned for a lover or featuring themes of love. Unfortunately, Carolyn’s paper cannot be made available for the current issue of Sensibilities, with the other conference papers.

Finally, we heard from JASNA President Joan Ray again, who gave a delightful off-the-cuff presentation on Loving Jane Austen in America. Joan took us through the ins and outs of the 1999 JASNA conference hosted by her chapter in Colorado Springs, which had everyone in the audience frantically scanning their 2003 diaries to check their availability for the JASNA 2003 conference in Winchester UK. [See tour invite on page 29]

The conference closed with a small presentation to Susannah Fullerton, in recognition of her continued hard work on behalf of JASA (including hosting Joan Ray during her stay in Sydney), and to mark the fact that it was also Susannah’s birthday and she had chosen to spend it talking about Jane.

All in all it was a highly enjoyable day – the venue was excellent, the catering was great, and the speakers all gave us something to talk about.

Wills

Reactions to A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family, 1705-1806, continue positive – it is quite rightly being seen as an excellent research tool for Austen, her family and her time. If you haven’t yet acquired your own copy, or the perfect Xmas gift for a potential Janeite, order form is attached.

JASNA Conference 2001

JASA members Pamela Whalan and Nora Walker presented another of their light-hearted ‘Point-Counterpoint’ pieces at the October conference in Seattle, on the subject of Heroic Husband or Lustful Lover, which was well received. Pamela reports:

Despite fears beforehand, the numbers attending the JASNA conference were still just under 500 - though the opening speaker decided to forego a plane trip from nearby Chicago! In the wide variety of papers, two deserve mention: David Selwyn of the University of Bristol, author of Jane Austen and Leisure, and co-author with Maggie Lane of Jane Austen: A Celebration, spoke on Games and Play in Austen’s Literary Structures, and Dr Inger Brody, who addressed our 1996 conference at Wyong, spoke on Entertaining Grief: Jane Austen & the Virtuous Victim. A concert produced music of Jane’s time, including pieces by George Bozarth on an original Broadwell square 18th century piano, and the Conference Ball was an opportunity for delegates to show off (and dance in!) their beautiful Regency gowns.

Most noteworthy however, was the very warm welcome of the Seattle organisers – for example, we were very kindly billeted by a Seattle JASNA couple, and at each lecture a ‘favour’ was on each seat in the auditorium – a book of games and puzzles, a copy of Jack and Alice, branded luggage tags to get home with: all this gave a very warm feeling to the overall event. Seattle is much to be congratulated.

Foreign Correspondent

For contact details of other Jane Austen societies and links to other Jane Austen web sites see LINKS.

Chawton House Library project
www.chawton.org

The Chawton House Library, in the Chawton Great House so central to Jane’s last years, is moving towards its opening in 2003, and is starting a Friends Association for interested organisations and individuals. The Centre for the Study of Early English Women’s Writing (between 1600-1830) will be based at the Library, and is scheduled to open in July 2003, coinciding with JAS-UK’s annual general meeting, AND the huge JASNA conference in Winchester at the same time. (See notice of our own JASA 2003 tour to this very special event on p.29, and see if you can join us!) In the meantime, they are continuing to add novels online. The highlight of the recent additions is The Inhuman Stepmother; or the history of Miss Harriot [sic] Montague - an endless tale of shipwrecks, pirate attacks, and virtuous European women being sold as slaves to heathens. Harriot Montague’s unsurpassed beauty and virtue win her the love of Leander. The serpentine plot leads them through many improbable adventures before finally depositing them in each other’s waiting arms.

Dianne Speakman

Godmersham Church website
www.godmersham.com

Godmersham Church is located near Godmersham Park, in Kent, the home of Jane’s brother Edward. Here Jane worshipped during visits to her Edward and his family.

The Church’s website is very new, and invites discussion on the Church and Jane Austen’s association with it. They also have a Friends organisation (headed by Alwyn Austen, descendant of Jane’s brother Frank). Membership of the Friends will give you access to their newsletter, keeping you updated on what’s happening at the Church, including restoration, conservation, historical research and events. And if you plan to visit Godmersham and are a Friend, you can have a free guided tour of the Church!

Dianne Speakman

Adelaide

Adelaide has had a dynamic year so far. We have had an explosion of growth of young members, giving a new dimension to the group.

With so many subjects surfacing, we face having two speakers at a meeting to get through the ideas for this year, which is wonderful for us all. We have looked at the strengths or otherwise of Fanny Price, the Boston conference, Jane’s Aunts, dinner parties and their possible calorie intake. We looked at just how many of the heroes were heroic, took in a view of the Blue-stocking while working on a thought of Mothers and others and their peculiar joys.

We looked at contemporary Bath and were curiously circulated with an offer of our own JA baseball caps! and took in a view of the 18th century Great House and the ignominy of where Mrs Jenkinson’s room really was – out next to the coal shed.

We went off into the Adelaide Hills and strenuously work-shopped Persuasion, deciding that in the novel, the warmth of the friendship grew as the rooms sequentially got smaller. We are looking at a great Birthday celebration for this year despite all that has gone before.

Adelaide wishes all Jane Austen members a year of Good Will and Peace. We look forward to welcoming more visitors from interstate.

We meet on the third Saturday of each month, at 1.30pm at the WEA in Angas St, City.

Lynnaire Hawker

Blue Mountains

Saturday 8 December is the last meeting of the year for the Blue Mountains Jane Austen Group, and what an enjoyable year it has been with discussions, a video and slides.

This meeting, however, will depart from the usual discussion format to celebrate Christmas with games and delightful goodies as well as a visit from JASA President, Susannah Fullerton.

Susannah will be delighting us all with tales of the recent publication of a book she and fellow JASA member Anne Harbers, have been working on. We are sure this will be very entertaining and the Group wishes both Susannah and Anne every success for the launch on 3 December.

Address and time: 2 pm, ‘The Glen’, 71 Lalor Drive, Springwood. Any one interested in coming please contact Elizabeth Lindsay on (02) 4751.6697 or e-mail BethofTheGlen@bigpond.com.

Elizabeth Ayres

Christchurch

We are sure other JASA members share our pleasure in making contact with those of like mind. Christene Evans’ regular correspondent, Margo Goia from Chicago, recently expressed this feeling when she wrote, ‘I have said many times, many places, that Jane Austen has been one of the best things of my life. Not only to read books from a genius but to make the best friends I have ever had. And imagine, it didn’t happen to me till I passed forty!’.

So we do not hesitate to add the benefit of what Anne Elliot termed ‘good company’ to the many others we enjoy as Austen enthusiasts. In just that way we also profit from ongoing communication with the Adelaide Society through the good offices of Lynnaire Hawker. We tried their challenging quiz on JA’s novels and have to admit that we failed to achieve perfect scores, so must strive to improve! Members there enjoy a very active and stimulating programme of activities. The innovative study themes and approaches they have devised encourage us to produce our own fresh ideas.

Here in Christchurch, Christene’s latest project has led her to speculate about how JA might have been influenced had she lived on, as most of her siblings did, into the Victorian age. This line of thought recalls a comment made by Virginia Woolf. In her review of an Austen biography she wrote: ‘We don’t begrudge it to him but we note that her brother the Admiral lived to the age of ninety.’ Had the life of his second sister continued for a similar period, just what would those unwritten novels have been like? Christene has reached some challenging conclusions
(see p 21).

In an offshoot from this Victorian focus, we have mused on a further question: who, of present day writers, would be sympathetic to and capable of producing a novel about JA as a force in Victorian letters? Who could bring in all the big guns of those days such as George Eliot, the Brontës, Dickens and Trollope etc? We thought long and hard and could find no single candidate, but the names of A.S. Byatt, Muriel Spark and John Fowles occurred, as well as many others no sooner named than discarded!

Naturally we also continue to re-read JA’s novels themselves. We are not alone in this, of course. As Ted Adams <yepwho@yahoo.com> wrote to the Janeites mailing list on 17 May, ‘Wordsmith.org’s A.Word .A.Day had this as its quote for today, which feels especially relevant to those of us who keep reading the same six books:

When you read a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in yourself than there was before – Cliff Fadiman.

Perhaps we might also add that by re-reading JA’s novels, we develop a greater capacity to appreciate them fully. As an example of this, Ruth recently analysed the narrative technique of Emma and was struck anew by the consummate artistry of that novel’s author. How much we enjoy being the writer’s plaything as she leads us – and Emma – on to reach patently false conclusions!

Mary Broad, on marybroad@ earthlink.net commented on this point when she also contributed to the Janeites list in May: ‘In a 1999 NY Times Magazine article, Charles McGrath (editor of NYT Book Review) described Jane Austen as, ‘the original master of what we now call ‘cool". This included: her irony, her shrewd social observation plus the ‘ability to stand apart from life even as it’s being lived,’ and a ‘quicksilver narrative technique that puts us almost inside a character’s head and then in an instant, with just a word sometimes, darts away to someplace else.’.

No wonder all would-be imitators of her supreme art fall so far short. We are hard pressed to identify even one writer or film-maker who has grasped the full dimensions of characters and situations with anything approaching the economy or wit of Jane Austen herself.

Ruth Williamson & Christene Evans

Melbourne

June and July 2001 were busy months for the Jane Austen Society of Melbourne. At our 30 June meeting, we welcomed Mr Robin Grove, Lecturer, from the University of Melbourne as Guest Speaker with his most interesting lecture, Thinking Morality: Jane Austen makes up her mind. On 14 July, five of our members (including myself) attended the JASA Annual Conference on Jane Austen and Love in Sydney, which proved to be a most interesting and enjoyable day. The following Thursday evening, 19 July, committee members welcomed that conference’s keynote speaker, Dr Joan Klingel Ray, President of JASNA, to Melbourne for a week-long stay.

On Saturday 21 July, our Society held a ‘Special Event’ at the English Speaking Union in South Yarra (our regular venue for meetings) in honour of Dr Ray’s visit, where she repeated for us her address given at the JASA Conference entitled Jane Austen’s male lovers: from boys to men to boys, to the delight of a large and appreciative audience. On the evening of Monday 23 July, 20 members and guests accompanied Dr Ray to Como Historic House in South Yarra for a performance of Stephanie Daniel’s charming play, An uneventful life. Dr Ray was delighted with the performance and has invited Stephanie to perform at the 2005 JASNA AGM.

After such excitement, our 25 August meeting was an in-house affair with a panel presentation by five members exploring The Cinderella theme in Mansfield Park.

JASM’s 2001 AGM on 27 October had as Special Guest Speaker Miss Helen Lefroy, Vice-Chairman of the Jane Austen Society of the UK. Miss Lefroy addressed us on the subject of The Lefroy Family in Hampshire: Life in the Rectory and George Lefroy’s connections with the Volunteers.

The Society’s finale to a very busy year will be a special ‘End-of-Year Event’, to be held on 24 November where our Guest Speaker will be Associate Professor Peter Fitzpatrick from Monash University, who will present his paper on The Language of Love. Also, Dr John Wiltshire from LaTrobe University will speak about his latest publication, Recreating Jane Austen.

A warm welcome is extended to any JASA members who may be visiting Melbourne and would like to attend any of our meetings. For more details please contact Mercia Chapman on tel (03) 9897 3283, fax (03) 9897 4616 or email mchapman1@ optusnet.com.au, or myself on tel (03) 9853 8153.

Fay Jones, President JASM

Canberra

The Canberra Group has been having some fun and interesting meetings. We’ve had a couple of quizzes where we discovered that both Jane Fairfax and Mary Bennet were each our favourite and least favourite
pianists (!) and though we couldn’t agree on many other characters we were unanimous in voting Mr Gardiner as our favourite Uncle and Mrs Norris as our least favourite Aunt. No surprises there!

As the group is unable to attend Jane’s birthday lunch in Sydney we thought we might try to organise a smaller version here in Canberra. Any interested member would be welcome to attend. We’re also very much looking forward to a visit from the President, Susannah Fullerton, in February next year to give us a talk on her new book, edited with Anne Harbers, Jane Austen:
Antipodean Views.

Anyone interested in joining the Canberra Group should contact Heather Aspinall on (02) 6247 1137.

Heather Aspinall

Jane & the Internet

Republic of Pemberley

www.pemberley.com/jasites/jasites.html

The wonderful Republic of Pemberley site at www.pemberley. com has added a new page to its already extensive collection of discussion boards and information pages. This one is a collection of locations from Jane’s novels and various TV adaptations, with links to the home pages of the various locations (eg the Chatsworth House home page). There are also lots of links to sites about Jane’s life, such as Godmersham Park and Steventon. A great resource for researching a trip to England, but even if you’re not travelling, it’s still hours of fun and enjoyment for the JA fanatic.

Jane meets Buffy

‘Life Am Good – Joss Whedon’s Pride and Prejudice’ http://lifeamgood. com/01aprbuffy.html

This site is a compelling example of the power of modern technology, and how it can be used for universal good and the dissemination of knowledge. Well, OK, maybe not. But it is an example of some good fun (and very obscure to those disadvantaged/impoverished ones of us who are NOT Buffy fans! Ed).

The creators of this site have taken an online text of Pride & Prejudice and replaced Jane’s characters with characters from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And if this wasn’t enough, they’re turned Buffy into Mr Darcy, and Spike into Elizabeth Bennet.

As the site creators themselves say, ‘It was just so right. It was just so very, very wrong.’

To get a feel for the resulting story, just imagine Xander Harris as Georgiana Darcy and Angel as Lydia Bennet. Mary Bennet becomes The Anointed One, and Anya is Mr Collins. Willow is of course Mr Bingley. I’ll admit that there is a lot of room for dinner party discussions about this, but unarguably the most appropriate match is Lady Catherine, played by Principal Snyder. Ooh, I can see it now!

Jane Austen 200th birthday commemorative stamps

Member Margaret Coulson has found these treasures – Jane Austen stamps issued in Britain in 1975 for Jane's 200th birthday. Why four? Why these odd values? Where did they get their illustrations? But aren't they delightful! They are sometimes available on request from stamp dealers, so try your luck!

FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au

27 January 2003

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