JASA News 
December 1999

Susannah Fullerton
President
JASA

The President's Report

According to a recent report in The Sydney Morning Herald, Jane Austen is the third most written about woman ever! The Virgin Mary takes first place and she is followed by Joan of Arc. Considering that both those women had some hundreds of years advantage over Jane, and had the vast power of the Catholic Church promoting them, Jane Austen’s ranking is remarkable. She is also the only one of the three who gained her place solely through her own efforts.

Jane Austen may have been awarded only the bronze medal in the ‘most written about woman’ stakes, but a recent report in The Australian newspaper awarded her a gold! Jane Austen, it claimed, ‘has given pleasure to more men in bed than any woman in history’. I’m sure you will agree that Joan and the Virgin Mary cannot even begin to compete with her here! I would add that she has not reserved ‘bed pleasure’ for men only. Women, reading in bed, have probably far outnumbered men when it comes to getting pleasure from Jane Austen. I would not like to make any predictions about polls at the end of the next millennium, but I do feel that with a declining reader interest in religious publications, there’s an excellent chance that Jane Austen could overtake Joan and Mary and be the most written about woman ever at the end of next century.

Jane Austen’s novels were published about 184 years ago. Until very recently anyone wanting to become acquainted with her characters had to read her books. Now people all over the world get to know Jane Austen’s men and women via the movies, the television, the theatre and their computer screens. Jane Austen enjoys amazing accessibility.

Not only are her novels accessible in more ways than she could ever have dreamed of, her name has also given rise to a whole industry. Continuations and completions have been appearing at a furious rate, the number of biographies written about her quiet life would have astonished her, while the flourishing societies formed in her name in Australia, England and North America would (I hope) have delighted her. She never earned a great deal from her writing, but the Jane Austen industry is now earning plenty from Jane Austen stationery, carry bags, key-rings, cups and paper dolls. My favourite item is a shocking pink nightie which has printed across the front ‘Not tonight, dear ... I’m reading Jane Austen’. I think Jane Austen would have laughed with Cassandra over such a garment.

Books on Jane Austen’s life, letters, works and times continue to appear, there are more movie versions to look forward to and technology in all its forms introduces more and more readers to her novels. ‘Austenmania’ is alive and well. It is clear that in 184 years Jane Austen has gained for herself a secure place amongst mankind’s ‘greats’. I feel very proud to be president of a Society that bears her name and devotes its energies to promoting her wonderful novels. I look forward to leading JASA into the 21st century and a new millennium.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all.

Susannah Fullerton

Current JASA Publications

The December 1999 issues of JASA publications Sensibilities and the JASA Newsletter, have been sent to all JASA members. 

The articles in this latest issue of Sensibilities are: 

• 'Robert Martin and the English Yeoman'
  Marjorie Jones
• 'Jane Austen’s Grotesque Characters'
  Pamela Nutt

including the papers presented at the 1999 JASA Northanger Abbey Conference:

• Introduction
  By JASA President, Susannah Fullerton
• 'Northanger Abbey: The Gothic And The Real'
  Alan Dilnot
• 'Northanger Abbey: The Gothic and the Real'
  Alan Dilnot
• 'Northanger Abbey and the Theatrical World'
  Penny Gay
• Desperately Seeking Susan
  Jon Spence
• 'Jane Austen and the Furniture of Northanger Abbey'
  Julian Bickersteth

You can read short extracts of each of these Sensibilities articles online.

Book reviews

• Jane Austen and Sigmund Freud: an Interpretation
  by Julian Wilmot Wynne
• Letters from Pemberley
  by Jane Dawkins

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: 'Emma and the Battle of Waterloo'.

News, Views & Titbits

– British Library Celebrates Jane Austen’s Writing Desk

Jane Austen’s writing desk (below) will be the centrepiece of the British Library’s Millennium exhibition, Chapter and Verse: A Thousand years of English Literature, thanks to Joan Austen Leigh, a great great great niece of Jane Austen and co-founder of JASNA. The desk, a small chest which opens to reveal a writing surface and storage space for inkpot and writing implements, was presented in October by Joan and her daughters, complete with Jane Austen’s spectacles in their case and her sewing kit, known as a ‘housewife’ (pronounced ‘huzzif’).

In papers found at Chawton Cottage, Deirdre Le Faye discovered that the Reverend George Austen purchased the handsome mahogany piece in Basingstoke for his youngest daughter, possibly as a birthday gift. Her sister Cassandra was the first to receive it as a legacy. Ownership then passed from aunts to nieces until Joan Austen Leigh received it from her aunt, reinforcing Jane Austen’s remarks about ‘the importance of aunts.’

At a gala reception celebrating the receipt of the desk, two more precious pieces of Jane Austen memorabilia in the possession of the library were on display: a letter in Jane’s own hand and the two cancelled chapters of Persuasion. [Her History of England, illustrated by Cassandra, is part of the inaugural Treasures of the British Library exhibition marking the relocation of the British Library from the British Museum to its vast new red brick facility in Euston Road.]

Claire Tomalin, the distinguished biographer of Jane Austen ... said that the presence of Jane Austen’s writing desk at the British Library’s Millennium exhibition would demonstrate that ‘All you need if you are a writer is a desk, a pencil and of course a great brain.’

Elsa A. Solender

Jane Austens writing desk

One of the requirements of entering the quiz on Emma at the JASNA Conference was the writing of a charade. I bravely ‘expose’ my effort ‘to the public eye, but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it’.

My first suggests I lack, or am in pain.
My second says I strive but do not gain.
My next, times nine, is a carillon bell,
Or sounds as though I cut and sew full well.
My name is used by only one, and he
Regards my state in doleful sympathy.

By reading this ‘slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every part’ as you proceed, you will soon come to the solution – Poor Miss Taylor.

Pamela Whalan

JASA member Anne Morley photgraphed in 1957 with Box Hill in the background.

Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what every body found so well worth seeing...’(p.348).

Member Anne Morley has sent us these two photographs of the famous picnic spot. Anne lived at Ranmore, on the other side of the Mickleham Valley, from whence this 1957 photo of her was taken, with Box Hill in the background. The second photo is taken from the top of Box Hill, and is from the April/May 1999 Heritage magazine, which explains:

Box Hill took its name from the box trees which grew on it. These evergreens were often cut down because their dense wood was ideal for wood engravings, so there are fewer now than in earlier times. Box Hill is located on the North Downs Way footpath, crossing Surrey from Farnham to Limpsfield and then into Kent.

There is only one road from Mickleham to get to the top of the hill, as seen below, and this would have been the route taken by Emma’s party that summer’s day .

– Jane Austen and an Australian connection: John Knatchbull

The connection with Jane Austen is, to say the least, tenuous, but this blood-curdling tale of Sydney’s past has its fascinations. This passage refers to a John Knatchbull, member of the Kent family into which Jane’s niece Fanny Knight married. Fanny was the much-loved, but later very sharp-tongued niece, daughter of Jane’s brother Edward, and married into the ‘ancient Kent family’ of Knatchbull in 1820, three years after Jane’s death. What would Jane have thought of the connection?!

At Darlinghurst gaol, just outside the gaol gates, is a dusty plot of grass where Sydney folklore says the gibbet used to stand. Some celebrated felons were disjointed here, including bushrangers ... but the most interesting must surely have been Captain John Knatchbull, RN, a gentleman of an ancient Kent family (into which Lord Mountbatten later married), and a remote connection of Jane Austen’s, who brought a versatile black sheep’s career to a smashing climax when he walloped a widowed shopkeeping lady with a tomahawk. ‘The devil made me do it’, he maintained. But he was really after her rumoured savings, which he intended should pay for his wedding and set him up in business ...

Class always counted strongly in the style of Sydney, as it did everywhere the British trod. Hardly had the colony been founded than it evolved class distinctions of its own.

Gentlemen-convicts were even put into a special camp, where unfrocked clergymen, cashiered officers, disgraced lawyers and exposed bankers got special treatment. Once such was naval officer John Knatchbull. Dismissed the service for ‘behaviour unbecoming an officer’, this patent psychopath was transported in 1825 for picking a pocket in London, but was not deterred. He beat a man to death on the voyage out. He tried to poison the entire crew of the ship taking him to Norfolk Island. He murdered a woman with a tomahawk. Yet he was given his own servant on the journey to Botany Bay (the man he beat to death) and to the very day of his eventual execution by hanging in Sydney in 1844, he was surrounded by suggestions of aristocratic privilege. ...

Knatchbull’s execution beside the Darlinghurst Gaol gates attracted the largest mob of thrilled sightseers ever known in a city already famous for the ghoulish curiosity of its populace. The weeks before the hanging had been marked by public processions of the lower-class, carrying black flags marked with death’s heads, who feared that because of the accused’s higher station, he would be reprieved. ‘Equal punishment for high and low’ was their cry. The Sydney newspapers covered the hanging to ‘the last light quivering of the body’, albeit adopting a righteous and hectoring tone towards the 110,000 spectators who stood for hours in the February heat of that early morning, pressing against the chain which held them at a distance from the gallows, and chiacking the mounted police who patrolled the barrier.

Knatchbull wore a new suit of fine black broadcloth, reputedly a gift from Lady Gipps, the wife of the governor, so that he could die like a gentleman and not let the side down. He didn’t. He had been converted to religion some time prior to his execution, and conducted himself with dignity, being ‘launched into another world with a noble and fervent prayer trembling on his lips’. The crowd was shocked into a dismayed silence, and dispersed quickly and quietly.

Quoted from Ruth Park’s Sydney, Ruth Park and Rafe Champion, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney, Revised edition 1999, pp72-3, 134-5.

Professor Yasmine Gooneratne, Patron of the Jane Austen Society of Australia

Why A Jane Austen Society?

Our patron, Yasmine Gooneratne, reflects on the Society and its beginnings.

I have been trying to recall the particular feelings and intentions that took me to Sydney for the first (and as it turned out, ‘Foundation’) meeting of the Jane Austen Society of Australia.

Why did I go? It was partly because anything and everything to do with Jane Austen interests me, and has interested me since I first heard Pride and Prejudice read aloud by my mother and my elder sisters on the verandah of an outstation bungalow in Sri Lanka. It was partly because the invitation – or perhaps I should say ‘summons’ – came from Nora Walker, whom I had first encountered as a student in my 18th century literature classes at Macquarie University, and whom I knew to have an absolute passion for that subject: a passion that emerged in the form of closely reasoned, beautifully written essays and perceptive class discussions of the work of two writers in particular for whom my own admiration was little short of idolatry: Jane Austen and Dr Samuel Johnson.

The decision to establish a society in Australia whose members would share their enjoyment and knowledge of Jane Austen was one which I entirely endorsed. However, I had by then lived 17 years in Australia, and knew from observation of such things on my own university campus how difficult it is to raise enthusiasm for literary and cultural matters in a society dedicated to sporting activities of a mindless nature.

There was no doubt at all in my mind that Nora Walker’s brain child, if it actually managed to be born that afternoon, would have to struggle to survive. I was glad to do anything I could to do anything I could to help, but was very vague as to what that ‘anything’ would be.

Nora changed all that. Her ideas and her determination had the steady, loyal and enthusiastic support of her husband Roy. She established a committee and an agenda.

To my surprise I found myself invited to become Patron of the new Society – I say ‘surprise’ because although I had written a study of Jane Austen’s works that Cambridge University Press had published in 1970, which had become something of a standard text in schools and universities in Australia and overseas, I have always regarded myself as a lifelong student of the 18th century, rather than as any kind of expert.

I said as much to Nora, who took no notice whatever of my diffidence, and put my name up for election. (I later gathered that she had inquired earlier of my husband Brendon, with whom she has a common interest in Project Jonah Australia, the non-governmental organisation for marine mammal conservation, whether I would accept such an invitation. Brendon, who has little time for shrinking violets and has always been convinced that I can do anything he sets his mind to, had assured her that I would.)

Since then, I have to say that membership of the Society, participation in its activities, and fellowship with its members have provided some of the principal joys of my life off campus.

It has been very satisfying to watch the Society grow to its present size under Susannah Fullerton’s able and imaginative chairmanship, to observe the respect it receives from similar organisations here and overseas, and admire the professionalism which, under the guidance of Helen Malcher, is a feature of its publications. I benefit (as of course we all do) from the dedication its committee members bring to their work. As we know, none of that work is performed for financial reward or profit. Membership (or for that matter, patronage) of the Society will bring no one a fortune or a seat in parliament. So we are left to ask ourselves: why do we do it? Why does the Society exist?

The answer – or at any rate, my answer – lies in the nature and spirit of Jane Austen’s writing. That is, in itself, an incredible fact, especially in these times, when (as we see demonstrated on all sides every day) television and internet technology seem to be replacing the book in every civilised society, and when (as we also see demonstrated every day) no one seems to do anything unless there is some material profit to be made from it.

The fact that the unillustrated writing of an English spinster who lived 200 years ago should be so thoroughly enjoyed by so many people all over the world, should motivate and inspire them in the ideas they bring to the business of daily life, is not merely curious, it is downright miraculous. I never cease to wonder at it – the same wonder I feel when a plane in which I am seated lifts off the ground and rises into the air, defying all the forces that would pull it downwards to the ground.

Jane Austen’s writing represents for me, in its cool reasonableness, its moral fastidiousness, its idealism, and the shapeliness of every sentence, my idea of civilisation in its most perfect form. The existence of a Society which encourages and diffuses knowledge of that writing is for me a lasting symbol of the connection between art and human life.

Yasmine Gooneratne

 

'Stop, Stop, Mr Thorpe.'
A Hugh Thompson illustration to Northanger Abbey

Report of the JASA Conference 1999:
Northanger Abbey

A member reports on our 1999 Conference in July. All papers from the Conference are reproduced for you in the current (December 1999) issue of Sensibilities.

We have all come to expect a high standard of quality from the conferences organised by the JASA Committee, and the 1999 Conference on Northanger Abbey was no exception. The conference was held on Saturday 31 July at the Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, and was attended by some 150 members.

Our President, Susannah Fullerton, opened the Conference with a warm welcome to all, mentioning also that this was the first time JASA had devoted an entire conference to Northanger Abbey.

The first talk, Desperately Seeking Susan by Dr Jon Spence traced the influences in Jane Austen’s own life which gave rise to Northanger Abbey. As these influences had much to do with Jane’s brother Henry and his controversial wife, the former Eliza de Feuillide, this session was spicy and amusing, and greatly enjoyed by all.

After morning tea, Professor Christine Alexander spoke on Landscape Gardening in Northanger Abbey, not only shedding new light on General Tilney’s vegetable gardens, but giving us the background to the call for landscape improvement in the late 18th century. Christine also pointed out how attitudes towards the use of the land illuminated the characters and the difference between General Tilney and his son Henry. The talks were illustrated with interesting slides of well-known landscapes designed by Humphrey Repton.

This was followed by Dr Alan Dilnot’s paper Northanger Abbey: the Gothic and the Real, in which he discussed the ability to appreciate gothic literature and the pleasure it can bring to those who read it properly. His account of how their reactions to the reading of gothic novels reflected the characters of Catherine, Isabella and John Thorpe, Henry and Eleanor Tilney, was illuminating and fascinating. The lunch break gave us all an opportunity to renew acquaintances and discuss some of the issues raised in the morning session.

The lunch was good, but some of us found the filled rolls a little large to manage with the elegance Jane Austen would have expected!

There was no post-prandial napping during Mr Julian Bickersteth’s talk on The Furniture of NorthangerAbbey. Mr Bickersteth holds a Graduate Diploma in furniture conservation and established International Conservation Services some years ago. As he grew up in Wells, 20 miles south of Bath, and is a Jane Austen fan himself, his familiarity with the novels added an extra dimension of interest to his informative talk. We were all fascinated by his descriptions (well illustrated with slides) of the chests, cabinets and ‘modern furniture’ encountered by Catherine at Northanger Abbey. Most intriguing of all was his account (with illustrations) of an early 18th century couch and two chairs, which found their way to the Sydney Power House Museum from England and were restored to their former glory. They are presently held in storage by the Museum.

Our last speaker of the day brought the conference to a fitting and hilarious conclusion. Professor Penny Gay spoke of the theatre and theatricality in Northanger Abbey, and to illustrate the nature of gothic performance was ably assisted by two accomplished gothic actors famed for their passionate and tragic performances – Ms Susannah Fullerton and Dr Jon Spence! The heyday of the gothic drama was from 1790-1810, and Catherine’s first contact with the theatre and theatricality is in Bath. The theatre was a safe place to share the terrors of the gothic tales. Henry’s entertaining gothic supposition for Catherine is a performance, as is Isabella’s posturing, and the various roles taken on by Henry in the course of the novel. Theatricality, Penny concluded, was in fact an expression of the urban sophistication of Bath.

Afternoon tea was followed by a lively question session, and the Conference came to a reluctant end with sincere thanks to the speakers, the appreciative audience and the hard-working committee who made it all possible. A special thanks went (most deservedly) to our President, Susannah Fullerton, whose tireless enthusiasm, professionalism and hard work ensure the high quality of all the JASA activities.

Livia Richardson

There was a young lady named Jane ...

Yasmine Gooneratne gives us a critical analysis of the Limerick form, in the process of judging the JASA Limerick Competition.

According to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the limerick had its very beginnings in a kind of extemporised nonsense-verse sung by each member of a convivial party.

In introducing the winners of JASA’s Limerick Competition, therefore, I’d like to call attention to the appropriateness of the form itself to the present occasion, a party to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Jane Austen Society of Australia. I

t has been suggested that the name derives from the chorus of an 18th century Irish soldiers’ song, Will you come up to Limerick? The origin of the limerick is unknown. The Shorter Oxford suggests 1898/1899 as the date of origin, in which case we should be celebrating the limerick’s centenary as well as our own 10th anniversary, but the Encyclopaedia Britannica assigns the earlier date of 1820 to the first collections of limericks in English. Edward Lear, who composed and illustrated those in his Book of Nonsense (1846) claimed to have gotten the idea from a nursery rhyme beginning ‘There was an old man of Tobago’. A typical example from Lear’s collection is this verse:

There was an Old Man who supposed
That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large rats
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile Old Gentleman dozed.

My own favourite among Lear’s limericks is probably the one that you all know well:

There was an old man with a beard
Who said, ‘It is just as I feared:
Two ducks and a hen,
Four larks and a wren
Have all made their nests in my beard’.

Like all other literary genres of the 18th century, the limerick is a poetic form with its own strict rules. First among these, which Lear and others duly observed, is, clearly, that a verse which is meant to be sung as a chorus must satisfy the demands of metrical accuracy; ie. it is important that an acceptable limerick, whatever its subject, should scan satisfactorily. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is very definite on this point: The limerick, says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, consists of five lines, usually rhyming aabba, and the metre is roughly anapestic, with two feet in the 3rd and 4th lines, and three feet in the others. However, some limerick-writers experimented with the form, Walter de la Mare among them. He came up with several variations, one of these being the double limerick. Among de la Mare’s best, I have a special favourite, which I’d like to share with you because it reads like a sub-plot from a novel by Fanny Burney or Jane Austen:

There was a young man in a hat
And by came Miss B. in a bonnet;
He smiled when he looked at the latter,
Aye, and the roses upon it.
But when by and by,
As blue as the sky,
He detected her eye
‘Neath its brim, well, oh my,
He wished that fair cheek was well under his hat,
And his own half concealed in her bonnet.

Since I know that the Society’s members read widely and love literature, I thought it quite likely that an entry or two might come up with a double limerick. One came close to it – Marjorie Jones striking a personal note with an extra line in her entry on Mansfield Park:

A modest young lady named Price
Was ever so humble but nice;
When a charmer pursued her
And ardently wooed her
She put it all down to his vice -
(If only she’d asked my advice!)

Other rules gradually attached themselves over the years to the limerick, deriving more from practice than from prescription. These are: that a limerick should be popular in character, brief, humorous, often nonsensical and frequently ribald, crowded with improbable incident and brimming with innuendo, occasionally exploiting the anomalies of English spelling, or using the form for pithy observations upon serious philosophical concerns.

All these principles were taken into account when reading the entries to the competition. On consideration, some adaptation of the rules seemed in order. For example, since the limericks were to relate to the work of one of the most sensible and accurate writers in the English language, it seemed proper that ‘nonsense’ should be ruled out, unless of course it was called for by Austen’s text itself; as, for example, in the verbal contributions to the novels of such notable nitwits as Mr Woodhouse and Harriet Smith in Emma or Mrs Allen in Northanger Abbey. (As it turned out, all the entries without exception ignored mere nonsense and nitwittery.) Also, and again because of the care with which Jane Austen constructed her plots and characters, entries which treated her text with respect and accuracy were looked on with favour. This, I hasten to say, did not rule out humour, it only eliminated inaccuracy. For, since we are an Australian society (and not North American or British) ‘popular in character’ was taken to read ‘related in some way to our own experience’, ie. local or contemporary, or even Australian. Indeed, several entries, including the winning one (to which I will come later) used popular or Australian idiom to good effect. Some, interestingly, indicated to me that many of Jane Austen’s readers in the Society habitually compare her world with ours: for example, Pat Boland’s speculation on Jane Austen in Australia -

Had Jane Austen been born in Australia
Would she have had success or failure
Would her pride turn to prejudice
Whilst she looked on incredulous
At the sight of the convicts’ behaviour.

or Shirley Byrne’s philosophical and moral comparison of Jane’s times with our own:

Through rose-coloured glasses we’re aided
To see Jane’s people paraded
Their behaviour’s fictitious
But oh! so delicious
How different from our world degraded.

You will agree that within the rules of the limerick as applied to this special case, there are plenty of possibilities for the limerick poet, and plenty of scope for the imagination. The entries that came in explored all such possibilities, and discovered some new and unexpected ones. However, a few entries failed to fulfil the basic requirement of accurate scansion, and so had to be eliminated at stage one – with much regret, I should add, because such entries, though they might have had a foot too few or a foot too many, were by no means short on humour or pithiness (and even occasionally on ribaldry).

A general survey showed that the great majority of the entries succinctly summarised the plots or sub-plots of the novels. Among these were notable entries by Shirley Byrne on Pride and Prejudice:

Naughty Lydia influenced Kitty
With tales of high times in the City
But Mr Bennet said ‘No
You are never to go
Until you’ve become wiser and witty’.

Hilary Rudden, also on Pride and Prejudice:

Dear Lizzie is everyone’s girl,
Her wit and her charm make us whirl.
Darcy feels he’s above her,
But can’t help but love her
Then knows he has captured a pearl.

And Marjorie Jones on Persuasion: When Louisa fell on her head They [all were] afraid she was dead [When] Mary set up a wail Captain Wentworth turned pale But it all turned out well for dear Fred. Also popular were character sketches as the subjects of limericks – ideal subjects since the limerick affords very little space and, as we know, Jane Austen herself went in for miniature painting in literature. Good examples included Pamela Whalan on Persuasive People:

Elizabeth Elliot was proud
Mary complained very loud
Sir Walter was vain
Mrs Clay sadly plain
And Wentworth stood out from the crowd.

And Christene Evans, also on Persuasion:

Sir Walter of Kellynch was vain
In fact, he was rather a pain
His actions were rash
He squandered his cash.
Though handsome, he hadn’t a brain.

Sometime the entries allowed Jane Austen’s characters to talk (or think) aloud, and did it very convincingly, as in Melissa Kang’s limerick on Emma:

His words ‘badly done’ were so mighty
I cannot think of them lightly
I must make amends
To family and friends
And win back my dear Mr Knightley.

Or Sadie Underwood’s delightful portrait of guests entertained at Hartfield by Mr Woodhouse, also in Emma:

There [once were] two ladies called Bates
Who were careful to watch what they ate
When Mr Woodhouse was near.
But they said, ‘Oh, my dear,
You should see what we eat when he ain’t.’

Ribaldry, as such, was present in some of the entries, but was mild by 18th century standards. However, we had Pamela Whalan’s Potted Persuasion:

There was a young Wentworth called Fred
Who wanted Anne Elliot to wed.
But the dutiful Anne
Renounced this fine man
Though he finally got her to bed.

Bedtime comes into the picture again, accompanied by lust, when Bertha McKenzie goes to work on the play within the plot of Mansfield Park:

Enter Henry, lustful cad,
Exit Maria, running mad;

and a little later.

When Maria Bertram lost her head
Playing Agatha, mother of Fred,
Mr Rushworth adoring
But so dull and boring,
Couldn’t keep her from Henry’s bed.

The limerick, like the sonnet, requires accurate rhyming, and some entries experimented with amusing and unexpected rhymes, as Marjorie Jones did in her limerick on Pride and Prejudice:

An accomplished young lady name[d] Bingley
Was afraid that she’d have to live singly,
So she set her cap
At a rich handsome chap
The thought of his wealth made her tingly.

Most of us would agree with Marjorie and Helen Sims when they rhymed Darcy with classy. Marjorie (who sent in several good entries) completed that particular one with:

When he met Liz he said
I wish we could wed
What a pity your mother’s so brassy.

While Helen Sims saw the ending of the novel differently

Then he met sparkling Lizzy,
Fell into a tizzy
And his masculine optics grew glassy.

And added, in another limerick, that the Bennets’ daughter named Mary sang songs that would curdle a dairy. Christene Evans, an impressively inventive rhymester, and Marlene Arditto were among several competitors who noticed, like Helen, that the young Georgian lady name Lizzy sent Mr Darcy into a tizzy.

Two pithy observations that were, alas, defeated by the scansion rule included that of Denise Harris from Hunters Hill who thinks Fanny Price needs assertiveness training, and Katarina Bavcevic from WA, who yearns to throw ‘Caroline in a den’ together with her sister Mrs Hurst, and then check them ‘in a year or ten’.

Needless to say, several entries gave the author priority over her works. One of these tributes came from Jean Boland:

There was a young lady called Jane
Who lived a short life not in vain
She wrote with such style
Wit, irony [and] guile
That the fame of her name shall [ever] remain.

Another was sent in anonymously from the Northern Suburbs:

There was a young lady called Jane
Read Burney, and never in vain,
Changed her epistolary form
Took the whole world by storm,
Gave us ‘six of the best’ – so thanks Jane.

A third entry, by Julia Ermert writing on Pride and Prejudice, paid tribute to Jane Austen’s modern imitators and successors:

Mrs Wickham, née Lydia Bennet
Ran off with her man in a se’ennight ...
How the other two sisters
Procure their misters
Is told us by clever Miss Tennant!

Since none of these entries, good as they were, made it to the very top, you can expect that the winning entry was exceptional. And so it was. Or rather, so they were. Because there were two, and they were exceptional in such interestingly different ways that the Jane Austen Society has decided to present not one prize but two. Both Christene Evans and Pamela Whalan sent in several limericks, among which, in each case, two were outstanding; one (by Pamela, titled Mansfield Meditations) is strikingly witty in the Augustan manner, including in five lines two of the 18th century’s favourite literary devices, alliteration and the pun. Pamela’s other winning limerick (titled Prejudiced Pride) combines accuracy as regards the text with a delicious Australianness very appropriate to a celebration such as ours. Here they are:

Mansfield Meditations

Fanny Price was prudent and prim
Henry Crawford loved on a whim
But Edmund the fair
Joined Fanny in prayer
So Henry lost out to a hymn.

And Prejudiced Pride

To capture the heart of his Lizzie
Mr Darcy was kept very busy
By reforming his way
Before naming the day
When the Bennets could break out the fizzy.

A similarly refreshing contemporaneity is at the heart of the two entries by our equal First Prize winner, Christene Evans, who also impressed with her ability to pun and rhyme effectively:

There was a young filly name Lydia
And ne’er was a teenager gydia
She ran off with Wickham
Who just couldn’t pick ‘em
And soon thought, ‘I’m gonna get rydia!’

and

When Darcy looked closely at Lizzy
His heart-beats went into a tizzy
She wasn’t so struck with ‘im
Wouldn’t have truck with ‘im
Till the sight of his pile sent her dizzy.

I would like to thank on behalf of the Society all those who sent in such entertaining and clever entries, and to thank and congratulate the winners: Christene Evans, and Pamela Whalan.

Yasmine Gooneratne

Other Places, Other Societies

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

Jane Austen Society of Melbourne

The Society continues to grow at a pleasing rate and meetings are well attended. We have had some great speakers this year. At our last meeting held in October one of our members Andrea Richards explored the much-debated question of whether Jane Austen was a feminist with a delightful talk entitled Was Jane Austen’s Corset Combustible? At the August meeting we had a very interesting talk by Richard Heathcote, Manager of Rippon Lea, one of our National Trust houses, on Mr Gilpin, Mr Repton and the Landscaping of England. The talk was particularly relevant to Rippon Lea as its garden was designed in the picturesque style, one of very few in Australia.

In September a group of members went to the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Pride and Prejudice adapted as a stage play by James Maxwell. The views of the members were mixed. Most thought that William McInnes as Darcy acquitted himself well but none of the other actors was as well received. Of course there were a number of constraints in bringing the story to the stage, there was no visit to Pemberley and most of the action took place at Longbourn.

Now that daylight saving has begun, Rippon Lea is running Jane Austen tours of the gardens on Saturday evenings. These have been a feature of the Rippon Lea calendar for a couple of years now, and are very popular. The garden tour is combined with readings from Jane Austen and culminates in a boat ride on the lake. A lovely way to spend a Saturday evening.

Our bi-monthly book discussion groups have been very successful. We have discussed Sense and Sensibility, and those attending have taken the opportunity to get to know one another better and to range over a number of discussion topics, not least of which was Jane Austen and her works. It is fascinating to realise how many interests (apart from Jane Austen) the members have in common.

Our last event for the year is a our Christmas tea which will be held on 27 November. A number of musical and other items have been planned, with a delicious afternoon tea. We then have a long wait until February when we start the activities for 2000.

Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year

Mercia Chapman

Jane Austen news from Adelaide

Adelaide has had a busy year, and JA Adelaide is never a dull zone. Members participated in delivering some of our most inspired talks and stimulating arguments. We are finishing the year with Birthing Practices of the 18th century, and Science – especially Women in Science – of the 18th century, then a visit to a notable collection of Silhouettes and a talk on charting that form.

We will again be changing venues. It seems we are just ahead of the bulldozers where ever we go. Do they follow us? However we have not found our next year’s address – stay tuned for further news. I will advise you when we have a new home: we are scouring Adelaide’s church halls and pub back rooms for space. Our membership has increased substantially over the past year with enthusiasts. Like Jane, we too know about having brains and being broke. We have monitored the growth of ‘Jane Austen on the Web’ frenzy and have used many of the subjects to enhance discussions. We have had a wonderful time on the net finding the funniest, strangest JA news item. Every month I think we have gone over the top but we always find better.

Our favourite is the Tokyo Jane Austen, karaoke – singalong with the bouncing ball of Emma and Frank Churchill. Unfortunately the words of the singalong go something like. ‘Virgins are like fresh flowers of the field’ which is all very peculiar.

We are all getting anxious over our Sanditon projects. How could JA have made Sanditon in to a masterpiece when the best we can do is link the cliches?! It is most telling, doing it ourselves. We all agree that we will not be read in 224 years time!

All the Best for a Good Christmas and Birthday.

Lynnaire Hawker

Letter from Western Australia

What a busy year we have had. We have gathered together a small, but ever-growing group of fellow Jane Austen lovers, currently numbering sixteen. Our monthly meetings (first Saturday, 1pm) were at first necessarily in members’ homes, but now we have our very own venue – a room in the Alexander Library in Perth.

In September this year we had the privilege of meeting and listening to Susannah Fullerton. We were all very much pleased with the advice Susannah gave us, and have subsequently set up raffles, and are selling some Regency Fair items – the Jane Austen bags and umbrellas have already become ‘must haves’.

We enjoyed Susannah’s interesting and informative talk on the Juvenilia, with delightful extracts from Lesley Castle, Jack and Alice and others, and have had a few talks from other members as well. Our meetings generate much discussion on Jane Austen, for example, pondering on ‘What if she married Mr Harris Bigg-Wither’. At every meeting we have quizzes, kindly arranged by Jill Reece, to further use our grey cells, and stimulating a wish for more knowledge. For the rest of this year and much of the next we are immersing ourselves very much in Austen’s life.

Our end of year expedition is to Tranby House, Maylands, and next year we have many good things in line from guest speakers – on Map-making (such as the marvellous Literary Tour Map of Jane Austen’s England, recently published) and ‘Medical History of Georgian Times’, as well as another expedition to the Fremantle Town House.

We welcome other Janeites to join our group. Jane Austen was right in having Anne Elliot saying...

My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation. That is what I call good company.

Katarina Bavcevic

Report from Christchurch

Since we are always watching for new publications with an Austen connection, we have found plenty to discuss in Professor John Sutherland’s latest collection of literary puzzles. How could we overlook its intriguing title of Who Betrays Elizabeth Bennet? To find out just who is nominated for the title role we recommend that JASA members read the book, but here in Christchurch we feel there is plenty of room for debate about his conclusions on this issue (see review on page 34). He goes on to raise questions about some of Jane Austen’s novels other than Pride and Prejudice; he asks how Miss Frances Ward could have met Lt Price before the action of Mansfield Park takes place and also revisits the matter of the apple blossom in June in Emma.

The material in the book ranges beyond the 19th century in which this author specialises to include writers such as Defoe and Fielding. Perhaps we may feel that Professor Sutherland is milking the appeal of literary puzzles for all they are worth, but his collections do prompt readers to study the texts of classic novels ever more closely (as he does). We’ll certainly be keen to see the next volume when it appears.

Our small group has also been thinking about how we first encountered Jane Austen. Enthusiasts come to her work via different paths. Perhaps JASA members elsewhere would care to share their own journeys of discovery through the Newsletter as XXXChristene Evans is doing here for us. Readers may recognise Christene’s name as joint winner in this year’s Limerick Competition and also from previous New Zealand contributions. She has maintained her keen interest in Jane Austen’s life and work for more than 50 years and recently celebrated her 80th birthday. I am sure other JASA members will join me in congratulating her. Long may her tireless – and fruitful – searches for fresh material with an Austen theme continue!

Ruth Williamson

The Australian Brontė Association

A Brontė Performance Evening is to be held by the Australian Brontė Association, Collins Bookshop, Broadway, Friday 11 February 2000, from 6pm to 7.30pm at a cost of $5. Refreshments of wine & cheese will be served. Members can look forward to a selection of readings from the novels, poems and letters of the Brontė sisters. The Association’s Christmas party was to be held on 4 December at Randwick.

The Brontė Society’s June Weekend 1999

I attended the Brontė Society’s annual weekend in Haworth in June this year, with my wife Elisabeth. The Friday evening concert featured the Steeton Male Voice choir and included a setting of one of Anne Brontė’s poems as well as a solo by a choir member who still has quite a voice at the age of 96!

The AGM was a lively affair. There was a proposal put forward to the members by the Council concerning some renovations at the Parsonage. It was only after some heated questions that it came out that the Finance Committee had voted unanimously against it but had been over-ruled by Council! Our local Austen and Brontė societies are fortunate in not having the responsibility of major assets. The meeting was still going strong after 2½ hours when the vintage buses arrived to take us off to dinner at the Three Sisters Restaurant overlooking the Wurth valley.

On the Sunday morning those who went on the excursion to Top Withins got soaked. Luckily we had chosen to visit the Three Graces Lodge, of which Bramwell was once Secretary.

One of the shopkeepers in Haworth noticed my ABA name-tag with a map of Australia in its logo, and expressed surprise that Australians had even heard of the Brontės. I explained that we weren’t just a nation of sporting enthusiasts, and that attendances at this annual British Brontė Society weekend were little more than we typically get to our JASA conferences. I also discovered that London is the only city in the UK that holds regular Brontė meetings, and that their attendances are not much more than our Australian Brontė Association in Sydney!

Chris Cooper

Haworth revisited

Haworth, the home of the Brontė sisters, had another JASA member visiting later this year. I was there in October, and learned a couple of things about Brontė country. For instance, Haworth is pronounced Hah-worth, not Hay-worth, which the view from the same Three Seasons Restaurant over lunch high above the Wurth/Worth valley explains – ‘high’ in the local dialect very easily becomes ‘ha’. The view is of rolling green hills, rows of black stone houses, and the Yorkshire ‘dark satanic mills’ – a somewhat depressing aspect.

The village is, not unnaturally but disappointingly, very tourist-centred. Its cobbled street climbs the hill through a wide variety of businesses existing on the Brontės and little else. The Brontė Society has its own premises in the village, and presents the Brontė story and memorabilia in the Parsonage, home of the Brontės, very well and professionally. The Parsonage itself is almost hidden, encroached upon by shops, houses, the church graveyard, and ... carparks.

The rooms in the Parsonage are tiny, as one would expect, and the details of the lives are well presented, but it is hard to catch the spirit of the Brontė family’s lives. Yet it is here that the Brontės produced the large volume of work which we still so much admire. The building is by no means a cheerful place – graves in the churchyard encroach right under the windows (as you can see, below), though these do post-date the time of the Brontė sisters. The darkness of their work is more understandable.

Helen Malcher

The old Parsonage at Haworth, which was the home of the Bronte family from 1820, is now a museum containing many relics of the famous sisters. It was built in 1779 of the local grey stone, a typical late-Georgian house.

Chawton

Curator Mr Tom Carpenter’s address to the UK Jane Austen Society’s AGM gives a background to the Jane Austen House Museum at Chawton, so central to studies, research and the profile of Jane Austen. A summary follows:

The museum is 50 years old! On 23 July 1949 the Duke of Wellington opened the door of the House as a museum, after its rescue by the late Thomas Edward Carpenter, grandfather of the present Curator. Its setup as a charitable Trust – the Jane Austen Memorial Trust – provided the infrastructure to ‘restore, preserve and open the House and artefacts for access to the general public’. And it has been a vibrant success.

Considerable conservation work and planning made it possible for the House to cope with the dramatic increase of visitors from the 20 visitors a week in a busy period upon opening, to over 1100 a week in 1996 in the middle of ‘Austenmania’, a figure which has eased back to 40,000 per year, which seems likely to continue for some years. Over 60 (!) visits from television crews from around the world have been welcomed, because ‘there is a story to be told’. Considerable appreciation is expressed to former Curator Jean Bowden, for her excellent groundwork and present Assistant Administrator Ann Channon for their work in making the house (and its marvellous bookshop) what it is.

This year the House has been involved in the unveiling of the plaque at 10 Henrietta Street at Winchester, by Amanda Root, who played Anne Elliot in the recent production of Persuasion, with Jane’s own little donkey cart, now superbly restored, involved in the surrounding publicity. Louise Ross and her team were also assisted with the establishment of the new Jane Austen Centre in Bath (XXXsee review on page 2).

In his final remarks, Tom Carpenter shows a charming attitude to Jane – an attitude which goes far to explain the success of the centre:

We must remember that all this is owed to one person and one person only, Miss Jane Austen – it is her great achievement – and truly her own earnings which provide for all that has been brought about and celebrated in this 50th anniversary for the museum and the Trust. We all know her own view of 26 July 1809:

Our Chawton Home how much we find
Already in it to our mind,
And how convinced that when complete
It will all other houses beat
That eve have been made or mended
With rooms concise or rooms distended.

That remains without question unchanged.

Sandy Lerner’s Chawton House Library:
a progress report

JASNA’s dynamic president, Elsa Solender, reports on the progress of the Library of Chawton House, the manor house which is being restored (despite extremely lengthy difficulties) to the splendour of Jane Austen’s time, specifically to house the library for the study of early English women writers.

Hidden away in a High Tech office park in Microsoft’s hometown of Redmond, Washington, a remarkable collection of antique books, manuscripts and pamphlets by women writers awaits transfer to England in 2003. The irony implicit in storing thousands of beautifully bound old volumes and fragile manuscripts in a milieu obsessed with cutting-edge computer technology must appeal to the moving force behind the library project, Sandy Lerner, whose personal passions – animal rights, restoration of old mansions, vegetarian cuisine, Regency costumes, carriages and horses, audio technology, Rock music, New Age cosmetics, and Jane Austen – are nothing if not eclectic.

Chawton House was the ‘second best manor house’ of Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen-Knight, and his heirs, the ‘great house’ above Chawton Cottage, where Edward settled his widowed mother and sisters, Cassandra and Jane. Ms Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems and proprietor of Urban Decay cosmetics, has leased the property for 150 years and is overseeing renovation and transformation of the decayed estate into a research library for the unique collection of works by English women writers which she originated and has substantially enhanced. ... After numerous delays and frustrations, restoration of the structure and grounds is finally progressing. Kate Moulton is Librarian while the books reside in Redmond, and will edit the quarterly newsletter of the project, The Female Spectator. ...

The original collection was augmented in 1999 by the purchase of the noted Hardy collection of 826 works. About half of those volumes – some 420 – will be sold because they fall outside the parameters of the Chawton House mission. The Library expects to retain 3,528 works and will welcome additional donations, none of which will be sold.

For Janeites, one of the most important items in the collection is the original manuscript of Jane Austen’s play, Sir Charles Grandison, a 53-page collection of scraps of paper with 1796 and 1799 watermarks and numerous scratch-outs by the young author.

The value of rare first editions of Frances Burney’s Evalina and Camilla is enhanced for Janeites with a flyer citing ‘Miss J. Austen, Steventon’ among the subscribers.

Elsa A. Solender

The Chawton House project produces an occasional magazine, The Female Spectator, the newest issue of which, after many delays in the whole project, is enclosed with this journal to those of our members who have asked to be on the mailing list. (If you are not on their (free) mailing list, and wish to be informed of the progress of this fascinating project, please drop a note to our Editor.)

Restoration of the building, the walled kitchen garden, of woodlands, and views across the manor parklands, is continuing. XXXSee JASA Newsletter June 1998 (or www.ozemail.com.au/~jasa1/newsjl98.htm) for a report on the project.

News from JASNA

President Elsa Solender has announced that JASNA will revive their student essay contest for a three year trial period. This previously was a strong element of their outreach program, but suffered a decline in interest during the ‘Austenmania’ period of the plethora of films. A year-long publicity campaign is planned for the contest.

JASNA has also now put its journal Persuasions online, and we congratulate them on their initiative. The site currently has ten Emma essays online, thus ‘biting the bullet’ of finding a balance between authors’ rights, educational potential, and the potential for plagiarism. It means that, without the authors’ permission, these essays can all be downloaded (ie saved to one’s own computer), and/or printed out.

As a comparison, we chose for our own JASA internet site a couple of years ago, to put on the internet XXXall the articles in Newsletter, updated twice yearly, and XXX brief extracts from the current Sensibilities issue, avoiding wholesale access to all articles which, we hope, encourages new memberships and reading of the journal, as well as protecting academic property.

This subject of access versus protection is a matter of considerable debate everywhere, given the almighty power of the Net. It is a subject on which we would be most interested to hear members’ views. Please do write or email the President or the Editor to voice your opinion. And if your views include that you have no interest in or access to the Internet, we’d like to hear that too, to learn something of the balance of members’ interests.

Report of The 1999 JASNA AGM

Colorado Springs, Colorado, October 8 – 10, 1999

This report illustrates the extent of the enjoyment of a conference of any Jane Austen Society. This year’s JASNA conference certainly continued its reputation for excellence, and John Wiltshire, Pamela Whalan and Leonora Walker continued the quality of input that has come to be expected of our Australian Society. Members will be able to enjoy their papers later.

Colorado Springs was an excellent choice for the 1999 JASNA Conference because the weather behaved beautifully. There was a cold snap the day before proceedings began which put snow-caps on the Rocky Mountains surrounding the town. The trees got the message to prepare for winter and despite the fact that the sun shone brightly during the days of the conference, they did their duty and by Sunday the Fall had arrived in all its golden beauty. Top marks must go to the organisers for ordering such perfect weather.

Of the 450 JASNA members present there were three Australian representatives, John Wiltshire from Melbourne, who spoke on The Hartfield Edition of Shakespeare and Leonora Walker and myself, who gave a joint paper entitled When Imperfection becomes Perfection.

There were many familiar faces at the conference, including the delightful Irene and Rex Collins who send their regards to the friends they made when Irene gave her interesting paper on the clergy at the 1998 JASA conference at Leura.

For me there were two highlights of the JASNA conference. One was the breakout session presented by Kathryn L Shanks Libin entitled Music, Character and Social Standing in Emma. Thoroughly researched and professionally presented, this paper gave insight into the characters of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill through the musical allusions in the novel.

The other highlight was hearing the prize winner of the Young Writers’ Workshop read her entry in the competition run in conjunction with the conference. Her entry was in the form of a book report written by Cher of Clueless fame, on the novel Emma. The control of the language of Cher, the writer’s comprehension of the complexities of the novel and the way in which she had Cher hovering on the edge of comprehension was a great joy. Such a competition is a fine way to promote the literary interests and skills of a new generation of Janeites.

Meg Hayward will be delighted to see the fiendishly difficult quiz devised by the Conference committee and I thank her and Nan Witherby for devising similarly difficult ones for us in the past because it gave me the confidence to enter and come away with second prize!

For those who may be interested, the JASNA 2000 conference takes place in Boston and has the intriguing title ‘Pride and Prejudice: Past, Present, Future’.

Pamela Whalan

The Janeites

This article was first published under the auspices of the Chicago Chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and well deserves reprinting. Tom Hoberg, who so enlightened and entertained us at our Leura conference last year, turns his perceptive eye to Rudyard Kipling’s fascinating The Janeites (from which we all have our name!).

Written in 1923 as a part of Debits and Credits (Kipling’s last great prose collection), The Janeites is in part a reminiscence of the Great War and partly a celebration of the enduring spirit that enabled men to survive it.

The frame of the story places us in just-postwar London, in a Masonic lodge: the narrator, one of the Brethren, is a nameless surrogate for Kipling himself. He, in turn, is auditor to the central tale, set on the Western front in the last months of the war, and told to him by Brother Humberstall, a hulking, mildly shell-shocked relic of the Royal Heavy Artillery. His is the story of how a likely Freemason became an improbable Janeite, and how Jane, in turn, helped him return to tell the tale of his conversion. Humberstall, an unapologetic urban prole, relates his tale in a pea-soup-thick, aitchless Cockney that Jane, and many of the rest of us, need to pause over. But his devotion, once secured, is as durable as it is sincere.

Humberstall’s induction into the Order of Janeites came after he has returned to his old Battery as Officer’s Mess Orderly, and overhears his superiors discussing ‘This Jane, the only woman I’ve ‘eard ‘em say a good word for’. Later, by the grace of the regimental factotum, he is made privy to the initiatory password (‘Tilniz and trapdoors’) and listens with bewildered fascination to the officers’ rapt discussion of this talismanic figure. For a consideration, the mess orderly offers to initiate Humberstall into ‘all the ‘Igher Degrees among the Janeites’, and sets him to work reading her collected works. From first to almost last, Humberstall cannot grasp the talismanic attraction of ‘a little old maid ‘oo’d written ‘alf a dozen books about a hundred years ago’, books which

weren’t adventurous, nor smutty, nor what you’d call even interestin’ – all about girls o’ 17 (they began young then, I can tell you), not certain ‘oom they’d like to marry; an’ their dances an’ card-parties an’ picnics, and their young blokes goin’ off to London on ‘orseback for ‘air-cuts an’ shaves.

Humberstall dutifully goes along with the program – and acquires a kind of rote expertise in Austeniana – but the mesmeristic power of her stories continued to elude him. ‘Er characters,’ he complains, ‘was only just like people you run into every day! Collins (‘always on the make and lookin’ to marry money’) puts him in mind of his old Boy Scout Troop leader; Lady Catherine (‘an upstandin’ ‘ard mouthed Duchess or a Baronet’s wife that didn’t give a curse for anyone ‘oo wouldn’t do what she told ‘em to do’) of an acquaintance of his mother, and Miss Bates (‘just an old maid runnin’ around like a hen with ‘er ‘ead cut off’) of his aunt. And so it goes.

Most of the Brethren who are listening to the story, working blokes like Humberstall, are as baffled as he had once been: the characters seem to them at best replicants of ordinary people. But not so, says her advocate. ‘Every dam’ thing about Jane is remarkable,’ he declares, ‘to a pukka Janeite.’

And certainly it seems so to our narrator, apparently an already-anointed Janeite who does not share the others’ bewilderment, and who has passed the story on to us, to make of ‘remarkable’ what we will. And this narrative sharing begins Kipling’s tribute to Jane. For he is not using her as a satiric foil on which to skewer uncomprehending unappreciation. As Humberstall in ignorance tells to him, so he in enlightenment to us. To be a Freemason, as the narrator is with the others within the story, is a rare privilege. But to begin to be a Janeite – as he is mediating between Humberstall and us – is to begin to initiate the reader into the Secret Order of Jane, a dispensation that the author elects to bestow on us, without the burden of ritual.

However, if Humberstall’s intellect is a bit recalcitrant in the matter of Jane, his heart is in the right and loving place. To make a writer ‘ordinary’ in the sense of accessible (as opposed to ‘literary’ and remote) is to pay him or her a rich compliment and this Humberstall does when he re-christens the three superannuated pieces in the battery ‘The Reverend Collins,’ ‘The Lady Catherine de Bugg’ and the largest, least reliable gun ‘General Tilney’ ‘because it was worse wore in the groovin’ than anything I’d ever seen.’ This bit of roguery lands him in hot water with his superiors, Janeites all, who object not to taking her words in vain, but to the unfortunate misspelling of ‘de Bourgh,’ and to the appellation ‘General Tilney’ to the old howitzer which, the officers rightly felt, should be called ‘Miss Bates.’

On the surface, all this may strike one as cloyingly cabalistic, shifting Jane from the subject of satire to the object of a cult. In fact, I think, it introduces her as a force for bonding as intense as that of the military or Freemasonry, and even more potent because of its unlikely, even contradictory origins. If we know Jane – and the tenor of the story insists on our doing so, or at least wanting to – we can only conclude that if Jane can be taken so seriously by such a unit as this, can indeed help make it a unit, she must be very strong medicine indeed.

For the unit is doomed. Literally. One of the officers – in private life an actuary – estimated that members in a forward artillery unit like theirs have a life expectancy of six weeks. This, as it turns out, is a generous estimate. For the Germans launched a last offensive that overran their entire front and in Humberstall’s words, ‘Believe me, gents – or Brethren, I should say – we copped it cruel.’ A few confused, blood-soaked hours after Humberstall comes to consciousness, dazed and wounded, to find himself the only Janeite left. His mates had all been killed, and ‘Lady Catherine and the General was past prayin’ for.’

But he underestimated the society’s resilience – and its ubiquity. When denied access to an ambulance train by a twittering, empty-headed nurse, he chances to castigate her as ‘Miss Bates’ in the hearing of her formidable superior, whom he remembers as ‘the Lady Catherine de Bourgh of the area’, and who, recognising the allusion as the sign of a kindred soul, shifts him aboard the train and ministers him safely home to England.

This miraculous intervention elevated Humberstall from tepid acolyte to fervid proselytizer for Janeite-ism, the highest and most select of all secret orders. ‘I read all her books for pleasure now,’ he enthuses:

‘you take it from me, Brethren, there’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place, God bless ‘er, whoever she was ...’

Tom Hoberg

Emma: The Case for the Prosecution

In the above paper, summarised below, Tom Hoberg takes the devil’s advocate position to that of the JASNA Conference title (Emma: Jane Austen at her Peak?) at the Chicago branch AGM in September.

Has literature ever memorialized a setting more tedious than Highbury? Have we heretofore been asked to venerate a hero as stuffily implausible as Knightley (excuse me, Mr. Knightley)? To celebrate the virtues of a more exasperating old fool than Mr. Woodhouse? A more irritating bore than Miss Bates? ... Emma is the most privileged of Austen’s heroines, with none of the societal and familial difficulties confronting Lizzie Bennet or Anne Elliot or even (gritting my teeth as I write this) Fanny Price ... She is also both the most arrogant, and the most inept. Her self-aggrandizing efforts to stage manage the lives of her acquaintances are either occasions of misery or ignominious failures.

If there is a woman in the novel who deserves our sympathy and respect, it is Jane Fairfax, who would have been a heroine worthy to stand with Lizzie, Anne, and the others and who, if Austen had been at the top of her game, would have been the focus of the story. Frank Churchill shows taste as well as judgment in preferring her to Emma, and then taking his new bride out of Highbury as quickly as he can.

Someone out there must be prepared to take up the cudgels for Emma! Write to us!

The Clarke portrait

 

Another Picture of Jane?

The watercolour reproduced here is said to be by James Stanier Clarke, of Jane Austen, painted in 1815.

It comes from a Liber Amicorum or Friendship Book comparatively recently discovered, belonging to the Rev Clarke, the librarian of the Prince Regent who had some (rather earnest) dealings with Jane leading to her dedication of Emma to the Prince. The beautifully-bound book contains other watercolours and precious items, such as a verse by novelist Charlotte Smith, signed and dated 1793, and a watercolour (rather amateurish) by Clarke of Princess Caroline dated 1795.

But is it Jane? How extraordinary if there should actually be another image of her. This picture shows an extremely well-dressed and prosperous (young?) lady, with a most fashionable hat, a rich fur muff, and fairly indistinguishable features – perhaps more an ‘Emma’ than a ‘Jane’.

If this IS Jane, it is a very different perception from that more familiarly put forward, of the poor rural clergyman’s daughter. The validity of the painting is argued by Richard Wheeler in his James Stanier Clarke and his Watercolour Portrait of Jane Austen (1998). Wheeler is also author of The Rice Portrait of Jane Austen (1996), which argued for the authenticity of that portrait of a young girl, now (unfortunately) proven NOT to be Jane (see Practicalities, March 1999). In that earlier text comparisons of the Clarke and Rice ‘portraits’ with the familiar image by Cassandra and with Jane’s silhouette, were made to authenticate both these ‘portraits’ – a justification that tends to be a little circular, particularly based on an image now proven NOT to be Jane.

The image can be seen in full colour at the Artworks Gallery.

 
How I Discovered Jane Austen

The early 1940s found me in Bombay, doing war work in the form of coding for the Royal Indian Navy, while my fairly new husband was fighting in the Middle East.

We regarded it as a lucky break indeed when he was posted back to India for a short staff course in Poona (now spelt Pune). I was granted leave and we had the happy prospect of an unexpected month together in the middle of the war.

During a couple of days off in Bombay, we saw a film called Pride and Prejudice at the Metro, the city’s newest and most glamorous cinema. I chose the film because Greer Garson was my favourite star. Well, she didn’t let me down – and neither did her Darcy! In fact, for me, Laurence Olivier has always been the definitive Fitzwilliam. Later I was to become more critical of 37 year old Garson’s Elizabeth, and of the film I thought so wonderful at the time. Our first impression, though, was that we both loved the film.

I didn’t know then that Louis B. Mayer hadn’t liked the Empire-line costumes and changed them for (historically inaccurate) crinolines. Thus the anomaly of Darcy in Regency breeches and Lizzy in clothes his grand-daughter might have worn!

We returned to Poona the next day. Installed in a small, quiet hotel, I found my husband was to be the Army’s from 8am to 6pm for the next four weeks. How was I to fill in those empty hours in a strange place, knowing not a soul? After breakfast, despite the stifling heat, I explored the neighbourhood. Presently I came to a small cluster of English-type shops, among them Knight and Day, the Chemists; then Thackers’ Book Shop, which I entered, and found it seemed to have been transplanted from London. There I browsed along the shelves – while ‘just looking,’ as we say, I spied the title Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Pouncing on the book, I paid, and took my prize back to our hotel room, where I hardly lifted my eyes from its pages until my husband returned at six. This was to be the pattern of my life during our month at Poona. I can’t remember much about the place, but I became very familiar with Thackers’, to which I returned until I had denuded their shelves of all the Austen novels...and I have been reading them ever since.

Was this a grasping at pure escapism from the awful things that were happening in our world, our uncertain future? Yes, of course, but how invaluable was that voice of sanity, then as now, in troubled times.

Christene Evans

 

JASNA's AGM – October 8-10 1999

Reported by new member Maria Loutsopoulos 

The JASNA’s Annual General Meeting will be held in Colorado Springs at the Antlers Adam’s Mark Hotel. The featured novel this year is Emma. 

Plenary Session speakers will include Rachel Brownstein (author of Becoming a Heroine) and Claire Tomalin (Jane Austen: A Life). The featured debate ‘Is Emma: Austen at her peak?’ will be moderated by JASNA News Book Review Editor Inger Brodey. Supplementing the plenary sessions this year there will be 33 break out sessions showcasing 54 speakers and canvassing a range of interesting topics, including the significance of Mr Knightley’s interest in changing footpaths, Jane Fairfax’s skills as a pianist, marriage plot comparisons between Emma and Seinfeld, and music and film in Emma. There will even be a ‘Peak of Fashion Hat Workshop’ where participants will be able to assemble and trim their own headpiece to wear at the Saturday evening banquet. 

Australian speakers present include John Wiltshire (LaTrobe University), Nora Walker (founder of the JASA) and Pamela Whalan, director of the Genesian Theatre. Nora and Pam will be presenting a ‘point/counterpoint’ piece on When Imperfection becomes Perfection to the JASNA meeting. Does Emma, imperfect at the beginning, become perfect? It should be a most interesting session, and we wish them well – and we know they’ll enjoy the Conference!

 

Mansfield Park: the movie

The new film adaptation of Mansfield Park is STILL ‘coming real soon now’. Currently it is expected here on 20 April. A trailer of the movie is on the Net, which also produces a fairly glowing report of what is obviously a very different production. Let’s hope we get to see it soon so that we can form our own opinions!

Maria Loutsopoulos has sent us reactions from the ‘Janeites OneList’, from which we have extracted Diana Birchall on Birchalls@aol.com airing her views.

The new Mansfield Park adaptation, written and directed by Patricia Rozema, is not a literal adaptation, but has lots of psychological depth and understanding. ...an intellectual challenge! Settings are excellent, as are costumes and casting.

Rozema brings slavery and Antigua to the forefront of the movie, and the family is shown as dysfunctional because their money derives from their evil slave holding. In fact, that is really the point and theme of the film. This is not, of course, OUR, or anybody’s, genuine Mansfield Park; but it is certainly a provocative and intriguing theme subject to make a film about, and Rozema has done it well.

The other enormous liberty she takes with Mansfield Park, is to re-invent Fanny. This Fanny is a spirited young writer, a kind of bluestocking tomboy, many of whose writings and lines are taken from Austen’s Juvenilia. In fact the dialogue borrows extensively from the Juvenilia and Northanger Abbey, but it’s largely new, invented dialogue.

Harold Pinter plays Sir Thomas Bertram, and plays him monumentally well. He is a slaveowner, he is scary – he is the absolute king of Fanny’s world – yet Pinter makes him sympathetic. Another brilliant decision, after Pinter, is that Mrs Price and Lady Bertram are played by the same actress, Lindsay Duncan, and she also is brilliant.

Fanny herself is played by a fine young Irish (we claim her as Australian! Ed) actress, Frances O’Connor. Edmund (Jonny Lee Miller) is overshadowed – as he should be – by the very charming Mr. Crawford (Charles Edwards). The arrival of the Crawfords at Mansfield Park is hilarious and Mary is played as a full blown siren by Embeth Davidtz. More Eliza de Feuillide than anything else! Mrs. Norris (Sheila Gish) is very believable, a horror but not a one-note horror.

Little things I liked...the nice difference in age and sophistication between Fanny and Mary...the full appallingness of Sir Thomas’s importuning Fanny to marry Henry, brought out by the magnificent Pinter...the way, even though it’s not in the book, Mrs. Price meaningfully looks around at her ashheap of a home and reminds Fanny, ‘I married for love’...the great moment when Mary asks which of the men will she have the pleasure of making love to, and their heads all snap around...And much more. It’s good! It’s interesting! You’ll love it, you’ll hate it. Go see it!

Diana Birchall

The Sydney Morning Herald piece on 17 November quoting from The Guardian was certainly less glowing. One of the gentler of the comments of journalist Fiachra Gibbons is that ...

the dullest of Jane Austen’s novels has been metamorphosed on screen into a Regency bonkbuster crackling with barely suppressed lesbianism.

Fanny Price, the most annoying, insufferably self-righteous prig in English literature, is transformed into a feisty little minx and sexual magnet for both men and women.

Certainly gets your attention, doesn’t it! The article quotes Ashton Dennis, ‘an Austen expert’, as saying:

How is it that a nihilist (like Canadian director Patricia Rozema) was selected for any responsibility on a filmed version of any classic? It is very disturbing to hear that this writer has adopted several of Jane Austen’s letters for the film. It seems to me that there is more than enough content in the novel for a film without dragging in other material. To add material in this way is to show disrespect for the novel.

The ‘expert’ Dennis is also quoted as objecting to Pinter’s portrayal of Sir Thomas as being ‘haunted’ by the slave trade being the basis of his wealth, saying...

There is no mention of West Indies slavery in Mansfield Park. Jane Austen scrupulously avoided large social issues to focus on individuals, and it is hard to understand how a film-maker can make that change with integrity.

It is also ‘hard to understand’ how ‘an Austen expert’ can make such a monumental error in his reading of Chapter 20 where the West Indies and slavery ARE mentioned. Perhaps he was misquoted.

Director Rozema is also said to have incorporated into her version of Fanny and Austen her own view:

I enjoy Jane Austen very much as an author, but it all felt vaguely ‘twee’ to me. I re-read her work and stumbled onto her writings as a teenager and discovered a very tough-minded, unsentimental, fantastical kind of writer. She was more of a surrealist than I had ever imagined.

A strong dichotomy of views is obviously to be expected of this very different production.

Helen Malcher

PS Did you notice the name of the Austen ‘expert’? ‘Mrs Ashton Dennis’ (M.A.D.!) was the pseudonym Jane Austen used to contact her publishers. Is The Guardian being ‘had’, or are we??

The Jane Austen Centre in Bath

The Centre opened in May 1999, with the support of the Jane Austen Society, the Jane Austen Memorial Trust, and central Austenite Maggie Lane. It is a commercial venture, offering a first central starting off point for visitors to Bath interested in Jane Austen. It is located ‘on the tourist route between The Circus and Queen’s Square’ at 40 Gay Street (Jane lived at No.25, if you recall).

Maggie Lane says of the Centre:

It complements Jane Austen’s (Chawton) village home by demonstrating through displays what Regency Bath was like, and the importance of the city in her life and novels. It is also a source of information about Jane-Austen-related events and the starting point for guided tours of the city. It cannot and does not purport to be a museum.

Under the guidance of Louise Ross, the shop stocks all books about Jane Austen currently in print, together with a selection of specially-designed merchandise.

During the first four weeks of its opening, the Centre hosted some 500 visitors per week, mostly Americans and Australians. The Bath press reports that it has ‘three dimensional images of the Pump Room, Assembly Rooms, the Circus and Milsom Street among the backdrops used in the centre.’ Their web site is at www.janeausten.co.uk.

Regency Fair

The newly instituted Regency Fair carries items specifically for Janeites, from all around the world: they are listed here for the convenience of those who can’t actually attend JASA meetings. Indulge yourself!

To order, contact:

Susannah Fullerton
26 Macdonald Street
Paddington NSW 2021
Phone: (02) 9380 5894
Email: info@jasa.net.au

Postage will be charged for items sent by mail.

• Jane Austen – the Pitkin Guide, illustrated 
  $8.00
• Jane Austen’s Christmas, by Maria Hubert 
  $25.50
• Almost another Sister, the Story of Fanny Knight, Jane Austen’s Favourite Niece (Reviewed in Sensibilities July ‘98) 
  $24.50
• Jane Austen note paper – pads of 25. All My Important Nothings 
  $3.50
• JA correspondence cards, with Hugh Thompson illustrations (6 cards & envelopes) 
  $8.00
• Postcards of Brock illustrations from the 6 novels
  $10.00
• Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery pens
  $2.50
• Jane Austen in Bath postcard 
  $2.00
• Jane Austen in Hampshire postcard 
  $2.00
• JASA bookmarks 
  $1.50
• Jane Austen carry bags 
  $15.00
• I read Jane Austen pencils 
  $0.80
• When the Gooseberries are ripe I shall sit upon my Bench, eat them & think of you 
  blue notepads 
  $2.50 
• NEW! Jane Auesten's Quiz Book
  $15.00

Juvenilia 

• Jack & Alice $8.00 
• History of England $10.50 
• Henry & Eliza $10.50 
• Catharine, or The Bower $10.50 
• A Collection of Letters $10.50 
• NEW! Lesley Castle $10.50
• NEW! The Beautiful Cassandra $10.50

FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au

25 January 1999

HOME | What's New | About Jane | About JASA | JASA News | Sensibilities | Calendar | Conference | Book Reviews |  JASA Library | Writing Competition | Mrs Goddard's School | Regency Fair | LINKS