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The President's ReportAt the end of last year we celebrated the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s 21st birthday. This year another important anniversary needs to be noted — 200 years ago the Rev George Austen submitted his daughter Jane’s manuscript First Impressions for publication. It was rejected and sent back by return post. First Impressions was, of course, the precursor of Pride and Prejudice. We can only wonder what this manuscript was like and feel thankful that Jane Austen did not take the rejection so much to heart that she was discouraged from trying again. 1997 has got off to an excellent start with delightful talks from Teresa Ransom and Barbara Ker Wilson. The Kangaroo Valley weekend was much enjoyed by all who attended, and the Persuasion Study Day had us involved and fascinated. Reviews of both these events can be read in the JASA Newsletter. I urge all members to book for our Mansfield Park conference, to be held on August 2nd at the National Maritime Museum, Sydney. We have an excellent programme arranged, with speakers coming from the USA especially for the conference, so it should be a stimulating day. The ‘Jane Austen Fever’ which doubled our membership last year has now died down, though there may be another burst of media interest when the ITV Emma, starring Kate Beckinsale, is screened on ABC later in the year. Incidentally, the video of this new Emma is already in the Society library and this newsletter contains a review of it, done, most interestingly, by a class of Year 11 students. New members are still joining the Society at a steady rate, which is good to see, and I welcome you all — I hope your ‘first impressions’ of our meetings, publications and library facilities are all good ones! A particularly exciting event has been the birth of a Jane Austen Society in New Zealand. As a Kiwi, I am especially keen to encourage Jane Austen groups in different parts of New Zealand and I would like to thank Elizabeth Reicker for organising the first meeting in Wellington. I am delighted that it was such a success! At the end of last year the committee decided to set up a small Regency Fair shop as a Society fundraiser and also as a means of providing members with merchandise they could not buy anywhere else in Australia. This experiment has proved very worthwhile and, thanks to the patronage of so many members, we can now extend the range of products. There is a list in this newsletter of items and prices. The committee would like to thank Helen Malcher and her recently expanded editorial team for another excellent edition of Sensibilities and the JASA Newsletter. The members of the committee have all worked extremely hard this year. On behalf of everyone in the Society I would like to thank them for their efforts. Without such a dedicated committee, there would be no Jane Austen Society of Australia! Susannah Fullerton Current JASA PublicationsThe June 1997 issues of JASA publications Sensibilities and the JASA Newsletter have been sent to all JASA members. The articles in Sensibilities include:
Items from the Newsletter (and from Practicalities, JASA's news update sheet published in March and September) are reproduced on these web pages. For a taste of what members enjoy in Sensibilities, the JASA refereed journal praised for its consistently high literary standards, read an 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'. |
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News, Views & Titbits— An item from the most interesting Newsletter of the Centre for the Study of Early English Women’s Writing at Chawton Park, has made a fascinating connection, new to this writer, between her involvement in Jane Austen’s brother Edward’s Chawton House renovations, and both Emma and Mansfield Park.
These connections do reinforce the view that Jane wrote from her own knowledge. She really did use life to create her art, did she not! — The very professional Genesian Theatre, in Kent Street, Sydney, will be mounting a play called I Have Five Daughters, based, not surprisingly, on Pride & Prejudice, and directed by member Pamela Whalan, who will be known to many of you. It opens on 2 January 1998, and we’re very fortunate that we’ll get a very brief preview of it at our Xmas lunch (and there’s another reason to book early for the lunch!) This theatre company has done some marvellous work, and we can expect an excellent production. Put it in your diaries now! — Did you know? There is a Jane Austen Book Shop in the USA. It is run by mail
order, and sends out four catalogues per year advertising new and second hand books on
Jane Austen, different editions of her works, and books about the Brontës, Elizabeth
Gaskell, Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and other early women writers. There is no
obligation to buy, but the temptation is enormous! To get your name on the mailing list,
write to: — Did you know? (2) A new Zealand book chain has published the current 100 top selling books of fiction. Jane Austen has 3 in that list (Pride & Prejudice (No.3), Emma and Persuasion)! — Member Julia Emert has been running classes in the Nowra region, NSW, on Jane Austen and dance, entitled Dancing with Mr Darcy, under the auspices of the U3A, which have been very well received (as some of us who have had the delightful Nell Challingsworth explore 18th century dance with us would attest). Perhaps we should persuade Julia to demonstrate to us at a meeting or conference! — Pen Friends: Would you like to correspond with another Janeite? We are happy to
give details in this Newsletter to put people in touch, so contact us if you also would
like a correspondent. At present, a lady from Chicago is interested in finding a JASA
penfriend. Her details are: — Members’ help please !!! Member Lois Caw (now helping us with our Editorial Committee) is interested in finding more information about Jane’s unmentioned brother — and she’s right — there seems to be very little information about George Austen. Jane herself never mentions him in her letters — or in those which survive. However, Deirdre Le Faye’s excellent new edition of the Letters tells us that George, the second son, was born in Deane on 26 August 1766 (9 years before Jane), was given his father’s name, was epileptic and possibly deaf and dumb, and was boarded out locally under the supervision of his parents, then his brothers. He died of dropsy, according to Maggie Lane in Jane Austen’s Family, at the ripe old age of 72 in January 1838, long outlasting most of his family, and is buried at Monk Sherborne, Hampshire. This Maggie Lane work also suggests that it may have been the fact that brother James Austen was vicar at Sherborne St John after 1790 that ‘it was in the neighbouring village of Monk Sherborne that the two defectives of the family came to be lodged’ — George and his uncle Thomas Leigh. Thomas Leigh evidently lodged there with a family called Culham till he died in 1821: George ‘may or may not have lived in the same household’. The concern of George’s parents, and the sadness his illness caused them is evident in letters from his father and mother during 1770:
And his mother:
Can any of our very knowledgeable members offer any more information? — We have a new ‘youngest member’! Katie Daniels recently joined the Society, at age 11. She’s heading for a long and enjoyable life of Jane Austen appreciation, isn’t she! — The Society has notice of two new publications of potential interest to members: Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction by Margaret Kirkham, and Mary Lascelles Jane Austen and her Art. The first will be reviewed in the December 1997 issue of Sensibilities — A member has an item for sale that may well prove of interest to our readers. A Jane Austen Bicentenary Crystal Bell by Baccarat, for AUST$85 ono. If you are interested, please phone her on (02) 9876 1820. — Do remember that the JASA Newsletter is intended to be a members’ publication: if you have anything to communicate to (or ask of) your fellow members, if you’d like to write a review, or mention a course, a film, whatever, please do contact the editor or Susannah Fullerton. I must say that we are delighted with the level of members’ contribution to the current Newsletter — do keep it up. |
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'Our' AcademicsOur patron, Professor Yasmine Gooneratne, writes has been pursuing the biography of Sir John D’Oyly, a Jane Austen contemporary, who contributed to the bringing of the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) under British rule in 1815. And the indefatigable Professor Penny Gay reports, as she leaves the country (again), that she has been spending a period of leave working intermittently on various topics: Shakespeare’s As You Like It; the questions raised by the current spate of Austen adaptations on film and television; her research into Jane Austen and the theatre of her time; and a large pile of postgraduate thesis drafts! Trips to America (for Shakespearean conference and performances) and to England (for more theatre and, hopefully, some writing) have added to this stimulating mix of intellectual experiences. |
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Servants in Jane Austen's EmmaFrom a group session at the JASA weekend at Kangaroo Valley (March 1997): There are nine servants mentioned by name in Emma, of whom James, the Hartfield coachman, rates eight separate mentions, followed by the Bates’ Patty with five. Those not named include individuals, such as Emma’s maid, or groups, such as the ‘competent number of nursery-maids’ accompanying the John Knightleys on their Hartfield visit or the ‘servants’ recently added to their household. If we count such groups as one, there are 19 references altogether to servants who remain unnamed. Servants do not play a part in furthering the plot of the novel, but they are useful in delineating character and in reflecting social attitudes. In the case of James, for instance, most of the references to him are made by Mr. Woodhouse and reveal his concern for others, but also point up the fussy, hypochondriacal side of Mr Woodhouse’s nature and his complacent assumption that Hartfield servants are a superior breed. No-one knows how to boil an egg or prepare pork as well as does Serle, the Hartfield cook. Mr. Woodhouse’s innocent pride and trust in his servants is endearing but there is also an element of self-interest involved. With Mrs. Elton there is a similar assumption of the superiority of her servants. She offers the services of her housekeeper to Mr. Knightley when he is planning the Donwell Abbey party and she comments that, ‘Our coachman and horses are extremely expeditious! I believe we drive faster than anybody.’ She shows none of Mr. Woodhouse’s concern for the welfare of her servants and she is such a ‘fine lady’ that, when offering the use of one of her servants to collect mail for Jane Fairfax, she refers to him as ‘one of our men. I forget his name’. As she is apparently the only servant in the Bates’ humble household, Patty might well be on more intimate terms with her employers than the servants in the more affluent families. The house is so small and Miss Bates so voluble that Patty must surely be privy to many of the family secrets, and could be regarded almost as a friend. Even so, her position is still of course a subservient one. There is a hint of a more equal, man-to-man relationship between Mr. Knightley and his ‘beloved William Larkins’, but it remains just a hint. We are told that Emma visits ‘an old servant’ who has married and lives nearby, but we know no more of the woman than this. Overall, the impression is that servants are rarely seen as individuals, being simply accepted as a necessary of life and valued for their contribution to the smooth functioning of society and household. It was actually a surprise to learn how many references to servants were found in Emma, which showed how skilfully and unobtrusively Jane Austen sketches in the backdrop against which her characters move. At one point in our discussion a rather amusing (though pointed) comparison was drawn between servants and horses. It was observed that ‘country people look after their horses’ and that a good servant might be regarded in the same light. One could guess that the vulgar and pretentious, such as Mrs. Elton, would be careless of the welfare of her ‘horses’ and that a true gentleman such as Mr. Knightley would value them as faithful and reliable retainers, performing a necessary function and deserving of care, respect and perhaps even of affection. Marjorie Jones |
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The Best & Worst of Dinner PartiesAlso from a group session at the JASA weekend at Kangaroo Valley (March 1997): Outsiders who feel Jane Austen supporters are ‘staid’ or ‘conservative’ should have been flies on the wall for this hilarious session. We were required to plan the invitation list and menu for a perfect dinner party, and the dinner party from hell, using Jane Austen characters of course. The perfect guests included such loved characters as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr George Knightley, Elinor Dashwood and Captain Wentworth, and Eleanor and Henry Tilney: a hostess could rely on them for good manners and good conversation. The menu included the ubiquitous White Soup, turbot of lobster, oyster pate, a supreme de volaille aux truffes, and a fricandeau à l’oiseille (by courtesy of Daniel Pool’s What Jane Austen Ate & Charles Dickens Knew). The ‘dinner from hell’ was much more fun (even though it would not have been, if we’d had to be there). Guests included (of course) Mr Elton and Mrs Ferrars, Mr Collins and Mary Bennet (who entertained the guests with readings and a piano recital after dinner), Mr Price and Mrs Norris. One group also included, would you believe, the gypsies that so frightened Harriet. And serving at table was the perfect servant for such an occasion, the Price’s Rebecca, with gruel high on the menu. Turkey also featured — served a day or two after the impromptu dinner with Mrs Grant, when it had had time to ‘ripen’. Enjoyment all round. |
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Other Places, Other SocietiesJASNA The new president of the North American Society, JASNA, Elsa Solender, has sent us her ‘Diary’ for our interest. This quote may fascinate members:
Change JASNA to JASA, and it’s a very fair description of our indefatigable president, Susannah Fullerton. Both organisations are fortunate in the quality of their presidents. Incidentally, Elsa Solender hopes to come to Australia this year, so we may meet her at one our meetings. Australia & New Zealand Jane Austen Societies now exist in South Australia and Victoria, at the beginning of May a new group met for the first time in Wellington, New Zealand, and a member is interested in starting a group in Christchurch, NZ. A report from the new Wellington group, initiated by JASNA member Elizabeth Reicker, follows: Jane Austen in New Zealand
... and in Melbourne President of the Melbourne society, Carla Hawley, sends her report of southern activities.
We enjoyed meeting Carla at the Study Day, and congratulate her and her committee on the excellent journal Observations. The Melbourne newsletter is also full of information pertinent to southern Janeites. Do call her, if you are in Melbourne and can attend a meeting, on (03) 9551 4086. The Dylan Thomas Society of Australia This society is great fun, and they would very much welcome JASA members. For this year they plan:
If you are interested, contact the President, Robert Jones, on (048) 611 977, or write to PO Box 467, Newport Beach, 2106. Membership costs $20. |
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Emma at Kincumber High School, NSWMember and teacher Michelle Morgan has been so inspired by JASA in general, and the Kangaroo Valley weekend in particular, that she had her Year 11 class at Kincumber High School do a whole review of the ITV film version of Emma. (Promotional material from the film at left shows Kate Beckinsale in the lead role.) She writes: ‘Last year the class designed a special Pride & Prejudice segment: 12 boys and 16 girls in full costume. What surprised most people was the fact that many of these boys were footballers, and were not expected to be dressed in full 18th century costume. We even danced ‘Mr Beveridge’s Maggot’ to the BBC’s title music, and it was hard to get them to stop! Our study includes designing dinner parties, writing letters with seals, picnicking outside 1830s churches while reading the text. Editing their reviews of Emma, which they will study for the HSC next year, has given them another approach to writing. I thank them for their enthusiasm and support.’ It appears to have been a great deal of fun for all concerned, and it is imaginative teaching like this that will make a new and well educated generation of Janeites – which is of course devoutly to be wished! Reviews from the students follow:
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Jane Austen Course, Macquarie UniversityJane Austen’s Novels: On The Page, On The Screen Presented by Professor Yasmine Gooneratne This is a Continuing Education Course at Macquarie University, Sydney, in Aug/Sept
1997, and will examine the six published novels of Jane Austen, consider her gifts as a
writer of fiction, and study the success (or failure) of the several attempts that have
been made to translate those gifts to film and television. 8 two-hour sessions. Details
and application forms are available from Macquarie University’s Centre for Continuing
Education. Study Day: PersuasionThis delightful report will recall to those who were there, a day of involvement and pleasure — very different from meetings and conferences where the pleasure is as great, but our role is more passive. The morning of our Study Day dawned suitably English-grey and damp, but by the time we assembled, this had given way to Australian sunshine — a contrast which was an appropriate start for our examination of the contrasts which JA draws so well in Persuasion of people, scenes and feelings. The morning program gave full scope for JASA’s talented contemporary Australian artists in the posters produced by putting to paper the mind maps of the Persuasion localities of Kellynch, Uppercross, Lyme and Bath, and the characters, emotions and ideas revealed in each. The stately home of Kellynch Hall was shown reduced to only one mirror after the Crofts took possession; Lyme, where so much changed for our characters and their lives, shown with its rolling hills; and the steps of the Cobb, with the winds of change blown across them by one of those splendid cherubs of old maps, perched in a corner and blowing with full cheeks; Uppercross, full of tiny people having a happy time; Bath with its snob areas, and its poor ones ‘which no Elliot should visit’, overarched by the Gravel Walk to Happiness. The feelings in each locality were represented in one poster by different colours, including a tiny green circle of jealousy — you must guess whose! Shouts of laughter and appreciation greatly encouraged the budding artists. Serious study of five themes followed, including: Journeys & Addresses, in a world where the 17 miles from Lyme to Uppercross was a considerable distance, and having a good address meant everything to such as the Elliots; and Family Trees, which produced a genealogical masterpiece of the Elliot family which should be offered to all future students of the work. A crossword and Lost Word puzzle kept us busy over lunch — a real test of our knowledge of Persuasion. Who was the new father? What street did the Crofts live in, in Bath; What was Louisa’s fiancé’s first name? Fortunately, cheating was allowed, and the pages of our copies of the book were searched fast and furiously. In our next task, hitherto unsuspected thespian talents in JASA were revealed in performances. We saw the scene at Uppercross with Mrs Musgrove tearfully talking to Captain Wentworth about ‘poor Richard’. The chaos and confusion on the Cobb after Louisa’s fall became hilarious as reproduced on our stage. Who will forget the scorn in Sir Walter’s voice when Anne persisted in her visits to ‘poor Mrs Smith, old Mrs Smith, ill Mrs Smith, one of countless Mrs Smiths’? ‘Over the top’ performances gave these scenes a colour they certainly hadn’t had before! We concluded with a study of the poems that Captain Benwick liked and discussed with Anne, all Byronic gloom and doom. Did his tastes become happier, we wondered hopefully, after he married Louisa? Our taste for JA was strongly confirmed by our happy day. Kath Holmes Jane & the InternetThis lighthearted exchange is an example of what one can find on the Internet*: — For an idea of the English view of Austen, I quote from an English book catalogue I received yesterday. Can you recognise the book by Austen being described: A fine work with a prissy heroine and a fat, ill tempered dog. [Cathy] — Gee, that’s a tough one. A prissy heroine... seems like they must be talking about Mansfield Park, but the fat, ill tempered dog... hmmmm... Mr Collins? [Dorothy] — No no, the dog must be Lady Bertram’s famous Pug! [Juliet] — I don’t often write in defence of MP, but I can’t stand by and see pug maligned without speaking up. The charge that that this canine was fat and ill-tempered has no textual support that I can recall. On the contrary, at one point Lady B says that she will give Fanny one of pug’s puppies the next time she has a litter, clearly an implication that pug is quite a fecund creature. I have often therefore imagined her to be rather attractive, as pugs go. [Karen] — Karen, it’s all very well to defend Pug, but we’re still left with the problem that though Pug has puppies, the dog is elsewhere in the book referred to as ‘he’. [Edith] — Actually, this has never bothered me at all. I think Lady Bertram probably has several dogs of the same breed, either successively or simultaneously, so I assumed that the pug that has puppies and the pug that is referred to as ‘he’ are different dogs. It would fit with Lady B’s lack of imagination that she never bothered to give them individual names. (Come to think of it, for the female pug to have puppies there would HAVE to be a male pug around somewhere.) [Juliet] *from the Austen-L discussion list: Debbie Williams Also from the Internet*, a selection from The Punishment List (which our associate Jane Austen society in Melbourne has also discovered and published!)
*http://curly.cc.utexas.edu/~churchh/austt10j.html#punishlist Kerry Underhill |
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  1 July 1997 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 |
