JASA News
June 2002

Susannah Fullerton
President
JASA

Letter from the President

One of the best aspects of being a Jane Austen devotee is that you immediately feel part of an exciting international community.

In October this year I will visit the New York chapter of JASNA and give a talk at their meeting. One week later I will join Canadians and Americans and many international guests at the JASNA conference in Toronto for three wonderful days discussing Jane Austen’s World. Next year my literary tour will include talks from Jane Austen experts in England. In FebruaryI visited the Jane Austen Society of Melbourne to give a talk entitled Jane Austen Goes to Gretna Green. I correspond with JA enthusiasts in NZ, Buenos Aires, Scotland, England, Canada, America and Japan.

Australia presently holds a leading position on the international JA stage. JASA has published A Century of Wills, Anne Harbers and I recently published Jane Austen – Antipodean Views; John Wiltshire’s Recreating Jane Austen, Clara Tuite’s Romantic Austen and Paul Henningham’s edition of I, Jane Austen have all appeared recently. We have Jon Spence’s Austen biography and Penny Gay’s Jane Austen and the Theatre to look forward to during this year. No wonder Claire Tomalin was impressed by the vibrancy of JA studies in this part of the world and by JASA in particular!

We are fortunate to be welcoming three international speakers to our July conference. This promises to be a very stimulating weekend as well as great fun (JASA conferences are always great fun!) I strongly encourage you to book for this very special event. See program on page 15 of this Newsletter, and order form attached.

While Claire Tomalin’s talk to JASA was a highlight which will be hard to live up to, we do have an excellent programme of events for the rest of the year. I hope you can make it to the meetings.

I also hope you can make it to another very exciting ‘international’ event later in the year. Several years ago, Juliet McMaster, renowned Austen scholar and General Editor of the Juvenilia Press, came to speak at a JASA conference. I know that all who heard her greatly enjoyed her talks. We are extremely fortunate to be welcoming Juliet again. In Australia to hand over the reins of the Juvenilia Press to Dr Christine Alexander, Juliet will be the key-note speaker at a conference on the juvenilia at the University of NSW on 16 Nov. This promises to be a very special day and is a fabulous opportunity to hear Juliet speak. Details and booking forms will be sent to all members with Practicalities. Don’t miss this exciting event!

Wherever you find Jane Austen fellowship this year, internationally or at home, I hope you enjoy it.

Susannah Fullerton

Current JASA Publications

The June 2002 issues of JASA publications Sensibilities and the JASA Newsletter, have been sent to all JASA members. 

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

• A Biographer Reflects…  - Claire Tomalin
• Poems of Anne Lefroy (1749-1804) - Jon Spence 
• Illustrating Jack & Alice for the Juvenilia Press - Juliet McMaster 
• Introducing Jack & Alice - Joseph Wiesenfarth The Janeites - Rudyard Kipling 
• Jane Austen and the Cult of Horror - Raymond Southall 
• Heroes, Hornblower and Captain Wentworth - Dennis Nutt

Book reviews

• The Author’s Inheritance: Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, and the Establishment of the Novel - by Jo Alyson Parker
• Jane Austen and Narrative Authority - by Tara Ghoshal Wallace
• A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family 1705-1806- by Jon Spence
• Hen Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea - by Joan Druett 
• The Jane Austen Collection (CD) - by Peter Harrison
• Jane Austen’s Family and Tonbridge - by Margaret Wilson
• Pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field - by Melissa Nathan
• Persuading Annie - by Melissa Nathan 
• Janeites: Austen’s Disciples and Devotees - edited by Deirdre Lynch
• Jane Austen: Antipodean Views - edited by Susannah Fullerton & Anne Harbers
  
  
  
  

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

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

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

A Belgian Introduction

On 11 April 1997 I celebrated my 16th birthday and, since I had developed a giggly, girlish preference for Hugh Grant, I was determined to go to the cinema and spend the entire evening admiring his lovely little laugh lines. The film, in which Mr Grant to my disappointment played his old, hopelessly stammering self again, was called Sense and Sensibility, and, as there appeared to exist a book with the very same title, I went to the bookshop a few days later. I asked the bookshop lady whether she had the book of Sense and Sensibility. She smiled and showed me the copy that would become my first Austen novel.

I cannot help smiling, as the lady in the bookshop did, when I think of my first encounter with Jane Austen. I was completely innocent, enquiring after the book of the film, as if some obscure Hollywood writer had quickly transformed the script into a nice little novel, to satisfy the needs of a minority in society endowed with the curious ability to read.

I was certainly not the only one in Belgium running to the bookshop to get my copy of Sense and Sensibility, but the real rush was yet to come. A few months later, we all fainted alternately on the sofa seeing Mr Darcy getting out of his bath and diving into ponds in Andrew Davies’ adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Suddenly every self-respecting bookshop in Belgium had Jane Austen on its shelves. Even the popular shops, specialising in newspapers, magazines and fast food literature, offered their customers Dutch translations of her novels. Still not trusting my knowledge of the English language, I bought several translations of varying quality. Some of them minutely followed the original text, translating, for example, Pride and Prejudice as Waan en Eigenwaan. In Dutch, ‘waan’ is delusion, misapprehension, and ‘eigenwaan’ self-satisfaction, which, as you can see, have the same stem. The Dutch words have slightly different connotations, but no doubt the translator had only honourable intentions when he tried to replace one trope by another. He certainly showed more creativity than the translator of Northanger Abbey, who titled his Dutch version simply Catherine.

Even though her books sold well for a short period of time, Jane Austen did not undergo the immense popularity that had struck the UK in 1995. Her novels are now no longer to be found among newspapers, magazines and fast food literature. Only large chains and second-hand book shops still have Austen – in English as well as in Dutch – on their shelves.

The main reason for her short-lived fame is, I think, the fact that she does not belong to the Dutch literary heritage. She is not the kind of author a ten-year-old Belgian child would steal from its parents’ bookcase, secretly read in the middle of the night and find to be difficult but intriguing as, if I am not mistaken, is often the history of English-speaking people who have developed a lifelong passion for Jane Austen.

At university, my supervisor was surprised to hear that my first encounter with Jane Austen did not take place in the library, but on the screen. I think that she, taking her own familiarity with English literature for granted, forgot that I was only 16 when ‘Austenmania’ reached Belgium and that, until then, none of my teachers at primary or secondary school had ever mentioned Jane Austen’s name in class, let alone put one of her novels on a reading list.

Although many teachers in other Belgian schools took the Austen adaptations as an opportunity to introduce their pupils to her novels, mine kept mysteriously silent about her, and I decided to smuggle Jane Austen into my curriculum myself. I did an oral presentation about Sense and Sensibility in a Dutch literature class, and even managed to get the maximum grade on an exam, writing about the same novel ... in French! Two years later, at university, I compared Sense and Sensibility to Emma Thompson’s screenplay in a small essay. But the date I will never forget is 12 June 2001. That day I took the train to do my oral English Literature exam. For five days I had been swotting, storing the entire history of English Literature, from Caedmon to Julian Barnes, from Beowulf to Angels and Insects in my head. When my professor showed me a table full of little cards, immaculately white on the front, but relentlessly hiding my fate at the back, I held out my hand, picked a card at random, and read ... ‘Discuss Jane Austen’!

The impact of ‘Austenmania’ on Jane Austen’s popularity at Belgian universities became clear to me when I tried to find a supervisor for my dissertation, in which I want to examine how more than 200 years of feminist ideas – which Jane Austen herself did not live to witness – consciously or (which is even more interesting) unconsciously influenced Emma Thompson’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. Most professors automatically advised against any dissertation having ‘Jane Austen’ in its title, thinking everything has long been said about her, and tried to spark off a new passion for some forgotten, minor author in me. I would have been very excited about this kind of pioneering work, were it not that I am convinced that Jane Austen too still offers some very interesting paths that have not been followed before.

Eventually I found a professor who considers enthusiasm as an important element in the choice of a dissertation subject. She is prepared to supervise, but warned me that some of her colleagues do not approve of dissertations that do not stick to strictly literary subjects. Unfortunately, Comparative Literature is still in its infancy in Belgium. It does not even have its own department at my university. I will have to convince a lot of people that Austen adaptations are interesting social phenomena that deserve to be examined scientifically, because they offer insight into what people nowadays do with her novels and with literature in general, from teenage girls secretly admiring Hugh Grant, and feminists proudly claiming Miss Austen as one of their sisters, to critics hopelessly trying to save her Literature from the destructive hands of the common herd. It will not be easy, but I love the challenge.

Marianne Van Remoortel, 21, English Literature student at Ghent University, Belgium

A Members Response - 2001 JASA Conference

Member Patrick Wilson responded to our invitation for ‘thoughtful debate’ on Brigid Rooney’s Falling in Love With Jane at the 2001 Conference, reproduced in December 2001 Sensibilities:

If one is determined to push a particular barrow regardless of consequences, then it seems to me that the more inappropriate the occasion, the more cogent should be one’s argument. It is therefore a pity that Dr Brigid Rooney’s arguably justifiable attempt to shake JASA out of what she perceives as its cosy middle-class white-Australian intellectual cocoon, should have been so woolly, illogical and extravagantly worded.

Rooney, I assume, is concerned about the true facts of Australian history, feeling the same shame that many of us feel when politicians seek to bowdlerise that history and denigrate efforts to present unpleasant facts as taking a ‘black armband view’ of our past. I am surprised therefore that she approves of Patricia Rozema playing fast and loose with the literary facts of Mansfield Park – not only the original story details but also the characterisation of those appearing in the novel and the spirit of the novel as presented by the author.

Rozema’s Mansfield Park is a far greater travesty of such literary facts than the Olivier/Garson Pride and Prejudice. Leonard Bernstein’s musical West Side Story is truer to Romeo and Juliet in spirit and characterisation than is Rozema’s film to its original. To make the plethora of major changes, while retaining the name of the novel and the names of all the characters, seems ethically questionable and would surely be illegal if the author were still alive. To so drastically alter the character of the novel’s heroine is bad enough, but to introduce a dominant theme that does not exist in the novel is unforgivable.

We know nothing whatsoever about Sir Thomas Bertram’s affairs in Antigua. We are not told how big his estates are, what is produced on them, how they are operated nor how they are managed. All we know is that the estate is making ‘poor returns’ and that Sir Thomas’ ‘means will be rather straitened.’ So we can assume that they provide a significant proportion of his income. Whether slaves are actually used on the estate, let alone how they are treated, is never revealed, and the ‘slave-trade’ is mentioned only once in a question by Fanny of her uncle. We do not know the nature of that question nor what Sir Thomas replied, but it is safe to assume that he did reply and probably at some length, because Edmund tells Fanny later that it ‘would have pleased your uncle to be enquired of further.’ Edmund, of course, knew his father better than anyone, certainly better than Rozema and Rooney apparently do.

It is not correct to imply, as Rooney does, that it was Sir Thomas himself who greeted Fanny’s question with silence. Fanny says that she had gained ‘pleasure in his information’, so indicating a fairly lengthy answer to her question, and that it was her cousins, Maria and Julia, who were ‘sitting by without speaking a word.’ Sir Thomas’ willingness to talk about the slave trade, as clearly implied by Jane Austen, is surely not the reaction of a ‘merciless and sadistic tyrant, sickened by his own depravity’ whose acts of ‘torture, rape and murder’ had psychologically traumatised his elder son.

Rooney’s obvious concern at the inhumane treatment of indigenous Australians from the time of the first settlement through to the present seems to have prompted her to find other examples of white-on-black inhumanity to condemn in order to reinforce her concern. I believe that, in requiring Sir Thomas Bertram, and therefore Jane Austen herself, to wear the hairshirt of slavery she has denied logic and overstepped the bounds of literary criticism. By no stretch of a reasonable imagination can it be claimed that there is a ‘suppressed narrative of slavery’ in Austen’s Mansfield Park. The torture, rape and murder are products solely of Rozema’s imagination and were included, I suspect, to pander to the needs of a salacious public and boost ‘bums on seats’. Some may dismiss this as ‘gratuitous and exaggerated’ but it is probably a more reasonable assessment than the academic nonsense that the film has inspired.

Sir Thomas Bertram was not a good father, but then most of Jane Austen’s fathers were not much good. However, as does Mr Bennet to a lesser extent, he faces up to his faults and endeavours to redeem himself. He has always been a generous man and has provided liberally for the support of the large Price family in spite of his own sometimes straitened circumstances. Morally outraged by Maria’s behaviour he refuses to have her back home, but he ensures that she is protected and ‘secured in every comfort’ in another county. Mr Collins would have strenuously opposed such parental indulgence. In short, Sir Thomas was a product of his time. He was an abject failure as a parent, but there is no evidence to show that he was a sadistic tyrant.

We are being asked seriously to accept the picture of Jane Austen being ‘yoked’ to the ‘spectacle of colonial brutality’ and playing a part in the ‘formation of cultural and political values in Australia’. And all this is predicated on the fact that she was alive in a small village in England during the first 30 years of our 200 year colonial history, and on the single use in a novel of the word ‘slave-trade’ with no indication whatsoever of what she or her characters thought about slavery in general or in particular.

I am at a loss to understand just what is involved in Austen being ‘yoked to a spectacle’, but it does seem to involve a quantum leap of an already overstretched imagination. As for her playing a part in the formation of our cultural and political values, she lived a very circumscribed life recording, and often caricaturing, a small segment of English society. Though she was quite well read, she had little or no influence on the formation of cultural and political values in her own society, let alone in a brand new society on the other side of the world, of which she had probably heard very little. Any influence arising from the reading of her books after her death would surely be the responsibility of the readers rather than the author.

Rooney goes on to contrast the lives and the literary outputs of Jane Austen and two Australian writers, Catherine Spence and Miles Franklin, both of whom lived and wrote in conditions entirely different from Austen’s, and 50 to 150 years later. The validity of any comparison seems doubtful. In an apparent effort to appraise the work of the young Spence at the expense of the effeteness of Austen’s environment, Rooney says that ...

while the genteel and secluded Jane Austen enjoyed sufficient leisure to produce her six novels to high levels of artistry, Spence had to make her living in frontier Adelaide through journalism.

Somebody approaching the matter from the other side might have said that ...

while dependent poverty forced Jane Austen to produce her six novels in the strict confinement of her father’s cramped village parsonage, Catherine Spence enjoyed and was inspired by the exciting and independent life of a frontier journalist.

Spence seemed to accept that Austen’s life was probably narrower than her own, but declared that the life of Austen’s heroines ‘would have been deadly dull to endure’. Jane Austen however was able to write about these so-called deadly dull people with such skill that 200 years later she is still being read and enjoyed.

Jane Austen lived and worked in a very secluded part of English society. The absence of any reference in her writing to the manifold ills of the outside world is not an indication of any conscious suppression or refusal to deal with these problems, and bears no rational relationship whatsoever to Australia’s failure to officially say ‘sorry’ for our treatment of our indigenous peoples. The inability of our politicians to feel any shame for the inhumanity and injustice of our remote and recent past is simply a manifestation of their and our lack of compassion, and cannot in any way be described as a result of 19th century British colonial policy or the fictional output of Jane Austen or any other novelist.

Patrick Wilson 

During her relatively short career, Jane Austen explored many of life’s so-called universal truths. But she rarely dealt with death. If, like Susannah Fullerton, you are president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, it’s an important point. Sitting in the living room of her renovated Paddington terrace, Fullerton hugs closer the family’s pug puppy (named Cassie after Austen’s sister), and reflects that death claimed Jane Austen at Fullerton’s age, 41.

"I was drawn to Austen because hers are such positive, life-affirming books," says Fullerton. "She’s very much about seizing pleasure and getting the most out of life. Perhaps that’s why she never really tackles a protracted death scene. In her novels, it’s something that happens off stage, and during the last months of her own life, she took a very practical approach."

A freelance lecturer specialising in the English classics, Fullerton is well versed on the subject of tragic young deaths. She’s never delivered a specific lecture on Great Deaths of English writers, but has a frighteningly exhaustive knowledge of their final moments. In addition to researching many of her favourite writers’ various illnesses, she’s undertaken pilgrimages to the locations where they lost the battle with life.

Fullerton has bowed her head reflectively at the place in Winchester where Austen died (it is thought from Addison’s disease) in the arms of her sister. She’s visited the room in Rome where the poet John Keats died, aged 26. She’s stood by the Brontë sisters’ windswept Yorkshire home, inspecting a graveyard located next to their drinking-water well.

And then there’s Dylan Thomas. "`Rage, rage against the dying of the light,’ Thomas wrote, and in a way he did," says Fullerton. "He died in New York in his late 30s, after drinking 18 straight whiskeys."

Fullerton stops for a moment’s pause. "I think I’d probably rage," she states with sudden force, much to the alarm of the pug. "I don’t think I’d be an Austen - I don’t think I’d be calm. Obviously I’d have to make it as bearable as I could for my children. But deep down, I’d be raging like Dylan Thomas."

Fullerton first experienced the shock of grappling with a loved one’s terminal illness 10 years ago, when her mother died of cancer, aged 57. "We shared this incredible passion for literature: my mother first read Pride and Prejudice to me when I was 10. I still feel an awful sadness that she never saw my children grow up, nor saw my career with literature take off."

After this experience, Fullerton says any talk of death turns her thoughts immediately to her children, Elinor, 11, Carrick, 13, and Kenneth, 15. "I feel incredibly lucky having my family and a very supportive loving husband. I simply wouldn’t want to leave them. My children are at a wonderful, fascinating age and I’d feel a terrible frustration at not being around to see what they decide to do with their lives."

Faced with only 12 months to live, Fullerton would begin reading the Austen canon to her daughter, Elinor. Fullerton has read Pride and Prejudice more than 20 times and now re-reads Austen’s six novels at least once a year. Throughout her life, she’s seized on literature to act not only as friend, but also counsellor. So it’s an activity that would serve two functions.

"I’d want to feel I’d passed Austen on to my daughter. But I’ve also used Jane Austen - used many great writers - to come to terms with things about myself; to better understand the world. I can thoroughly recommend going through life with Jane Austen. In a crisis, I’d need her more than ever." With the panache of an Austen heroine, she adds that she’d also listen to the complete set of audio tapes of Richard Burton reading the English classics. "That man has the sexiest voice," she sighs.

On the career front, Fullerton would continue to work. In August next year, she will conduct her first literary tour in Britain with Australian Studies Abroad. If fate was hanging over her, Fullerton would also make a dash for Paris in order to see Monet’s waterlilies: "I’m not religious - I wouldn’t turn to religion even if I was dying - and whether the experience would end up being a spiritual thing or not, I don’t know. But I know I would feel enriched just being among those beautiful paintings."

Travel and migration have been central components of Fullerton’s life. It’s something of a family joke that few people could lay greater claim to being a true citizen of the Commonwealth. Born in Canada, she grew up in New Zealand, attended university in Scotland, married a South African and settled in Sydney 16 years ago.

At least some of her "last year" would include travelling with her immediate family to see siblings and other family members scattered across the globe, from New Zealand to the Netherlands.

"There would be no regrets," she says finally. "Just lots of frustration. I’m the same age as Austen when she died. I’d never thought of that until today. I haven’t achieved as much as her - I guess not many of us have."

She reflects that if she were dying, at least she would know why and efforts could be made to ensure her comfort. "Austen didn’t know why she was ill. She just had to put up with feeling weak and awful, and not knowing what was going on inside her."

Fullerton still hasn’t tackled the question of her final moment. Without hesitation, she decides she’d "like to die in bed reading a favourite book late one night". Drifting off under the spell of a good read sounds a pleasantly long way from the rage against dying light.

Claire Tomalin visits JASA

The text of Claire’s talk is reproduced in the June 2002 issue of  Sensibilities.

On March 12 JASA welcomed author Claire Tomalin (Jane Austen: A Life) to Roseville with the biggest meeting our organisation has yet arranged.

Claire was in Australia, she thought, for just the Adelaide Festival, some book talks and a little light sight-seeing with her partner, playwright Michael Frayn (Copenhagen). She hadn’t reckoned, of course, on the determination of our Gallant Leader Susannah Fullerton. So, a little while, and only a few threats, later, Claire was in Sydney and in Roseville to face us.

Claire is a seasoned biographer. As well as Jane Austen she has written books about actor and royal mistress Dora Jordan, Charles Dickens’ mistress Nelly Ternan, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and NZ author Katherine Mansfield, and is about to publish Samuel Pepys: A Life. Jane Austen: A Life has been – deservedly – extremely successful and is on web-seller Amazon’s (short) list of Best Non-Fiction Books of 1990-1999.

Jane Austen is JASA’s bread and butter, so we were ready and eager to hear what more Claire could tell us about her book and our heroine. Claire covered both topics in her lively and entertaining speech, concentrating on Jane Austen and her female friends and relations.

Family and friends were important to society, yet surprisingly often ignored by male Austen biographers. The Austens and Leighs were spread far and wide, but they supported each other and promoted each other as necessary. Jane had aunts, nieces, sisters-in-law and cousins to be reckoned up by dozens (although of course her great family confidante was her sister Cassandra). On her mother’s side, Jane had one aunt Jane Cooper (who died when Our Jane was a child), another Aunt Jane (Leigh-Perrot), with whom she had a rather strained relationship, and on her father’s side, dashing Philadelphia and faint Leonora.

Jane’s was not a life of great men and countries clashing, but a life lived as part of a family continuity, as A Life clearly shows.

Claire was also kind enough to answer questions after her talk. One was the obvious – why write the book? It seems that a friend couldn’t find the sort of Austen biography that she wanted, and Claire virtually accepted the challenge. She was a little hesitant, as she was warned that there are people in England who know by heart every word Austen wrote. Luckily for Claire – and for us – there are also people around the world who love Jane Austen and appreciate good writing.

The afternoon finished with the JASA traditional afternoon tea. Claire also cheerfully signed books, and as Constant Reader bookshop of Crows Nest had obligingly come along with piles of her other books for sale, there were plenty to sign.

Members were delighted with our special guest.

Joe Wiesenfarth speaks on Jack & Alice

On April 20, Professor Joe Wiesenfarth, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who entertained and informed us so well as a speaker at our 1998 conference, spoke to JASA on Jane Austen’s childhood novel, Jack and Alice, which he has just edited for Juvenilia Press.

Jack and Alice is a very funny look at a small society (already Austen’s ‘three or four families in a country village’ was taking shape); there is a great deal of fun made of indolent, conceited and drunken persons, and pretty much everyone lives unhappily ever after.

Professor Wiesenfarth took us through his attempts to see the original manuscript (foiled on all sides by English bureaucracy) and the difficulties of deciphering crossed-out sections on a digital copy, depending on the degree of obliteration. Editing turns out to be harder than one thought, but it would be worth listening to editors if they could all be as amusing as this professor about the job and its frustrations.

Full text of Joe Wiesenfarth’s talk is in the June 2002 issue of Sensibilities.

News and Views

Where’s Where in Jane Austen ... and What Happens There

Member Patrick Wilson has compiled extensive information on places in Austen novels and Juvenilia, under this intriguing title.

Have you ever wondered who came from South Park or what lies at the end of the deep stream that runs through Portland Place? The answers may not win you a large jackpot cash prize or even help you in a friendly family game of Trivial Pursuit, but, judiciously used, they are guaranteed to cast a welcome pall of silence over the most boring dinner party!

Where’s Where in Jane Austen is a compilation of the over 400 place names, real and fictional, that appear in all of Austen’s works, with a brief indication of what happens there. It is an excellent resource, and copies are available from Regency Fair – use the order form attached.

The (northern) Winter 2002 issue of this newsletter of the Chawton House Library is attached for those members who have requested they be on the mailing list. Other members wishing to receive this publication of the developing Centre for the Study of Early English Women’s Writing (1600-1830), which will be opened to the public for the first time at the JASNA general meeting in 2003, should contact JASA’s editor. The publication is free of charge.

Members are aware that external submissions of papers to JASA's journal  Sensibilities go through a process of approval by our Referee Board. This year we have a new referee – Professor Tony Cousins of Macquarie University has retired from the Board, and Dr John Wiltshire, author of Recreating Jane Austen and Jane Austen and the Body: The Picture of Health, reader at Latrobe University, has kindly consented to join Associate Professor Penny Gay, Dr Jon Spence, and Dr Tony Voss on the Referee Board.

As a Society we are considerably indebted to this group, who help maintain the quality and professional acceptance of our journal

We were happy to assist the small Idaho branch of the giant JASNA with items for their Newsletter recently. They found some of our crosswords and articles on the website, and asked permission to use them. It’s a compliment to the variety and interest of JASA’s website, of course! We wish the Idaho branch enjoyment of their ‘Jane explorations’.

It’s nice to see members reacting to suggestions in our publications! Member Teresa Grace from NZ certainly did – she found the four 1975 Royal Mail stamps shown in the March Practicalities at a local stamp dealer in mint condition at $2 each(!), and mounted them on dark red velvet, in a small silvered brass frame. She says they look wonderful. On the strength of Susannah’s recommendation also in the March Practicalities, Teresa also got hold of an audio tape: she found Patricia Hodge’s reading of Pride and Prejudice excellent.

Publications

Jane Austen and the Theatre

Penny Gay
Cambridge University Press, 2002

We are delighted that this long awaited work from Penny Gay will be launched at JASA's 2002  annual conference in the Hunter Valley in July this year. Penny is also a speaker at the Conference, and will be available to sign copies for members. Arrangements have been made through Regency Fair for the work to be made available at a special Conference price, so do complete the order form attached to secure your copy. Penny will of course be happy to sign copies at the Conference.

In her Preface Penny pays tribute to JASA, and particularly to Susannah, who at an early stage enthusiastically undertook some research for Penny. The result is a 270-page volume, with 7 illustrations, that discusses each of the novels in the light of 18th century theatre and drama.

Jane Austen was fascinated by theatre from her childhood. As an adult she went to the theatre whenever opportunity arose. Many scenes in her novels are like plays; contemporary film and television have shown how naturally dramatic her stories are. Yet the myth remains that she was ‘anti-theatrical’, and readers continue to puzzle about the real significance of the theatricals in Mansfield Park. Penny Gay’s book describes for the first time the rich theatrical context of Austen’s writing, and the intersections between her novels and contemporary drama. Penny proposes a ‘conversation’ in Austen’s mature novels with the various genres of 18th-century drama – laughing comedy, sentimental comedy and tragedy, Gothic theatre, early melodrama. She says,

Theatre is society at play – play which may be licensed, but is always in danger of transgression. This danger is to be found in every one of Jane Austen’s mature fictions (not to mention its riotous and uncontrolled presence in the juvenilia): Catherine Morland’s grotesque gothic imaginings; Marianne and Willoughby’s indulgence in precipitate passion; the sexy and flirtatious presence of the militia in Meryton and Brighton (with the particularly carnivalesque episode of the girls’ dressing up one of the men in women’s clothes); Mansfield Park’s theatricals; the perpetual trickster Frank Churchill; Louisa’s leap from the Cobb. These are all events in the novels which alert us to Austen’s interest in the theatricality of everyday life. In putting each novel into dialogue with specific examples of late eighteenth – and early nineteenth-century drama – Gothic theatre, comedy of manners, the drama of sensibility and melodrama – I attempt in this book to highlight the ironic steadiness of Austen’s gaze at her society.

The plays considered – all those that we know or assume Jane Austen knew – demonstrate the wide range of contemporary theatre. Many of them have since disappeared from the repertoire. In the case of Hannah Cowley’s The Belle’s Stratagem and Which is the Man? this is our loss: these are lively, witty plays with central and strong roles for women who often remind one of Mary Crawford. The sentimental dramas and ‘she-tragedies’ of the 18th century are often laughable to us, and Austen uses them to satirise the excesses of her sillier characters. But she is not blind to the affective power of drama – and especially, of ‘good, hardened, real acting’. This is ultimately what makes her observation of the theatricality of everyday life so fascinating and profound. 

Order Jane Austen and the Theatre
now from Regency Fair.

Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers would like to thank all JASA members most warmly for their generous support of Jane Austen: Antipodean Views. The venture has proved a great success, with the book being well reviewed in Australia and NZ. Thanks to all members who gave us positive feedback – we loved hearing your reactions! Thanks also to those who came to the launch and to everyone who has purchased the book. There are still plenty of copies available for any members wishing to buy! 

More about ordering Jane Austen: Antipodean Views.

Reactions to A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family continue positive – it is quite rightly being seen as an excellent research tool for Austen, her family and her time. If you haven’t yet acquired your own copy, or the perfect Xmas gift for a potential Janeite, order form is attached. See Book Review from JASNA News on page 26. It was also reviewed in the JA Society in Melbourne Newsletter, and in the Newsletter of the Puget Sound Chapter of JASNA. 

More about ordering A Century of Wills from Jane Austen’s Family

New biography 2002, Becoming Jane Austen

Martin Sheppard of Hambledon, the publisher for Becoming Jane Austen, Jon Spence’s new biography, assures him that it will be available in the northern autumn this year – perhaps at the JASNA conference in October.

At the next JASNA conference in Toronto, Canada, in October 2002, JASA has two people presenting: Susannah Fullerton will present The Costly Pleasures of Adultery, an adaptation of her JASA 2001 Conference paper, and Pamela Whalan will speak on And what if Mrs Leigh Perrot had been found guilty? – exploring living conditions, and giving a ‘potted history’ of the colony of NSW Mrs LP would have found in 1801 if she had in fact been found guilty of shoplifting and transported.

We wish them both well, and know that their professionalism will be well received.

Foreign Correspondent

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

Canberra

The last meeting of the Canberra Group was great fun. It was held at a member’s house where we were spoiled with a scrumptious afternoon tea and a very pleasant view of Yarralumla’s autumn leaves through the windows, as we sat and exchanged various favourite (and un-favourite) forms of entertainment from the novels. Jessie Terry also left us at the end of the meeting with a really tricky quiz on JA’s houses in the novels, which we’re all endeavouring to complete before the next meeting.

That next meeting of the group was on Saturday, 11 May at 1.30pm at a member’s house. As the meeting was the day before Mother’s Day we decided to look at Jane Austen’s mothers.

We’ve also decided to have our mid-winter Jane Austen meal on Saturday, 22nd June (very close to the Solstice so it will be Christmassy or mid-summer-ish). Members of the group will be bringing along a dish from Jane’s times for us all to enjoy.

Any member of the Society wishing to attend our events in Canberra contact Heather Aspinall on (02) 6247 1137 or email stoiver@ozemail.com.au.

Heather has also supplied a report of the Jane Austen Ball held in Canberra in April this year, which follows. Longer-term members will recall similar concentration on our feet while we tried to master these dances under the tutelage of Nell Challingsworth, at conferences at Wyong. Note also some contact addresses on p.5 if you’d like to learn this 18/19th century social grace!

The Jane Austen Ball in Canberra

On Saturday, 20 April 2002, a Jane Austen English Country Dance was held in the Hall of the historic St John’s Church in Reid, Canberra. Organised by John and Aylwen Garden, with music played by the early music band ‘Earthly Delights’, the Ball hosted such well-known English Country dances as ‘Grimstock’ (danced in the 1995 BBC adaptation of P&P) and ‘Mr Beveridge’s Maggot’ (the famous Darcy/Lizzy dance at Netherfield in the same production and also danced by Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeremy Northam in Emma). Other dances included ‘Gathering Peascods’, ‘Jenny Plucked Pears’, the ‘Nonesuche’ and ‘Black Nag’, among others. Many people who attended the Ball wore period costume from Jane Austen’s times and from other periods also. A display of Renaissance dance was held in the break (with a very convincing Henry VIII look-alike!) and the evening was overall a delight and a great success. I now have a hearty appreciation for the actors in period adaptations who not only have to dance beautifully but also remember their lines.

The whole experience made me wonder at how clever and witty conversations could take place at Jane’s own Balls (when I spent the whole night just trying to remember the next steps). The dance was supported by funds from artsACT (the ACT Government arts funding organisation) and was part of the ACT’s Heritage Week activities. Information about the band ‘Earthly Delights’ and their regular dances is available on the website www. earthlydelights.com.au. Interstate visitors are more than welcome to attend the dances. See the website for more information about upcoming events.

South Australia

Adelaide is having a great time. We have instigated a Jane Austen Talkback on radio. It made us suddenly able to field questions from a huge number of over 60s males regarding the TV Pride & Prejudice dealing with something we have never talked about before: the pulsating Bosom of Jennifer Ehle [even suggesting that it, like the brown wig, may have been a detachable prosthesis didn’t cool their ardour]. And we have got some of them to read the novels. We have found a whole new body of interest [sorry]! Our year opened with a look at Jane Austen and Matthew Flinders, the literary culture of the 18th century, comparison of the two Emma movies, a look at Jane Austen and the Navy, and London of the period. We have more talk than ever, and we have more input from every member in every meeting than ever before. It is looking very cheery for 2002.

Melbourne

We were delighted to have a visit from Susannah Fullerton as guest speaker at our first meeting for 2002 on Saturday, February 23. Susannah’s paper, Jane Austen Goes to Gretna Green, covering elopement in Jane Austen’s novels and in her own life and times, was most enlightening and entertaining. It was interesting to hear from Susannah about JASA’s recent publishing ventures, in particular Jane Austen: Antipodean Views. Contributors from Melbourne for that publication were Dr John Wiltshire and Dr Gideon Polya from La Trobe University and Dr Christian Grawe from the University of Melbourne, and I was honoured to be also asked to contribute. Items from Regency Fair, which Susannah was kind enough to bring with her on the plane from Sydney, proved popular with our members.

Our Society was well represented at an excellent one-day Conference entitled Around Jane Austen: Film, Theatre, History, organised by La Trobe University’s English Department and held at the University’s City campus. Speakers included Penny Gay (University of Sydney) on Jane Austen and the Theatre, Jocelyn Harris (University of Otago) on Editing Persuasion, and Clara Tuite (University of Melbourne) on Austen and Kitsch: Sexual Politics and the Literary Canon. The highlight of the day was the arrival from the Adelaide Festival Writers’ Week of Claire Tomalin, distinguished biographer and author of Jane Austen: A Life. Claire spoke informally with Dr John Wiltshire in interview format and many of us were privileged to meet her at the end of the Conference as she signed copies of her work..Our Society’s special thanks go to Dr Wiltshire for asking JASM to be involved in such a great event. [It is worthy of comment that the Melbourne contingent (and particularly Andrea Richards) considerably impressed Claire Tomalin by producing within only an hour or so, a reference Claire had been unable to locate. Ed]

Dr John Wiltshire was our special guest at our April 27 meeting for a Workshop on Mansfield Park. He is the only Australian asked by Cambridge University Press to edit one of a new series and will be editing Mansfield Park. He told me it is ‘poisoned fruit’ – the most difficult of Austen’s novels to edit. Previous editors have used two editions as sources and Dr Wiltshire will be using the 1816 edition. There has been no editing since the 1923 Oxford University Press publication, edited by Dr R W Chapman, which in Dr Wiltshire’s view has lasted well but is now unsatisfactory.

Another Special Event of note took place during March/April as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. This was a Georgian Dessert Table, held at the W R Johnston Collection’s house in East Melbourne. This consisted of an introductory illustrated lecture by well-known Melbourne ceramics expert, Patricia Begg. Following the lecture, visitors were ushered into the main Drawing Room where a magnificent Georgian Dessert Table had been set, which Patricia interpreted for us. This fascinating afternoon concluded with coffee and sweetmeats, prepared to original 18th Century recipes. Patricia Begg travels often to England and Europe where she is privileged to be able to photograph table settings in many famous houses. Her slides included Georgian dessert table settings from Hampton Court Palace, Blenheim Palace, Chatsworth and Woburn Abbey. Patricia will be our Special Guest at this year’s Jane Fest to be held in November.

Any enquiries about the Jane Austen Society Melbourne (JASM) can be directed to Mercia Chapman on (03) 9897 3283, fax (03) 98974616 or email mchapmanl@optusnet.com.au.

Blue Mountains

A small group of Jane Austen enthusiasts met recently in an attempt to revitalise the ‘Jane Austen in the Mountains’ group, which has lapsed somewhat since previous leader Elizabeth Lindsay unfortunately left the area.

We now plan to meet every 6-8 weeks: our next meeting is on 16 June 2002 at 2pm, at the home of Catherine Kennedy, at 30 Valley Road, Springwood (very close to the town centre), on the topic What’s not to like in Pride & Prejudice? All welcome: bring the novel and a plate, and ring Catherine on (02) 4751 2024 or Rod Pyne on (02) 4751 4774 if you have any enquiries. If you can’t come to the June meeting, do ring us to discover the date of our next gathering.

Brisbane

This group has only started this year. Our first meeting was held in Samford on a beautiful Brisbane afternoon, and it was great to meet other people who share the love of Jane and her life and times.

Our next meeting will be held in Samford on the 15th June at 1pm, when one of our members will be giving us a talk on her Jane Austen Experience, sounds like great fun.

Anyone interested in joining our enthusiastic group please contact Joan Lucas on (07) 3289 5120.

Christchurch

Following the successful launch of Jane Austen: Antipodean Views in Australia, we are happy to confirm that this appealing volume has arrived in NZ and at latest report sales were brisk.

As Margie Thompson asserted in the NZ Herald newspaper (24 November 2001), ‘This little book will have you once again plunging back between the covers with Jane, Mr Darcy et al.’ Double entendre aside, the reviewer’s enthusiasm for the collection was obvious.

More publicity has followed, including a National Radio interview with co-editor Susannah Fullerton on a weekly magazine programme called Bookmarks. Promotion has thus been energetic and effective on both sides of the Tasman.

A course of study with Emma as its text was offered recently in Christchurch for students of Continuing Education. By close reference to the characters in the novel, participants were to examine the role of language in conflict resolution, no less. Thus in the 21st century Jane’s work represents a source for studies never dreamt of by the lady herself!

From print media came an account of what might be termed the ‘New Oscars of Literature’. In the Chicago Tribune during the week after 2002’s Academy Award Show, Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George proposed new literary categories ‘to celebrate more aggressively the achievements of writers,’ including a set of nominations for ‘Best Male Protagonist - Hero’ and the nominees were … Odysseus, The Odyssey; Mr Rochester, Jane Eyre; Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and (naturally) … Mr Darcy from Pride & Prejudice!

Staying with P&P, JASA members with long memories may recall a black and white TV adaptation, which appeared in 1967. It had an Australian connection in Melbourne-based Lewis Fiander, who took the role of Mr Darcy. Celia Bannerman, a member of a well-known British theatrical family, played Elizabeth. Polly Adams was Jane Bennet in this production and her daughter, Susannah Harker, won the same role in the 1995 version!

We have been revisiting the 1995 Pride & Prejudice adaptation, with the benefit of additional inside information. We have ‘listened’ via the net to a presentation by Andrew Davies, the screenwriter, on the subject of adapting Austen novels for the screen with special reference to P&P. He went on to discuss his version of Emma and to mention his contribution to the film of Bridget Jones’s Diary. The talk also canvassed his unproduced screenplay for Northanger Abbey, which we have actually been able to read, by courtesy of The Republic of Pemberley site. If this script becomes a film at some stage, we are sure it will spark another controversy not unlike reactions to the Rozema ‘take’ on Mansfield Park.

Finally, from the world of live drama, Ruth was privileged to attend a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which toured NZ in April. An august cast performed The Hollow Crown, a literary anthology.

The entertainment included a comic rendition of Jane Austen’s History of England written at the age of 15. Dame Diana Rigg presented highlights of this comic piece, complete with its refreshing bias towards female role models and lack of time for long speeches by prominent men – for the latter we were referred to Shakespeare! Dame Diana appeared to relish her duty to utter the name of Mary Queen of Scots in tones of reverence and that of her cousin, Elizabeth I, with gleeful loathing. The effect was completely engaging and very funny, representing a fitting climax to our Austen sightings so far this year.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

www.janeaustenba.org

This organisation has set up a professional website, and has benefited from advice and assistance from Susannah Fullerton.

Mr Patrick Orpen Dudgeon was the founder of our Society (The Jane Austen Society of Buenos Aires – JASBA), and he handed over to us in August 2001. (He continues to be a member and is a kind of ‘éminence grise’, as we always consult him for our calendar of events, but he wants to be named as ‘a man of no importance’!)

In our library, we have all JASA’s publications, which we enjoy very much. It also gave us the idea of organising our own Writing Competition. The topic is to write a letter by Maria Mainwaring, a character in Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, up in London shopping, to her mother expressing her surmises about Lady Susan’s trying to detach her from Sir James Martin.

Last year’s meetings appear on our site. We intend to publish the paper we presented at the Argentine Comparative Literature Congress last August. Unfortunately, our country’s financial problems have taken all our time – but we also watched with awe on TV the natural disasters you experienced with the huge fires over Christmas.

Hoping to keep in touch with your wonderful association

Jane & the Internet

More websites JASA members will appreciate:

Thanks to the good offices of Anne Woodley, the Janeites list administrator, I paid a visit to a website providing a photographic record of all Austen homes. This site is a visual treat, incorporating quality photographs/

Many readers will be aware of the controversy surrounding the so-called Rice portrait of a young woman, alleged by some to have JA as its subject. Its provenance is subject to dispute, but that need not bar us from speculating about our Jane’s appearance. See a recent artistic impression of how Jane Austen  may have looked.

Jane Fairfax lauded the institution while conversing with Mr John Knightley. Have you ever wondered just how the postal system actually operated in JA’s day? If so, take a trip to ‘Going Postal with JA’ to learn all. [A talk by Nora Walker on the Post Office to our 1996 Conference appears in Sensibilities, Vol. #13, December 1996]

A contributor to Austen-L, the Austen mailing list, ‘BobbieG’ bobbieg@azstarnet.com has brought a completely different site to attention. What makes a work of art? Rate the factors you consider most important by considering the options. Having completed your selection, you may see for yourself how JA rates against other luminaries of the arts, ranging from Shakespeare to Picasso and even alongside Britney Spears! Such comparisons may seem unlikely, but don’t let that deter you. By doing so you may add your vote in this contest to see who is the greatest artist. Of course, JASA members all know who tops the list!

Back on 25 Oct 2001 Jeannie Lugo jlugo@KU.EDU mused on Austen-L about ten ways in which ‘Jane Austen Novels are exactly Like Real Life’ and they are too good not to share:

10. Parties are Very Important Events.

9. Single women have a dreadful propensity for trying to marry everyone else off.

8. Mothers can drive one into therapy (Mrs. Bennet’s daughters will require hypnosis).

7. If you’ve just come into money, you will soon have a boyfriend (Miss King, beware!).

6. If you corrupt good women, eventually you will be forced to marry one.

5. How a man keeps house says a lot about him (Lizzy, are you listening?!).

4. The sea air makes your skin look better (just ask Anne Elliot).

3. The devilishly fascinating guys are never good for the long haul.

2. A field full of ripe strawberries deserves a good party ...

and the number one reason why Jane Austen novels are exactly like life ...

1. You are more likely to get a marriage proposal from a Mr Collins than a Mr Darcy.

Surfing (the net) rules!

Clifton Bridge

From the internet – a website devoted to the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (!!) 

Brunel won the competition for this Clifton suspension bridge with his radically new design (1830). Today’s bridge is a blessing for Heritage Managers who encourage tourists to visit the city and its environs.

The Clifton suspension bridge – with gentrified on-lookers.

Could that be the Bennet family (Pride and Prejudice) gazing over the Avon?

Would these people of polite society have invited an engineer, a trades-person to eat at their dinner table?

What smug conversation would have circulated around the Assembly Rooms?

FEEDBACK: info@jasa.net.au

27 September 2002

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