Posts tagged with jane-austen
Weekly Book Giveaway: Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon, by Jane Austen
This week's Book Giveaway is this Penguin Classics collection of Jane Austen's juvenilia and unfinished works: Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon. We've already shared our thoughts on Sanditon (and its continuations), we're impatiently waiting for the film version of Lady Susan, and...
This will work.
The Folger Shakespeare Library is bringing the people what they want: forget the First Folio, Mr. Darcy's wet shirt is coming to America! According to the Smithsonian, the shirt (from the pond-swimming scene in deservedly popular 1995 Pride and Prejudice TV miniseries) will be...
Am excited about this, but...
So, I've been keeping an eye out for the trailer for Whit Stillman's movie Love & Friendship, an adaptation of Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan. Sadly, all I can find is this cast interview, despite the fact that the (presumably complete) film was screened at Sundance back in January. Why so...
Austen could only improve it.
Speaking of Shakespeare, I've been spending some time in Washington D.C., and the Metro is plastered with ads for the Folger Library's "The Wonder of Will: 400 Years of Shakespeare" celebration. The centerpiece of the event is, of course, the...
Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith
Emma Woodhouse is not my favorite Jane Austen heroine, but she deserves better treatment than she receives in Alexander McCall Smith's Emma, one of the six titles in The Austen Project, an attempt to re-imagine Austen's novels with a modern setting. Austen's Emma is a flawed but endearing character who eventually begins to correct her many faults; Smith's Emma, in contrast, is...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith
This week's Book Giveaway is Alexander McCall Smith's Emma, a modern re-telling of Jane Austen's novel of the same name. I have my doubts about the wisdom of this project, frankly. Not only is Smith inviting comparisons with the original novel, he's also inviting comparisons with Clueless, and that seems like a really stacked deck. Our review will follow shortly...
Sorry, try again.
Wow, this is the second time in less than a month that I am left rolling my eyes over a respected English professor's opinions about Jane Austen. (Note: Few things make me happier than hate-reading subpar Austen criticism...
Holiday Gift Guide Idea #7: 2016 Jane Austen calendar
Gift Idea #7: "Amiable Rancor", the Republic of Pemberley's 2016 Jane Austen calendar ($19.99)...
Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
I have long owned the Mr. Boddington's Penguin Classics editions of Pride and Prejudice and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and both suffer from a major quality control issue: the ink periodically fades to near-invisibility. Still, I loved the line's cover art, so when their edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
This week's Book Giveaway is the Mr. Boddington's Penguin Classics edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. This has never been my favorite Austen novel, but I figure the week after Thanksgiving is the best possible time to read a book about the heroism of family members who keep their personal issues to themselves...
Pride and Prejudice and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Quarto Classics Reimagined), by Jane Austen and Lewis Carroll
As longtime Wordcandy readers know, I collect editions of Pride and Prejudice and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I only have so much shelf space, so I try to be discerning, but every once in a while I see more copies that I absolutely need to own...
Historical romances with routine bathing
There's an interesting article (with a terrible, misleading title) over on Jezebel: "The Regency Romance: How Jane Austen (Kinda) Created a New Subgenre". The article has less to do with Austen than Georgette Heyer...
We'll see...
Since we're a few years past the last one (which was what, Death Comes To Pemberley?), we are clearly past due for another rush of Jane Austen-inspired movies...
No. Just... no.
I thought the webseries The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was a cute, if far-fetched, idea that stretched on a little too long. I didn't actually finish it, but I definitely liked the first third or so, and I can see why it was such a success. But I am not sold on the visual appeal of these...
WANTED: Squeaky voiced actor
According to Austen Blog, we here in America can now purchase a recording of a BBC "radio dramatization" of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, starring the voices of Felicity Jones and Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch will apparently be playing Edmund Bertram, to which I say: oh, hell no...
Sign me up
According to Variety, Whit Stillman's upcoming film Love and Friendship—based on Jane Austen's novella Lady Susan—is finally showing signs of life. Kate Beckinsale will play the scheming, beautiful main character, while...
Seriously, I can barely write my name legibly.
According the Guardian, The Huntington Library in California has acquired 52 "unpublished letters, poems and other material" from Jane Austen's mother's family, the Leighs of Adlestrop...
Unfair
Illustrator and writer Leanne Shapton has designed a series of absolutely gorgeous patterned covers for Jane Austen's six novels. You can admire the books via the website Creative Review, but I have yet to see any signs of them on Random House's American website...
Have at it, Ms. Brownstein.
Time magazine says that Portlandia co-creator Carrie Brownstein has been hired to complete the late Nora Ephron's unfinished adaptation of ITV's 2008 TV miniseries Lost in Austen. Normally, I'd be concerned at the notion of Brownstein getting her hands on a Jane Austen-related property...
Jane Austen in wax
Speaking of Jane Austen, the Jane Austen Centre at Bath recently unveiled a wax figure of Jane Austen, created by sculptor Mark Richards and inspired by Melissa Dring’s forensic painting of Austen. I'm always terrified by wax sculptures...
As yet, the marketplace has failed me.
Thanks to a recent digression on Twitter about literature-inspired nail polish, I've been obsessed with the idea of a Jane Austen-inspired line of polishes, and it appears I am not alone: last summer, the website Loving Books wrote a lengthy post on the colors they would choose for the various characters...
Darcy's Story, by Janet Aylmer
I am not picky about Jane Austen fanfic. Despite my frequent bookshelf purges, I have kept nearly a dozen Pride and Prejudice retellings, re-imaginings, and continuations of varying degrees of quality, so it's pretty telling that I will be sending my copy of Janet Aylmer's Darcy's Story off to its new home without a pang...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Darcy's Story, by Janet Aylmer
This week we're giving away yet another "Pride and Prejudice-from-Darcy's-perspective" book: Janet Aylmer's Darcy's Story. (Creative title!) The cover is pretty, but the novel's subtitle is "Pride and Prejudice, told from a whole new perspective", which is pretty ridiculous. I mean, are we ignoring...
The Annotated Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is her earliest completed novel—she started writing it in 1798—but one of her last to be published. (It was released posthumously, along with Persuasion, in 1817.) Some critics lump it in with her juvenilia, but it's a remarkably ambitious and entertaining work, even if it isn't quite on par with her later books. Last fall, Anchor Books released a handsome paperback edition of Northanger Abbey featuring annotations by David M. Shapard...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Annotated Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
This week we're giving away a copy of The Annotated Northanger Abbey, written by Jane Austen and edited by David Shapard. According to his official bio, Mr. Shapard has a Ph.D. in European History from the University of California at Berkeley, and specialized in the eighteenth century. I've read his work before; like most annotated editions, his writing tends to...
Handwriting
I was all excited when I heard that the Jane Austen's House Museum had recently discovered a snippet of Austen's handwriting, and even more impressed when I saw the handwriting itself, which is ridiculously beautiful. Seriously, I can't even write legibly with a normal pen, on lined paper, and she did that with...
Death comes to BBC One
Unwilling to let NBC steal all the questionably-adapted thunder, BBC One is offering up a trailer for their upcoming adaptation of P. D. James's Death Comes to Pemberley. I haven't read this book (I'm not a fan of unnecessary drama in my Austen pastiches), but...
Holiday Gift Guide: Literary posters
Gift Idea #5: Jane Austen posters by PemberleyPond
I have some quibbles: These ladies got Sir William Lucas's name wrong on their Pride and Prejudice poster...
Insulting one's core audience: as illustrated by Joanna Trollope
I was never inclined to read Joanna Trollope's modern-day rewrite of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, seeing as A) it's my least-favorite Austen novel, and B) Trollope doesn't exactly rock my boat, either. (Plus, most the reviews have been lukewarm at best.) But...
Admittedly, they're pretty ugly, but...
Seattle toy shop Archie McPhee continues to supply the world with random stuff that no one really needs, but everyone enjoys, like this $7.00 tin of 22 Jane Austen-inspired temporary tattoos...