Jane Austen July 2024 Announcement 

Yes, a Mansfield Park lover! So happy that you’re back, Beatrice ❤

Thank you so much for your recommendations!! Glad you posted. Blessings!❤

Sense and Sensibility 2008 mini series is very good, beautifully photographed and the cottage is set in Cornwall instead of Surrey. Very atmospheric and worth watching. Lost in Austen is good too. Thank you Beatrice for your Austen Challenge and recommendations.

I've not done the Austen challenge- I'd like to take a shot at it this year. In the nonfiction category, I'm currently reading something that might make the grade. I may be stretching it. It's a selection of essays of an American woman of the late 19th and first third of the 20th century. The book is American Austen: The Forgotten Writings of Agnes Repplier, edited by John Lukacs. Agnes Repplier was recognized as a premier American essayist in her time, but forgotten in ours. She was a devout Roman Catholic, a feminist and a very erudite and witty writer. John Lukacs was one of our finest historians, Hungarian born, he made his home in the Philadelphia area, and through interest in the social history of Philadelphia he discovered and championed Agnes Repplier. I'll take any opportunity to re-watch Metropolitan, I adore that film. And through your earlier mention I've watched and loved Austenland. I still haven't got a copy of the Collins' bio, but I've read hers on Austen and the clergy. The Norton Critical editions are a great entryway to authors, lots of gems, annotations and criticism. Persuasion is a good call, I haven't reread it in so long. Happy reading!!!

I love that you and your husband read aloud to each other! Byron as a vampire sounds right up my alley! I will have to check it out. Happy Jane Austen July. :)

I read Jane Austen and the Clergy last month and I enjoyed it. It answered a lot of questions I had about the clergy at the time.

Ideas re: Austen content for a future video-perhaps a survey of how Austen was perceived in different periods. I know she had admirers early on, but some just dismissed her as a chronicler of the gentry's romances. I know Sir Walter Scott was a great admirer. But many others in the 19th c. lost track of her. In the 20th c. she had a great revival, some placing her in company with Shakespeare. It would be interesting to trace the patterns of Austen appreciation in different eras.

I'm rewatching the 6 hour 1983 BBC production of Mansfield Park. It's thought there isn't a good adaption of MP, but I've watched this at least three times. I like it better and better each time. It has one great virtue - it's true to the book, there's no other agenda. On the nonfiction front, I'm re-reading Lionel Trilling's essays on Austen, and his reflections on her in Sincerity & Authenticity. I've also got hold of a Q.D. Leavis essay collection & Austen is well represented. Emma for a re-read. Edmund Burke's - On the Sublime and Beautiful. It's on the bookshelf, tried once, try again. Metropolitan, I like that one. A book about Austen's period....have to think about that.

Volume too low Beatrice. Please please adjust it UP. I have to turn it to 11 and move up close. Everyone else on YT I can hear without cranking it up. Please!