You can read a professional review here. While I am a professional with regard to book reviews, I am not a professional movie critic, so this is just the opinion of one Janeite, take it for what it is worth. Overall, I found the new Emma very enjoyable. The costumes and scenery–both the exteriors andContinue reading “Review of new Emma directed by Autumn de Wilde”
Category Archives: Austenalia
A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney
Full disclosure: I bought this book because of the subtitle: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. I should have known that I wouldn’t like it from the lack of an Oxford comma in the subtitle, but I pressed on. The authors are academics, and there are endnotes andContinue reading “A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney”
The Regency Years by Robert Morrison
The full title is The Regency Years: during which Jane Austen writes, Napoleon fights, Byron makes love, and Britain becomes modern. Morrison’s book is highly readable and engaging, while maintaining a level of scholarly rigor not often seen in works marketed to a lay audience. For those interested, there is a wealth of endnotes andContinue reading “The Regency Years by Robert Morrison”
Austen in Austin
Yesterday, we had our regional Jane Austen Society of North America regional meeting–it was a great way to start off the year. We heard a wonderful talk by the president of JASNA entitled, “Jane Austen, Working Woman,” followed by a visit to the Harry Ransom Center to view the “Austen in Austin” exhibit, a partContinue reading “Austen in Austin”
New Year, New Look…
Last year I began the Year of Reading Dangerously to celebrate the theme of the 2019 JASNA Annual General Meeting, which was focused on Northanger Abbey. It was great fun and I plan to continue reading and commenting on more Gothic fiction this year. However, it is a new year, and I have decided toContinue reading “New Year, New Look…”
The Mysteries of Udolpho, the final chapters…
Dear Reader, I do apologize for taking so long to finish up with Mrs. Radcliffe’s enormous tome. My goal was to finish it before the JASNA AGM, and I did, but just the day before on the plane, so it was only by a hair’s breadth. Then the splendour of the AGM temporarily stalled myContinue reading “The Mysteries of Udolpho, the final chapters…”
Year of Reading Dangerously: The Mysteries of Udolpho, volume I
Originally published in 1794 in four volumes, The Mysteries of Udolpho is probably the prototypical Gothic Novel. Regular readers will know that I did not read it first, though it is of primary importance to Catherine in Northanger Abbey, preferring instead to work my way through Walpole and Lewis in preparation for Udolpho. I mustContinue reading “Year of Reading Dangerously: The Mysteries of Udolpho, volume I”
The Year of Reading Dangerously: Northanger Abbey on Film
I am writing this whilst slogging my way through 672 pages of The Mysteries of Udolpho. Yes. 672 pages. I am hoping to have something to write about on this blog when I get to the halfway mark. Until that delightful day, dear readers, I thought we might pass the time with a discussion ofContinue reading “The Year of Reading Dangerously: Northanger Abbey on Film”
Year of Reading Dangerously: The Monk part II
When last we saw our cast of characters, Ambrosio was locked in Matilda’s illicit embrace, she having saved him from the viper’s poison through witchcraft; we have heard the tale within a tale of Don Raymond’s adventures, and Agnes was presumed dead, although Lorenzo was still searching the convent for her daily. In the secondContinue reading “Year of Reading Dangerously: The Monk part II”
The Year of Reading Dangerously: The Monk by Matthew Lewis, part 1
The Monk was published in 1796; some critics suspect that it was written, or at least started as early as 1792, during Lewis’s visit to the continent. Several letters to his mother mention that he is working on a novel, and in a 1794 letter to her, he specifically mentions having written a novel inContinue reading “The Year of Reading Dangerously: The Monk by Matthew Lewis, part 1”