Review for A Wife for Mr. Darcy from Austenprose

Guest review by Kimberly Denny-Ryder of Reflections of a Book Addict

Mary Lydon Simonsen, author of Searching for Pemberley and The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy, is back with yet another opportunity for us to wander down that “what if” path with our favorite Pride and Prejudice characters: Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.  This time, our variation begs the question: what if, after Mr. Darcy made that terrible “tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me” comment, he goes to apologize to Elizabeth and beg her forgiveness instead of never addressing it?  We find out in A Wife for Mr. Darcy, Simonsen’s third P&P fan fiction novel...

Simonsen is a master at getting her readers to feel the emotions that her characters are feeling.  For most of the book, I felt the angst that Darcy was feeling when trying to figure out what to do and how to do it.  I felt Elizabeth’s depression, as she realized she loved Darcy, and also realized that he could never marry her due to her low social standing and lack of wealth.  Simonsen’s descriptive prose flows from page to page, as you become engulfed in the emotions of her storytelling.  It’s a fantastic reading experience, one I get from reading every one of book of hers...

 I think if Austen were able to read Simonsen’s work, she would definitely approve of the new directions that her beloved characters are taking.  While Austen purists might not enjoy the new plot, I think even they would be satisfied with the characterizations of the characters.

You’re definitely going to want to add this emotional rollercoaster of a book to your “to read” pile.  I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

To read all of Kimberly's review, please click here.

The Fourth of July - The View of a British Lady

The following excerpt is taken from Frances Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans. Frances, the mother of novelist Anthony Trollope, lived in the United States for three years, chiefly in Cincinnati. Her book created a storm on this side of the Atlantic as Americans felt they were portrayed as ill-mannered boors, but it laid the foundation for her career.

And now arrived the 4^th of July, that greatest of all American festivals. On the 4^th of July, 1776, the declaration of their independence was signed at the Statehouse in Philadelphia.

Regency Era Milliner's Shop

Vic at Jane Austen's World has a very interesting article, Parisian Milliner’s Advice in 1801 to a Visiting Lady: Regency Fashion, along with excellent sketches.

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves

I love English. I love grammar. Even when I get it wrong (dangle a particple, don't use an antecedent, run-on sentence), I love learning about the nuts and bolts of English. If you attended a Catholic school in the 1950s and '60s as I did, then you know how to diagram a sentence, that is, breaking a sentence down into its component parts so that you know how a sentence goes together. It was boring, but necessary, and it has served me well.

I am a sucker for buying books about the English language. As a result, I know about the great vowel shift and inkhorn terms and Chancery English, and so when I saw Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots, and Leaves at a used bookstore, I bought it.

Publishing a book on grammar takes guts. Inevitably, you will have thousands of people poring over your every sentence looking for mistakes and posting reviews on Amazon, and in this book, it doesn't take long to find them. We all make mistakes, but the author's overuse of the semicolon borders on abuse. A similar complaint can be made for her use of the colon. Even her use of commas is questionable.

In short, this book should not be used as a grammar guide, especially if you are an American. (Truss is British.) British and American grammar differ, particularly in the use of quotation marks. Another quibble: One half of this small book is devoted to the misuse of an apostrophe. This is a legitimate complaint, but half a book? That's overkill.

A Jane Austen Education - A Review

Although I have greatly enjoyed most of what Jane Austen wrote, I never liked Mansfield Park. I found Fanny Price insufferable, and Edmund Bertram a bit of a bore. As for the other characters, with the possible exception of Mary Crawford, I didn’t like them enough to care about them. For me, personally, the novel was a dud, but that was before I read William Deresiewicz’s A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love and Friendship.

According to Deresiewicz, Austen had something to teach us in Mansfield Park: a form of usefulness. After Edmund encounters ten-year-old Fanny Price, who was crying after being separated from her family and brought to Mansfield Park, he said: “Let us walk out in the park, and you shall tell me all about your brothers and sisters.”

This Day in History - Congress of Vienna Concludes

The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states, chaired by Klemens von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815 for the purpose of settling the many issues that arose from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress resulted in the redrawing of the continent's political map, establishing the boundaries of France, Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw, the Netherlands, the states of the Rhine, the German province of Saxony, and various Italian territories, and the creation of spheres of influence through which Austria, Britain, France and Russia brokered local and regional problems. The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, which was an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe.

JASNA Annual General Meeting in Fort Worth

I will be attending the Jane Austen Society of North America Annual General Meeting in Fort Worth from October 14-16. This is my first AGM, so I'm really excited. Here are the plenary speakers:

Joan Ray - Author of Jane Austen for Dummies
“Sense and Sensibility as Austen’s Problem Novel”
Friday October 14

Andrew Davies - Screenwriter of many Austen film adaptations
“Mr. Darcy’s Wet Shirt and Other Embarrassments: Some Pleasure and Pitfalls in Austen Adaptations”
Saturday October 15

Deirdre Le Faye - Author of Jane Austen, The World of Her Novels
David Selwyn - Austen scholar and Chairman of the Jane Austen Society
“Dynamic Duos: David and Deirdre & Sense and Sensibility”
Sunday October 16

In addition, I will be signing books on Sunday morning along with Austen Authors, Abigail Reynolds, Diana Birchall, and C. Allyn Pierson. Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose will be signing copies of her new book, Jane Austen Made Me Do It, a short-story collection, along with Carrie Bebris at a nearby Barnes and Noble.

Registration is now open, and since enrollment has been set at 600, if you are attending, you might want to get a move on it as 305 people have already signed up.

I hope that lots of my readers, friends, fans, etc. will be going. Let's do lunch. :) Mary

JASNA AGM Link for registration and more information

Rare Jane Austen manuscript to go on sale

This really is a must read article from the Manchester Guardian's on-line site. It not only talks about the sale of a partial manuscript of Austen's work, The Watsons, but the road it traveled to get there.

An incredibly rare handwritten manuscript of an unfinished novel by Jane Austen – the only one that is still in private hands – is to appear at auction in London... The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen's other manuscripts must have looked. It also shines an interesting light on how she worked. Austen took a piece of paper, cut it in two and then folded over each half to make eight-page booklets. Then she would write, small neat handwriting leaving little room for corrections – of which there are many. "You can really see the mind at work with all the corrections and revisions," said Heaton.

The Watsons is a fragment, and it became even more fragmented upon leaving the author's hands. It is a glimpse into what can happen to even a highly-valued manuscript by those who know how to care for such things. I shall say no more. Very, very interesting.

The Treaty of Amiens - Yes, you do care.

The first kiss in ten years - between
Britain and France

 On May 18, 1803, the United Kingdom revoked the Treaty of Amiens that had temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. Who cares, you ask? If you are a reader of Jane Austen Fan Fiction, then you care, and I shall explain.

The treaty was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquis Cornwallis as a Definitive Treaty of Peace. Unfortunately, the “definitive treaty of peace” lasted a little more than a year. Those fourteen months provided the only period of peace between the two nations between 1793 and 1815, and that is what makes this treaty so important.

With all that fighting going on in Europe, our favorite Austen characters are all cooped up in Britain with few places to go, except Ireland (too poor) and Scandinavia (too cold.). But with the Treaty of Amiens, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Tilney have an opportunity to visit the Continent without fear of harm or internment. Using this window of opportunity, in my novels, I have been able to provide Darcy with the Grand Tour experience, albeit an abbreviated one, that would have been an important coming-of-age event for someone of Darcy’s rank.

Grand Tour - Late 18th Century

Once the treaty was revoked, Darcy would have had to scoot back to England rather quickly or risk internment in France as an enemy alien. This happened to several prominent Britons, including Fanny Burney’s husband, General Alexandre D'Arblay, an artillery officer who had been adjutant-general to Marquis de Lafayette, who should have known better, and Lord Elgin (he of the Elgin Marbles), who should have guessed.

So to answer your question: Why should we care about the Treaty of Amiens? Without this break in the action, Darcy would never have gone to Paris or traveled across France on his way to the Italian Peninsula, and “a man of sense and education, who has lived in the world” should not be denied those experiences.

My Very Own Limerick

Thanks to Tony Grant, I have my own limerick:

There was a great writer called Mary

Who's stories are sometimes most scary

She likes Mr Darcy

All stuck up and arsy

That Austenesque scriber called Mary

I must publish my friend Mary's response to Tony's efforts:

"I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of limericks in driving away friendship" Lizzy said.

"I have been used to consider limericks as the FOOD of friendship," said Darcy.

"Of a fine, stout, healthy friendship it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good limerick will starve it entirely away."

Fortunately, Tony and I have a fine, stout friendship. :)

May Day Past and Present - A Repeat Performance

This post previously appeared on this blog.

Traditional English May Day rites and celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen, and celebrations involving a Maypole (see picture at left). Much of this tradition derives from the pagan Anglo-Saxon customs held in May, then known as the Month of Three Milkings. Before the English Civil War, the working peasantry took part in morris dances (see picture below), especially at Whitsun (aka, Pentecost). In 1600, the Shakespearean actor William Kempe, morris danced from London to Norwich, an event chronicled in his Nine Days Wonder. The all work and no play Puritan government of Oliver Cromwell suppressed Whitsun Ales or anything else that would cause people to smile. With the restoration of Charles II, a man who knew the value of keeping his people happy since unhappy people had cut off his father's head, the springtime festivals were restored. In particular, Whitsun Ales came to be celebrated on Whitsunday as the date coincided with the birthday of Charles II.

Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim

Yesterday, on Austen Authors, Cindy Jones, author of My Jane Austen Summer, asked her fellow authors to share where they would like to vacation if they could be dropped into one of their favorite novels. I immediately thought of Elizabeth Von Arnim's The Enchanted April. The setting, post World War I England, is a sad place. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of men who died in the war, there are even a greater number of men who returned home wounded in mind and body. War widows and those who have lost fathers, brothers, and friends walk about in the dreary colors of mourning.

Jane Austen, A Life by Carol Shields - A Book Review

If you are interested in whether Jane Austen preferred strawberry to raspberry jam, then you will want to look for a biography other than Carol Shields’ Jane Austen, A Life. However, if you want a broad sweep of the life of the early 19th century author, then this slim volume is the perfect cup of tea. Carol Shields, who won the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries, was asked by Penguin Books to write this biography. Because it was not meant to be comprehensive, I found it an easy read with a nice mixture of Jane’s personal life juxtaposed with her writing. From the biography:

We think of Pride and Prejudice as Jane Austen’s sunniest novel, and yet it was written during a period of unhappiness. No letters survived from the year 1797, and this is a clue, though an unreliable one. Cassandra, we know, was recovering from the death of her fiancé, and Jane from her disappointment over Tom Lefroy. The household at Steventon had shrunk. Visitors continued to arrive, but the ongoing bustle of life in the country rectory had faded… Theatricals in the barn were a thing of the past. The Austen parents were growing older, and finances, too, were thinner. Yet from this difficult time sprang a fast-paced, exuberant, much loved novel with a new kind ofheoine, a young woman of warmth and intelligence who, by the flex of her own mind, remakes her future and makes it spectacularly.

When and why did Knightley fall in love with Emma?

I have a post on Austen Authors today. The question of the day is: when, how, where, and why did Knightley fall in love with Emma Woodhouse? (Choose one; choose all.) Come join the discussion.

Plus, Cindy Jones has her launch of My Jane Austen Summer. She's giving away books at each stop on her blog tour. It's time to celebrate!

Dickens' Workhouse Saved from Wrecker's Ball

From the Guardian UK Online: The derelict Georgian building in Cleveland Street, London, which in Dickens's day was known as the Strand Union workhouse, has been given listed status by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. ... Built in 1775 as the workhouse for the parish of St Paul's church in Covent Garden, by the mid-1830s the building had been taken over under the New Poor Law legislation – the real target for Dickens's anger – to serve a number of poor central London parishes. Conditions there were notably harsh and it became a target for later Victorian reformers such as Louisa Twining and Joseph Rogers. The lintel over the entrance bore the message: "Avoid idleness and intemperance."


From Oliver Twist: [T]he parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be "farmed" ... or despatched to a branch-workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week. Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself.

Reclining Figure from Cyclades Islands

I know that I have a tendency to be all over the place, and today is no exception. When I studied art history, I was very taken with the art of the Cyclades Islands,* and a fine example of Cycladic sculpture is this figure of a reclining woman. Looks very modern, doesn't she? But she was carved in 2400 B.C.!

Uptown Downstairs Abbey Part One - Red Nose Day 2011 - BBC Comic Relief ...

Uptown Downstairs Abbey Part Two - Red Nose Day 2011 - BBC Comic Relief ...

St. Brigid of Kildare

Along with St. Patrick, St. Brigid of Kildare (450-520) is a patron saint of Ireland. Like Patrick and his shamrock, Brigid used rushes from the floor of a dying chieftain to explain another Christian doctrine, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. One version goes as follows:

A pagan chieftain from the neighborhood of Kildare was dying. Christians in his household sent for Brigid to talk to him about Christ. When she arrived the chieftain was raving. As it was impossible to instruct this delirious man, hopes for his conversion seemed doubtful. Brigid sat down at his bedside and began consoling him. As was customary, the dirt floor was strewn with rushes both for warmth and cleanliness. Brigid stooped down and started to weave them into a cross, fastening the points together. The sick man asked what she was doing. As she talked his delirium quieted, and he questioned her with growing interest. Through her weaving, he was converted and baptized at the point of death. Since then the cross of rushes has been venerated in Ireland.

This Day in History - The Newburgh Conspiracy

In addition to today being the Ides of March when Julius Caesar was set upon by by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and 60 other co-conspirators in 44 B.C in the Roman Senate and stabbed to death, it is the 228th anniversary of the Newburgh Conspiracy.

In 1783, there was considerable unrest among the officers of the Continental Army. These veterans of the Revolution had been promised a lifetime pension of half pay, but, instead, Congress was promising to give them five years full pay. When Washington met with the officers in Newburgh, New York, he immediately noted a lack of deference and respect and that an aura of distrust and anger permeated the room.