For some reason, a different book in the series is showing up with that cover when I buy it and look at it. I won’t get a chance to troubleshoot sooner than late this evening after dayjob. I apologize for the inconvenience.
State of the Author, 3Q2025
This really should have been “State of the Author, Mid-Year,” but I was dealing with health issues for most of June (nothing serious, just distracting) and then July was kind of busy at work, so here we are…
Continue reading “State of the Author, 3Q2025”Belinda, By Maria Edgeworth
Edgeworth was a popular “lady novelist” of Jane Austen’s time, perhaps best-known today for her novels (Castle Rackrent, etc) critiquing the Anglo-Irish gentry and their mistreatment of their Irish Catholic tenants. Austen admired her enough to namecheck Belinda in a positive way in Northanger Abbey, and sent her a copy of Emma upon publication. Edgeworth took a while to warm up to Emma and disliked Northanger Abbey even more heartily than I do, but thought moderately well of Mansfield Park, and when I read Belinda for myself, I saw a certain resemblance to Mansfield Park: the thousand foot view of the plot, the messy characters. The setting, the character types and the plot are very different though, and the craftmanship not in Jane Austen’s league. That’s the short version; if you want more details, along with spoilers for most major plot twists, plus me pontificating about adaptation possibilities, read on….
Continue reading “Belinda, By Maria Edgeworth”More News on Netflix P&P
So, a picture of the Bennet women from this adaptation dropped, along with a more complete cast list (not always with character names attached).
Continue reading “More News on Netflix P&P”Austenian: The Parents of Sense and Sensibility, Part 2
–They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re altogether very often ooky, the Brandon family. Colonel Brandon, like Edward Ferrars, seems to be the pick of a not great litter. He has a deceased father who was a pretty bad lot, a deceased older brother who was a thoroughly bad lot, and a deceased cousin/childhood sweetheart named Eliza, apparently the same age as himself. The two tried to elope to Scotland when they were both sixteen or seventeen(1) but were caught through the treachery of Eliza’s maid. The future Colonel was forcibly packed off to India (implying somebody in the family had ties to the East India Trading Company). Cousin Eliza, who was an heiress, was bullied into marrying the Colonel’s older brother so her fortune could be used to pay off the debts Bad Dad Brandon and Bad Brother Brandon had incurred.
Midjourney Monday: Daumier and Austen Part II
There were too many to fit into last week’s post on the results of prompting Midjourney with the name of artist Honoré Daumier and various Jane Austen characters, so here’s the overflow:
Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price (Midjourney doesn’t like her nickname, so use her Christian name of Frances Price. Also there are glancing references to both characters being blonde in the book, and I had to include that in the prompt).
Continue reading “Midjourney Monday: Daumier and Austen Part II”Austenian: the Parents of Sense and Sensibility, Part I
Note: I disagree with Austen scholar Ellen Moody on her P&P chronology, which ignores the billeting of soldiers upon Meryton as a plot point dating the story, and disregards the modest but plainly stated age gap between Wickham and Darcy. I have my nitpicks with her S&S chronology as well (notably Edward’s age: how do you add nineteen to four and get twenty-five?) but I agree with her, for the purposes of this discussion, that the majority of the novel takes place from spring of 1797 to spring of 1798. Because of the varying ages of the major players in the story, their parents’ relationships probably took place at different times, and I will attempt to point out the respective timeframes as best I can.
Continue reading “Austenian: the Parents of Sense and Sensibility, Part I”S&S 2026 Is Apparently Mostly Cast…
Since casting for most of the major roles has been announced, with people I’ve barely heard of filling most of the roles, I decided to offer up a few under-informed opinions:
Continue reading “S&S 2026 Is Apparently Mostly Cast…”Midjourney Monday: Meet Honoré Daumier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier
This French artist (1808-1879) is perhaps best known for his caricatures, but he was also a capable painter, and I guess he must have painted a bunch of images set in the early ninteenth century, because you can prompt Midjourney with his name and various Jane Austen characters and get something halfway plausible:
Yes, I know Austen said that Jane Bennet was the one who liked green, but these sure look like Lizzy and Darcy to me.
Continue reading “Midjourney Monday: Meet Honoré Daumier”Austenian: the Rest of the P&P Parents
(Note: as previously established, I believe Pride and Prejudice takes place in 1793. Most of the couples in this section have children in the 27-30+ year old range by the time of P&P, so imagine these courtships as taking place around 1763 or somewhat earlier).
Welp, after that endless dissection last week of the Bennets, their backgrounds, economic situation, and parenting skills, loosely framing and providing context for some speculation about what they were like as a courting couple, I will probably have to cover every other set of parents introduced or mentioned in P&P to equal it in length. Here goes…
Continue reading “Austenian: the Rest of the P&P Parents”
Jaglion Press 