Images: Frontispiece, and illustration of 'Mazeppo bound to the Wild Horse', from the 1827 edition of George Clinton's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron. Author's collection.
A Visitor's Guide to Jane Austen's England
Sue Wilkes' guide to daily life in the world which Jane Austen and her friends knew.
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Tuesday 23 April 2024
Byron Bicentenary
Thursday 18 January 2024
An Update
As you may have guessed, I've been struggling to keep two blogs updated at once! I'm primarily posting on my history blog.
If any really exciting Jane Austen news pops up, then I will return, I promise!
'Forgive and Forget', postcard c.1900, author's collection.
Monday 18 July 2022
Cautionary Tales
My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World discusses 'Cautionary Tales' for children. When Jane was a little girl, many moralistic tales were available to help set children's feet on the right path in life.
Stories like these were parodied in some of Jane Austen's juvenilia, such as Love and Freindship.
One of Jane's favourite stories was the History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Anne Fisher's Pleasing Instructor or entertaining moralist (c.1756) was another extremely popular work.
Children’s literature was an area of publishing where women authors like Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs Barbauld, and Mme de Genlis increasingly gained acceptance.
In Emma, the eponymous heroine says that Mrs Weston’s new little girl will be “educated on a more perfect plan” like Adelaide in de Genlis’ story Adelaide and Theodore.
Of course, Austen's mature fiction, like Mansfield Park, also includes some cautionary tales for her readers.
Image:
Title Page of Anne Fisher, The Pleasing Instructor or Entertaining Moralist, T. Fisher, c.1780. Author’s collection.
Tuesday 15 February 2022
Monday 14 February 2022
Bridgerton is Coming Soon!
I very much enjoyed the first season of Bridgerton - here's the trailer for Season 2!
The new season begins on 25 March on Netflix - I can't wait!
Thursday 20 May 2021
News for Email Subscribers
It has been brought to my attention that the old 'subscribe by email' function, previously provided by Feedburner, will stop working in July. Therefore, I've switched subscribers to the new follow.it service (with help from my dear husband Nigel, and from technical support!) Current subscribers should be switched automatically, if all goes well.
If you haven't already subscribed to my blog, you can do so via this link. If you'd like to subscribe to my Jane Austen blog, you can do so via this link here.