4 June 2023: Sense & Sensibility (upcoming talk)
Join JASNA-VERMONT on Sunday, 4 June 2023 –
“A House Divided? How the ‘Sister Arts’ Define the Dashwood Sisters” is my topic, which examines how ART and MUSIC affect our perceptions of Jane Austen’s Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.
We meet in the community room at Temple Sinai (500 Swift ST) in South Burlington, VT, 2-4 PM.
Alan Rickman
Forever in the hearts of filmdom’s Sense and Sensibility: Alan Rickman (Colonel Brandon).
Rickman is today’s (30 April 2023) “google doodle”. Click the picture to see more about this beloved actor.
Octavia Cox on Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice
A few days ago I found the Youtube channel of Dr. Octavia Cox. I’m still working through the lectures (in length, they vary from 15-minutes to over 40-minutes), but what a revelation to hear a succinct and well-focused lecture on, for instance, the English Class system as Jane Austen would have recognized it. The first lecture, “What CLASS are the Bingleys? Caroline Bingley and the Gentry – Jane Austen and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE,” delineated well beyond the Bingleys – formerly “in trade” and now, with father Bingley’s hard work, in a position to join the landowning “gentry” – if only Brother would purchase an estate! (Not rent, or “let” as they say in the UK, as he has done with Netherfield.)
Dr. Cox touches on the aristocracy (Lady Catherine, anyone?), the clergy (Mr. Collins, of course!), and the dear Gardiners. A highly interesting section covers Cheapside, financial heart of England.
Dr. Cox’s “Close Reading” encompasses other authors – Brontë and Keats, for instance. ALL THINGS CLASSIC LITERATURE, as the channel is named.
But I will center this post on her Austen offerings. The link attached to the picture (above) will bring you to Dr. Octavia Cox’s Youtube channel’s list of videos. Below are a few of Cox’s Austen lectures that I have either watched or intend to watch soon.
- What CLASS are the Bingleys? [46 minutes]
- Who ‘betrays’ Elizabeth Bennet? [36.26]
- Why did Wickham ‘elope’ with Lydia? [39.52]
- Why did Mr. Bennet marry Mrs. Bennet? [10.51]
- Mr. Darcy: the Proudest, most Disagreeable Man in the World? [16.40]
- Engaged to Mr. Collins! My Dear Charlotte – Impossible! [26.14]
- Austen’s Wit [90 minutes]
Of course, there are lectures covering Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey, too. Plus – like “Austen’s Wit,” above, some non-novels lectures. These include stories from the Austen juvenilia, Austen’s free indirect style, and even Jane Austen and “sales & profits.”
The weekend is upon us. Enjoy!
Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805 (part 2)
Since I was a bit long-winded yesterday, I now continue with the Smith portraits by John Downman (1749-1824), digitized at The British Museum. For Part 1, click link and read how & why I was looking through these images.
In 1805, Mamma Smith (Augusta Smith, senior) was a young bride (married 1798), with four children. Her fifth – Spencer, would be born in March of the next year. Few letters exist, but Mamma’s diary for that year DOES exist. I love her diaries; she always summed up the year (personal as well as “public” news) at the end of the volume – and sometimes one learned what she did NOT write in the journal area. For instance, at the summation of 1805 we learn that Mrs. Smith miscarried in March. When noted within the journal, she would always express such delicate thoughts in French. The “fausse couche” is found, noted on 17 March, a Sunday.
March is filled – since everyone was, as always, in London – with Card Parties and Concerts. Her parents are both alive and active. The children are in good health. Her very good friends, Mrs. Gosling, neighbor next door at No. 5 Portland Place, and Mrs. G’s sister Mrs. Drummond Smith (technically Mamma’s Aunt), are both in their graves – December 1803 and February 1804, respectively. These were daughters of Lady Cunliffe. Widower William Gosling (with his own clutch of little children) is found as a frequent visitor – or host of small dinners. Mr. Charles Smith (her husband) is the one she shows attending just such a dinner and a concert at the END of MARCH. She must therefore be convalescing. On the 29th a new milestone is mentioned: The Smiths marked being married seven years, “very happy ones”.
The evening before, Mr. Smith attended an Assembly hosted by his Aunt by marriage. The widowed Lady Burges went by SEVERAL names in her lifetime. Her birth-name was Margaret Burges (daughter and heiress of Ynyr Burges). When she married Augusta senior’s uncle John, she became yet another “Mrs. Smith” (has to be one of the hardest names to trace correctly, or even differentiate within such a vast family – with, it must be said, SMITHS on both sides!). The couple had married in 1771. In June 1790, by Royal License, they took the name Smith-Burges. In May 1793, with a baronetcy, they were now styled Sir John and Lady Smith-Burges. The family, however, seem to have often referred to her as “Lady Burges“, especially after Sir John’s death in 1803.
Margaret, born in 1744, was ten years younger than her husband. With little information to go on, there is too little to speculate whether she was looking for a second husband, or if one simply appeared. In July 1816 she married John 4th Earl Poulett.
Whew! so many names for the SAME woman!
Lord Poulett was a dozen years younger, but even he soon (1819) left her a widow. Poulett’s first countess left him his heirs; he and Margaret had no children – nor did she have any with John Smith.
In Downman’s albums, volumes entitled “First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons,” there is one portrait denoted “Study for a portrait of Mrs Smith, 1787“.
As usual, the “Mrs. Smith” would be tough to identify any given sitter. There were too many, related and unrelated to each other.
But it is Margaret Smith-Burges’ last appellation – by which she went for nearly another twenty years (she died in 1838) – that catches my eye and and fires my imagination.
I swear, there are times that the handwritten name, in Smith-related letters or diaries, often LOOKS “Paulet”. Trouble is, this was a familial name – of Lord Bolton’s family, and often spelled POWLETT. For instance, Thomas Orde-Powlett, 1st Baron Bolton – mixed up with the Dukes of Bolton (and even Jane Austen’s Hampshire family), but I leave you to “google” the family. I’ve not looked very hard, but I do not believe any “Mrs. Smith” held the title “Lady Paulet”.
The “Lady Paulet”, in association with the name Mrs. Smith — not, as the Curator Notes seem to posit, a “re-attribution,” but a true secondary attribution, to my eyes, leads me to believe I’ve the answer to THIS sitter’s identify.
The pencil, although it mistakes “a” for “o” and omits one “t,” misspells POULETT, giving, after 1816, Mrs. Smith’s last appellation. I believe BM’s sitter to be Mrs John Smith, AKA Margaret Smith-Burges.
Click the photo to be taken to the full portrait at The British Museum. But compare the face and profile to this profile (c1786):
And this face – an 1805 etching:
Both can be found on the Two Teens in the Time of Austen’s page, PORTRAITS & PEDIGREES.
I don’t think I’m wrong.
Do you ????
(I’d welcome thoughts on both sides of the argument.)
The artist of the etching – at the National Portrait Gallery, London – is Robert Cooper; the work’s artist is “unknown”. Given that Downman’s sketch is profile, it’s unlikely he would have produced a full-face official portrait. So it’s doubtful he produced the original image that the etcher etched. But, I will keep my eyes open.
She can also be seen, at NPG, in a lengthy (literally, it’s over 84-inches long) picture, “The installation-supper as given at the Pantheon, by the Knights of the Bath on the 26th of May 1788.” It’s difficult to identify what she LOOKS like (small image), but the NPG website makes it possible to pop up a little box around her — she appears towards the right end, back to the audience, with a plump bum (blame it on the clothes), dressed in pink with white. The thin stick of a man beside her is ID’ed as Earl Poulett. Which, the more I think about it, probably means the Countess depicted is his first rather than his second wife…. Sophia Pocock married John Poulett in 1782; she died in 1811. Hmmm…., should drop a note to NPG’s website, marking the mis-attribution. The cartoon is by James Gillray.
Of course, in 1788, Margaret’s name was merely “Mrs. Smith,” and not the Countess Poulett.
Goodness! I’ve chatted on – and still have a lengthy discourse to share on my other “Mrs. Smith” *find*. I will make a Part 3…
* * *
Part 1 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
Part 3 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary 1805
“First the Music”
In Italian, “Prima la musica, et poi le parole” means “First the music and then the words.” Its underlying meaning shouts the primacy of the composer over the librettist. The one-act opera by Antonio Salieri premiered on 7 February 1786, at Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, a commission from Emperor Josef II. Premiered the same evening and venue was Mozart’s comedy in one act, Der Schauspieldirecktor (The Impresario).
It was from this evening’s rivalry – for, long ago (LP’s anyone??) I had purchased a recording of one of Mozart’s better-known operas, and the music from “The Impresario” took up the room on the last side of the set – that I took the title for a chapter in a forthcoming book on “Women and Music,” with a focus on Emma Austen’s eldest sister, Augusta Smith. Born in London in February 1799 – so just thirteen years after that night of music in Schönbrunn’s Orangery – Augusta Smith, to me, seems the epitome of The Accomplished Woman, especially when I focus on her musical skills. But: there were so MANY accomplished women in the Smiths’ circle of family and acquaintance. You meet MANY of the young ladies in the chapter, which is entitled, Prima la musica: Gentry Daughters at Play – Town, Country, and Continent, 1815-1825.
Emma Smith
(1820s silhouette)
see also the Carpenter (attributed) portrait at HRO.
See Smith of Suttons, pedigree 2.
Thanks in no small part to covid, the trail this chapter and the work of other contributors to the book, has been lengthy and circuitous. Yet, the publishers who first showed interest back in 2019 has just this past week given the green light to our project! Bucknell University Press will publish Woman and Music in the Age of Austen. I suspect the book will hit stores in time for Christmas 2023.
Watchers of this blog will notice a slight, and very recent, title change – from “Women and Music in Georgian Britain” to “Women and Music in the Age of Austen.” The prior title will bring up several notices, especially by contributors (including me, through Two Teens in the Time of Austen).
In a next post about the forthcoming book, I’ll include a table of contents & contributors. to whet your appetite for more on Women and music in the age of Jane Austen, which “age” runs, of course, from the late 18th century into the 19th century – but Austen herself reached back into the past, before her birth, and her influence continues into our own decades of the 21st century.
The book runs to over 400 pages in manuscript. The hopes of the editors are to make the volume “affordable”.
Stay tuned!!
2/2/22 – Mary’s 222 Birthday
I simply could not let today pass without a passing nod at my first diarist, Mary Gosling — also know here as Lady Smith (following her 1826 marriage to Sir Charles Joshua Smith, baronet).
There could be NO harder name to “search” or “research” than a couple called Charles and Mary Smith!
And yet, the research has been GOLDEN.
I first found Mary’s earliest diary – a set of six trips taken between 1814 and 1824 – in 2006, when I was wishing to note down “authentic” sightings of the Ladies of Llangollen, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler. I had visited their northern Wales home, Plas Newydd, in 2005. Mary Gosling met them! And she left her impressions of them. Well… less her impressions than notes of what others always said of them. I was QUITE disappointed, especially in the brevity of her thoughts — for, within a page, the family had DEPARTED Llangollen!
BUT: Mary herself began to intrigue me. Mainly, because the family members were shown around Plas Newydd and they spent about four hours with the Ladies, in their home. THAT one premise began EVERYTHING that has gone on since — from all the research into the Smiths of Suttons, as well as my interest in the Ladies of Llangollen themselves.
The results of all this early research:
- Two Teens in the Time of Austen – this blog, so named because Mary’s sister-in-law, Emma Smith, my second diarist, married James Edward Austen. And Edward was the nephew of writer Jane Austen.
- Ladies of Llangollen – a blog whose information, based on a website I created circa 2006, still needs additional work, but it currently hosts interesting artwork, book excerpts, and information on people who visited Plas Newydd — the GOSLINGS included — during the tenancy of Ponsonby and Butler, as well as after.
The Smiths took over my life – buried me under diaries and stacks of letters, stocked my brain with tidbits of personal and national (England) history, squinted my eyes in deciphering a myriad of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “hands,” and made me spend my money and my time (not sure WHICH is more costly, in the end), in a never-ending pursuit after more knowledge. The nosing-around their lives has made and still makes me HAPPY.
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
With that thought, I wish Mary Gosling the HAPPIEST 222nd Anniversary of her 2 February 1800 birth. She graced the earth for only 42 years, leaving three youthful children, whose faint faces I have now unearthed. And she opened the door for a true glimpse into the past.
Fanny Palmer Austen aboard HMS Namur
Author Sheila Johnson Kindred announces a fascinating new exhibit at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, Kent (England): HIDDEN HEROINES: The Untold Stories of Women of the Dockyard. The exhibit runs 29 May 2021 through 31 October 2021.
With covid concerns, Hidden Heroines will also have an online component. Listen to curator Alexandra Curson’s remarks on the importance of uncovering remarkable ladies who lived in the past. (Embedded in the main website page, or via Youtube.)
“Naval history, in general, tends to focus a lot on the male roles, and the women get sort of sidelined – but, the female roles were just as important, if not more important in some respects.”
— Leanne Clark, Master Ropemaker
Areas of study include, Woman at the Dockyard; Women in the Home; Women at Sea; Women in War; Women in Military Service; Post War Women; Women of Today. You will also find “asides” which highlight Louisa Good (1842-1924); Elizabeth Proby (1777-1811); Lady Poore (1859-1941); Fanny Palmer Austen (1789-1814); and Hannah Snell (1723-1792), known as James Gray, who spent more than four years in the marines. The others I will leave YOU to discover.
You will readily recognize Fanny Austen (upper right), if know the cover image of Sheila Johnson Kindred’s book, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen. Sheila’s book came out in 2017 (McGill-Queen’s UP), and is now available also in paperback and eBook. See a sample on books.google.
Join Sheila Johnson Kindred, on 23 June 2021, for a “Zoom” event at 7 PM BST (British Summer Time is five hours ahead of US’s EDT), when she discusses, “Fanny Palmer Austen: Challenges and Achievements in Making a Family Home onboard the HMS Namur ” (reserve space for this free event – donations accepted! – through the main Chatham website).
In the meanwhile, you can read writings on the Austens – links included through Sheila’s website.
The Gender of Nouns
In the conference JANE AUSTEN’s FRENCH CONNECTION, hosted jointly by JASNA Regions New York Metro and New Jersey, over the weekend of April 17 & 18 – one participant brought up the use of the word AUTHOR and AUTHORESS as regards JANE AUSTEN. Specifically, in a letter to James Stanier Clarke, and brother Henry Austen’s “Biographical Sketch.” We must, of course, also consider the dedication of Emma to the Prince Regent.
- click the BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH link to read Henry’s original, in the 1818 edition of Northanger Abbey (vol. I)
The very TITLE of Henry Austen’s biographical sketch announces to Austen’s readership that he was presenting, for the first time, the “Biographical Sketch of THE AUTHOR” of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The edition, published posthumously, came out in four volumes (two volumes per novel).
- Austen’s early novel, never published in her lifetime, had been picked up by Crosby & Co. – for which they paid her £10. It languished upon the proverbial shelf. Austen actually repaid the £10, thereby regaining the rights to the publication of her own manuscript. Read more about Northanger Abbey‘s history at JASNA.org.
Like many authors, Austen published anonymously – Sense and Sensibility (1811) appearing as “BY A LADY“; subsequent work appeared as the latest publication “by the Author of Sense and Sensibility” – with successive title pages emphasizing the authorship of the well received Pride and Prejudice.
The brief audience comment during the weekend conference made me think about the “sex” of nouns. Of course in English, (unlike other languages), words have no gender, are “sexless” if I may so term them. No die Welt (the world [feminine] or der Mond [the moon [masculine]) or das Mädchen [which is cheating, for it it “neuter” as opposed to male or female, although it indicates a ‘girl‘ or ‘young woman‘].
What English does have are words like author-authoress; poet-poetess; actor-actress. With the exception of the last, which continues in usage, ARE there many professions that designate a male or female practitioner? I rather wonder if those once in existence, having “fallen out of usage,” sound now so unusual because they were never much IN use?
OR, I wonder, DID they arise by somewhat pejorative?
Take “writer” – no ‘sex’, masculine or feminine, can be attributed to that task.
We have the term “knitter” – which certainly has undergone a change in the sex of those practicing the craft. Yet, despite the predominance of it as a “‘home craft’ among females” nowadays, there exists no “knitteress” or “knittrix” in the English language. One who knits is a knitter.
I go back to German, where it seems (German speakers could tell me if this still holds, in the second decade of the 21st century) MANY nouns had its male/female counterpart: Student / Studentin; Professor / Professorin; Schüler / Schülerin; Arzt / Ärztin; Doktor / Doktorin; Schriftsteller / Schriftstellerin; you get my drift.
English does have holdovers, like Executor / Executrix.
Paintrix comes to mind, but is it a word? Does anyone describe the likes of Freda Kahlo as a “paintress”? I don’t think so…
Photographer.
Cinematographer.
Videographer.
I might give you SALESPERSON, which has definitely evolved from Salesman/Saleswoman.
No one calls a female Singer a Songstress.
Professor.
Teacher.
Construction Worker.
Operator (as in telephone).
Assistant.
Banker; Bank Teller.
Writer.
I will even make a case for the “sex” of the WORD Secretary. Now quite outmoded (in favor of Administrative Assistant), but, once, pretty singularly A MALE occupation, before becoming dominated by FEMALES. And we all know how a profession drops in “prestige” once women enter that workforce. I’m not going down that lane in this post…
I do recognize that British Politics has retained its Private Secretary role; and in the U.S. we still designate office holders, such as the Secretary of War, Secretary of State, etc.
But most, hearing the word SECRETARY, will pull up an image from films… Always efficient; sometimes button-upped and bespectacled. Often QUITE good-looking when she takes off her glasses and lets down her pinned-up hair.
But, let’s get back to JANE AUSTEN.
In the dedication of Emma to the Prince Regent:
In BIG and BOLD lettering, Jane Austen is designated
“The Author.“
I’ve never thought about the word novelist – did it have a pejorative sense when it was first ‘invented’, in order to denigrate female writers of novels? (Must look that one up.)
***
SEE LETTER 106 (2 Sept 1814) – which has Jane Austen telling Martha Lloyd that she has not forgotten Martha’s Bath Friends, Captain and Mrs. Deans Dundas, for “their particular claim to my Gratitude as an Author.” Le Faye assumes it must reflect a person – ie, Captain Dundas – useful to her naval research, but note Austen’s word THEIR. As unmistakeable as her use of the designation AUTHOR in the same sentence.
HENRY Austen’s letters to/from John Murray – see this blog: http://www.strangegirl.com/emma/letters.php
Ah yes, Stanier Clarke’s letter in which she uses the term “authoress,” dated 11 Dec 1815: “the most unlearned, & unformed Female who ever dared to be an Authoress.” Surely, Austen is toying with her correspondent. SHE DOES echo Murray’s own phrase “Authoress of Emma” in an 1816 “reply” to Murray she herself pens. BUT: is any tongue-in-cheek joke meant — considering the letter is dated, 1 April (ie, April Fools Day).
- Jane Austen’s letters TO John Murray, National Library of Scotland
- “Hugh Buchanan Paints the John Murray Archive“
- Jane Austen @ King’s College, Cambridge
- Byron owned copies of S&S and P&P
- Kathryn Sutherland on “Jane Austen’s Dealings with John Murray and His Firm” (thru JSTOR)
*
“He is a Rogue of Course, But a Civil One”
— Jane Austen, referring to John Murray
letter to Cassandra Austen; October 1816
Small Victory
Over the weekend I spent some time with the Smith & Gosling letters. Nearing 4000 pages of typescript, ranging from the 1760s into the 1940s.
I have more to add – some portions of information about the VYSE family. George Howard Vyse married — after a very long courtship — Lizzy Seymour, sister to the Rev. Richard Seymour of Kinwarton and the Rev. Sir John Hobart Culme-Seymour of Northchurch and Gloucester.
Vyse’s father, Colonel Vyse, literally stood in the way of the match. An intense dislike, of the Seymour family, of Lizzy. It is heartbreaking to read that GHV (as Richard always referred to the young man as, shortening a long name into three initials) was spotted by Mamma (Mrs. Smith, Emma’s mother), wistfully looking up to the windows, hoping to spot his young lady a brief second, while on military parade as part of Queen Victoria’s Coronation!
Mixed within these letters was one I suspected did NOT belong in the year 1838. DATED “August 12” from Mapledurham (the family’s rented estate in Hertfordshire), it is missing its last page or perhaps pages. These are small sheets of paper, and typically there were up to 8 pages (2 sheets folded in half; each creating 4 pages) of text. As well, these small sheets probably had utilized an envelope — and the end and signature could have ended up inside the envelope. I’ve come across one or two envelopes at this archive, hermetically sealed between two sheets of mylar, that were not pulled open before being sealed inside, yet the dark writing clearly showed thru the paper! Groan…
The letter – half letter – had ended up in a folder marked “Unidentified”. That folder was very *full* when I saw it in summer 2015. Did I miss a second sheet, or a single sheet? Are there envelopes, addressed to Fanny (Smith) Seymour in Kinwarton that I never photographed? (Alas, a couple of them!)
The letter in question is unmistakably written by youngest sister Maria Smith. She has such scrawling penmanship, with a very distinctive “W”. Also, as Mamma’s youngest, she was the last in the family ‘nest’ once all her siblings had married (or died).
That it was written from Mapledurham tells me the letter could not date before October 1834, when they moved into the house (so, summer of 1835, at earliest). That Mamma was alive, tells me it could be no later than Summer 1844. Maria sounds unmarried (ie, still with Mamma), so that backed it into 1843 (and, therefore, summer of 1842 at latest).
Although a full-run of Mamma’s diaries does not exist, several for the late 1830s and early 1840s DO exist. Plus I have other letters. Several years were already removed from contention: Mamma and Maria were elsewhere than Mapledurham.
There were two clues within the content: Their visit to Chobham – home of sister Eliza and her husband Denis Le Marchant – sounded too much like Maria describing what NO ONE among the siblings had yet seen. I had to find a date for their move.
The other was Maria saying that Arthur Currie had purchased a horse (heavily contributed to by Mamma) for Maria’s use. Not the EASIEST to find, someone commenting again on a new horse. Maria asked her sister Fanny what name should the horse be given – so, unlike “Jack Daw” or “Tom Tit“, I knew of no name to search for.
I had already searched Mamma’s diaries – but went back to 1840 again. And THERE found a comment about CHOBHAM! It became unmistakable: Maria and Mamma had returned home from a visit to Chobham in August 1840.
Frosting on the cake was that Maria, a couple of letters later, commented that she was pleased with her New Horse!
I call this a small victory because the letter still has no ending.
There have been times in the past, when a WIDOW torso gets a date close enough to an ORPHAN torso (yes, that’s what I call them…), that a closer look is warranted. A couple of times, the flow of the sentence AND the topic of conversation indicated that they were, indeed, one and the same letter. I remember once, spotting a DATE, buried within the handwriting, a confirmation of my hunch — after reuniting a pair.
Across archives, I have several incomplete, widow or orphan torso-only letters. I live in hope… But nothing dropped into place this time. Missing photographs? Missing envelope? Irretrievably-missing pages?
Envelopes were easy prey in the past – for their postal marks, their STAMPS, their wax seals. Hand-stamps [cancellations and handwritten marks] in the early, prestamp, era made (and make) “wrappers” and “free fronts” highly collectable. The wrappers got divided from letters, robbing the letter of its definitive dating. The free fronts – where the “direction” is cut away from the rest of the page, robs the letter of CONTENT. The reverse side’s content (if there) appearing as disparate sentences with few beginnings or endings. MADDENING to know the original – full – letter must have been jettisoned after the “surgery”. All for the saving of the “collectible” signature that allowed the piece of mail to travel for free.
Once such “collection” of autographs had SIX LINES missing from a Jane Austen letter. Its discovery (a long time after the album’s sale) caused a *STIR* in Austen circles in 2019! And it really did end up being about … LAUNDRY!
Candice Hern: What’s inside a Lady’s Reticule?
Last year’s visit to Cleveland, Ohio for the JASNA AGM turned into a virtual event. Among the nicest, most interesting side-entertainments were the videos made to enlighten participants about anything from “Regency” food and gardens, to making marbled papers (truly fascinating!).
New to the JASNA – Jane Austen Society of North America – website is the first in a series of three videos by author Candice Hern: “What a Lady Might Carry in her Reticule“. For me, these videos were super instructive because I can pinpoint times when Emma Smith (Mrs. James Edward Austen) secured for herself nearly every little item Candice Hern brings to the attention of the camera. Hers is a tremendous collection! And now she’s sharing her collection with everyone via these freely-viewable videos.
Part I of “What a Lady Might Carry in Her Reticule” discusses Calendars and Almanacs. Says Hern, when discussing her “Smalls” (the “tiny” items my Emma would have readily recognized), “I’ve been collecting antiques for decades, many of them from the years during which Jane Austen lived.” [click photo to go to the JASNA website]
Part 2, available shortly, features “Scents and Cosmetics”; Part 3, “Coin Purses, Fans, and Vinaigrettes”.
You may also wish to visit Candice Hern’s “Regency World” website. And do keep in mind the future plans at JASNA to include more videos in their *new* Austen’s World Up-Close. The JASNA Post brings you all the new (and give links to old) Announcements, News, and Observations in one handy place.
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 