Today we would like to share with you a fun book from Sourcebooks!
Sourcebooks is excited to introduce you to the perfect addition to any Austen or literature lover’s bookshelf: The List Lover’s Guide to Jane Austen (Sourcebooks Casablanca; June 4). Brought to you by notable Jane-ite and bibliophile Joan Strasbaugh, this is the first biography (that we know of) to ever be composed of lists!
List Lover’s Guide to Jane Austen by Joan StrasbaughJune 2013, ISBN 9781402282034, Trade Paperback
$12.99 U.S. / £8.99 UK
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The Jane you thought you knew…Jane Austen comes to life for the first time in list formHave you ever wondered what books Jane Austen read? Or what her #1 pet peeve was?Find the answers to these questions in The List Lover’s Guide to Jane Austen, coming this June 2013. Released just in time for the 200th Anniversary of Pride & Prejudice, author Joan Strasbaugh is a “hard-core fan” and known in Jane circles around the world.Strasbaugh creates a portrait of this beloved author as a living, breathing human being; The List Lover’s Guide is perfect for any 18th century Brit lit buff. Austen aficionado or student of literature.Lists like “Her Social Circle” and “Balls and Dances She Attended” weave a seamless portrait of the woman that Austen was — not based on her fictions, but on her facts.While including extensive background information on the author (down to the very flowers she grew in her garden), the book also features juicy details like:
· Possible Suitors
· Who Broke Her Heart
· The Hearts She Broke
· Her Morbid Sense of Humor
· Jane’s Royal Ancestors
This book is unique in that it’s a series of quotes and quips from Jane’s life, here is an excerpt:
Possible Suitors
“To a question ‘which of your characters do you like best?’ she once answered ‘Edmund Bertram and Mr. Knightley; but they are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are.’”
—-Mrs. Ann Barrett
Tom Lefroy (see Who Broke Her Heart)
“After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is very well--behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove—it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded.”
—Jane to Cassandra, January 9, 1796
Charles Watkins
John Lyford
“I danced twice with Warren last night, and once with Mr. Charles Watkins, and, to my inexpressible astonishment, I entirely escaped John Lyford. I was forced to fight hard for it, however.”
—Jane to Cassandra, January 9, 1796
Mr. Heartly
Charles Powlett
“Tell Mary that I make over MrHeartley& all his estate to her for her sole use and Benefit in future, & not only him, but all my other Admirers into the bargain wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I do not care sixpence.”
—Jane to Cassandra, January 14, 1796
John Willing Warren
“Assure her also, as a last & indubitable proof of Warren’s indifference to me, that he actually drew that Gentleman’s picture for me, & delivered it to me without a Sigh.”
—Jane to Cassandra, January 14, 1796
Edward Taylor
“We went by Bifrons, & I contemplated with a melancholy pleasure, the abode of Him on whom I once fondly doated.”
—Jane to Cassandra, September 15, 1796
Benjamin Portal
“Benjamin Portal is here. How charming that is!—I do not exactly know why, but the phrase followed so naturally that I could not help putting it down.—My mother saw him the other day, but without making herself known to him.”
—Jane to Cassandra, June 11, 1799
Harris Bigg--Wither (see The Hearts She Broke)
“Harris still seems in a poor way, from his bad habit of body; his hand bled again a little the other day, &DrLittlehales has been with him lately.”
—Jane to Cassandra, November 8, 1800
“An unnamed gentleman” from Devonshire
“When they were by the sea—I think she said in Devonshire; I don’t think she named the place, and I am sure she did not say Lyme, for that I should have remembered—that he seemed greatly attracted by my Aunt Jane—I suppose it was an intercourse of some weeks—and that when they had to part (I imagine he was a visitor also, but his family might have lived near) he was urgent to know where they would be the next summer, implying or perhaps saying that he should be there also, wherever it might be. I can only say that the impression left on Aunt Cassandra was that he had fallen in love with her sister, and was quite in earnest. Soon afterwards they heard of his death….I am sure she thought he was worthy of her sister, from the way in which she recalled his memory, and also that she did not doubt, either, that he would have been a successful suitor.”
—Niece Caroline Austen recording a reminiscence she
heard from Cassandra sometime between 1801 and 1804.
William Digweed
“On Friday I wound up my four days of dissipation by meeting William Digweed at Deane, and am pretty well, I thank you, after it.”
—Jane to Cassandra, January 25, 1801
Mr. Crawford
Mr. Granville
An “odd looking man” in Lyme
“Nobody asked me the first two dances—the two next I danced with Mr Crawford—& had I chosen to stay longer might have danced with Mr Granville, Mrs Granville’s son—whom My dear friend Miss Armstrong offered to introduce to me—or with a new, odd looking man who had been eyeing me for some time, & at last without any introduction asked me if I meant to dance again.—I think he must be Irish by his ease, & because I imagine him to belong to the HonbleBarnwalls, who are the son & son’s wife of an Irish Viscount—bold, queerlooking people, just fit to be Quality at Lyme.”
—Jane to Cassandra, September 14, 1804
Edward Bridges (see The Hearts She Broke)
“We were agreeably surprised by Edward Bridges’s company to it. He had been, strange to tell, too late for the cricket match, too late at least to play himself, and, not being asked to dine with the players, came home. It is impossible to do justice to the hospitality of his attentions towards me; he made a point of ordering toasted cheese for supper entirely on my account.”
—Jane to Cassandra, August 27, 1805
Mr. Papillon
“I am very much obliged to Mrs Knight for such a proof of the interest she takes in me—-& she may depend upon it that I will marry MrPapillon, whatever may be his reluctance or my own.—I owe her much more than such a trifling sacrifice.”
—Jane to Cassandra, December 9, 1808
Wyndham Knatchbull, Edward Knight’s brother--in--law
“I depended upon hearing something of the Eveng from Mr W.K.,—& am very well satisfied with his notice of me—‘A pleasing looking young woman’;—that must do;—one cannot pretend to anything better now—thankful to have it continued a few years longer!”
—Jane to Cassandra, April 30, 1811
Samuel Blackall
“He was a piece of Perfection, noisy Perfection himself which I always recollect with regard.”
—Jane to Frank Austen, July 3, 1813
William Seymour, Henry Austen’s lawyer and agent for Jane’s books
“Henry is not quite well—a bilious attack with fever—he came back early from H. St yesterday & went to bed—the comical consequence of which was that Mr Seymour & I dined tete a tete.”
—Jane to Cassandra, October 17, 1815
About the Author
Joan Strasbaugh has been a proud Janeite for half of her life. She now works as the senior editor of Abbeville Press in New York, and notably organized the Jane Austen in the 21st Century Humanities Festival at the University of Wisconsin. A former publisher at Jones Books, Strasbaugh also holds a membership to the Jane Austen Society of North America.
Trying to pin down Jane Austen is difficult—but nevertheless exciting! The List Lover’s Guide is incredibly detailed and offers readers an in-depth look at the context of Ms. Austen’s life from birth to her final days, and expands upon why she is still so relevant today in both literature and life.
Anyone who loves or appreciates Jane’s smart, timeless literature will devour this text and will refer to it again and again.
~*GIVEAWAY*~
Sourcebooks is giving away one copy of The List Lover's Guide to Jane Austen to one reader today. (US only, please see terms & conditions at the bottom of the Rafflecopter. ) To enter, just fill out the rafflecopter below!
Love Jane Austen and this sounds like a terrific book!
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