Jane and Her Gentlemen: Jane Austen and the Men in Her Life and Novels by Audrey Hawkridge My rating: 3 of 5 stars Part of my ongoing research in preparation for my graduate thesis. This was a fun and cute sort of summary of Jane’s life and works regarding it from the males in her life and the males that made it into her works of fiction. The author used a lot of quotes from her correspondence, sometimes taking over most of the page with the author’s own contribution limited to one sentence to provide context. For someone, who has done as much research on Jane as me in the…
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The Georgian Gentleman
The Georgian Gentleman by Michael Brander My rating: 3 of 5 stars Part of my ongoing research in preparation for my graduate thesis. Even though my research focuses on women in the Georgian era, I thought it might be beneficial to learn a bit about the male side of things as well. There might be useful information that could help me along the way during my analysis of Austen’s works. Unfortunately, I had no such luck, which truthfully frustrated me. Actually, that is not quite true. There was one point the author makes that could help me with my argument. So, I should make sure I make a note of…
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The Raven’s Tale
The Raven’s Tale by Cat Winters My rating: 3 of 5 stars I finally had the chance to read Cat Winters’ new book The Raven’s Tale. I found it to be extraordinarily dark, making my skin crawl with every page. I don’t know much about Edgar Allen Poe. I had to analyze one of his shorter stories, Ligeia for my Gothic Literature course last fall, I read a manga version of The Tell Tale Heart and obviously saw The Simpsons version of The Raven many years ago, but Poe has always been a creator of dark tales that I could only stomach in very small dosages. And this comes from…
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Zeit ist Geld (Lustiges Taschenbuch, #233)
Zeit ist Geld by Walt Disney Company My rating: 3 of 5 stars I went through my mom’s old comics during my latest visit to her and decided to take some of the volumes back home with me. Among them was this one, which I had overlooked during previous perusals through her comic collection. I remember reading it on many occasions when I was little. It is a fast read and I noticed something peculiar about the way these stories were constructed. The individual stories seemed short. They were of regular page length, but the amount of plot detail and world building were kept to a minimum. There wasn’t much…
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Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was my third attempt in venturing to understand Georgian social customs better. And again, my efforts have been in vain; however, it was an entertaining read and one which treats the reader to some unexpected insights into Jane Austen’s uses of houses and the symbolic significance of house touring during scenes in several of her novels. In addition, the research presented is based on factual bookkeeping accounts that tells the story of a handful of couples setting up houses. I appreciated the author’s witty narrative style which brought the subject manner and…
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The Georgians At Home
The Georgians At Home by Elizabeth Burton My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was another book in my venture to understand Georgian social customs better. This one also dealt more with the materialistic manners of how Georgians lived, but not so much the social aspect of it. Again, this was a very interesting read, highly researched and put together. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could use for my specific topic of research. I found the writing style slightly dry, though, which reminded me of on old high school history textbook. It was difficult to maintain my enthusiasm at times. Overall, it is still a great source of information about…
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Georgian Delights
Georgian Delights by J.H. Plumb My rating: 3 of 5 stars Ever since reading Worsley’s Jane Austen at Home I have been rather puzzled about the Georgian time period and how people behaved back then. Not surprisingly, considering Worsley kept mentioning that Austen was, in fact, a true Georgian lady, acting accordingly, quite differently from her Victorian counterparts, including her very proper niece Fanny Knight. I wanted to know more about how people lived and behaved, but more importantly I was curious about this Georgian code of conduct. It appears it is quite difficult to find books on this subject matter, since most publications dealing with the Georgian period are…
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Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage
Jane Austen: The Critical Heritage by B.C. Southam My rating: 3 of 5 stars Part of my ongoing research in preparation for my graduate thesis. As far as I can see, all of the initial responses to Jane Austen’s work were collected in this volume. It includes letters, diary entries and essays discussing and recommending Austen’s works, and Austen’s own assortment of opinions she gathered of family and friends about the novels that were published during her lifetime. The editor’s introduction contains a few interesting points. Most of the reviews and opinions included in this collection have been cited in various biographies that were composed following its publication, but it…
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A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf
A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa My rating: 3 of 5 stars As part of my ongoing research for my thesis I primarily focused on the section that dealt with Jane Austen’s friendship with Anne Sharp. I was excited to read this book and had high hopes to find little pieces of information that could be truly beneficial for my thesis. I ended up being disappointed. It did discuss the friendship that had not really been mentioned by anyone else, but the research and evidence provided is lacking. Barely any quotes are used and the ones that…
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A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections
A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections by J.E. Austen Leigh My rating: 3 of 5 stars Technically it wasn’t really part of my research, since it is now agreed that this is a very whitewashed, highly edited version of Jane Austen’s life, but it is nonetheless very interesting to read how the biographies and the creation of a very distinct image of Jane all began relatively shortly after her death. I appreciated Caroline Austen and Anna Austen Lefroy’s recollection of their aunt Jane; however short they were. At the risk of sounding slightly sexist, I have to caution readers when perusing the sections of this memoir that…
