Category: Jane Austen characters
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What Happened to Kitty and Mary?: Austen Reveals What Happened to Her Characters After the Novels Ended
Read about Austen’s endings for Jane Fairfax, Kitty, and Mr. Woodhouse.
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The Rules of Austenesque Fiction
Before I wrote this column, I listened to Benjamin Grosvenor’s performance—with the Royal Liverpool Phil—of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin’s work played a central part in the opening movement of the Bennet Wardrobe Series, The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey. The music allows us to find something familiar that serves to link the Mary…
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Packet Ships, Peril, and Persuasion: Setting Sail in 1813 (+ an Excerpt)
There’s something gloriously impractical about sending a lady to sea in the Regency era. The skirts! The cockroaches! The chamber pots that slid everywhere! Yet by 1813, Britain was bursting with people doing exactly that—soldiers, diplomats, merchants, and, occasionally, their wives—rattling around the globe in those sturdy little packet ships I’ve been describing lately. My…
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Orwell Nailed It
#PrideAndPerjury #JAFF #HistoricalFiction #SelfPublishing “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” George Orwell First, please note what Orwell did not say. Writing is often intensely enjoyable – even non-fiction. It’s when your enjoyable project turns into a judgeable, sellable, editable book that the illness kicks in… My…
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Austen Friendships
In the past few months, I have been thinking about relationships, particularly friendships. Each of us has groups of friends. Some of them we met through family; some at church, school, or work; and others through our interests. Some friend groups crossover and some have never met. There are those friends that we attend specific…
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City Caro, Country Lizzy
Happy October, dear readers! In North America, autumn is upon us, and most of us associate this month with harvest time. It is likewise the month the Netherfield party arrives in Meryton. I feel like continuing one of my favourite themes: Bingley sister bashing! An aspect of the much be-hated Superior Sisters I failed to…
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A Sneak Peek at What’s Coming
Growing up with two younger brothers was an adventure. I may not have found a snake in my bed, but that did not mean restful and peaceful sleep was always had. What I also remember was trying to tell them how to avoid my mistakes, like taking a bike down a hill that had a…
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Paths Retraced: Travels and an Anthology
As I write this post, I’m still dusting the final vestiges of jet lag from my shoulders, almost but not quite back into the routine and—yes—time zone of my normal, everyday life. We returned just a week ago from another visit to the United Kingdom. We were there to help my daughter settle into her…
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Murder, Theft, and Guillotines: The Colorful Lives of Jane’s Family & How They Influenced Her Novels
Murder! Theft! Guillotines! Dive into the colorful lives of Jane Austen’s family members and how they influenced her novels.
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The Free Indirect Discourse of Jane Austen
I tend to be a very black and white thinker, and I was told–as so many are in early writing classes–that an omniscient narrator is a bad idea. It leads to head-hopping; it’s old-fashioned; it’s not popular. Only attempt it if you’re a genius with literary aspirations. And I’m not paraphrasing, that is exactly what…