Category: military
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Military Owes Jane; Janeites Owe Military
Last month, we explored the way the Napoleonic Wars affected Jane Austen’s family and how her novels were viewed by readers during the world wars of the twentieth century. This month, we’ll drill a little deeper and go a little wider. Austen’s novels might be said to have participated directly in World War II. Some…
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First and Last of Mary Shelley’s Humankind
Mary Shelley holds the distinction of having written—two hundred years ago—the story of the first of a new kind of human, who is created and animated by science, and the last of the old order of humanity, which is felled by a pandemic. The first novel, her well-known Frankenstein (1818), invented the science-fiction genre. The…
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The Waterloo Dispatch (or) a Battle by Any Other Name
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (which was located at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, but is now located in Belgium), marking the end of what is commonly known as the Napoleonic Wars. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two armies of what was known as…
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Modern Magazine Covers Reimagined with Regency Headlines
Modern magazine covers transformed to cover top Regency stories, like: “It’s All in the Wrist: The Right Way to Pour His Tea.”
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Final Look at Austen Books, Military
I didn’t intend to write multiple times on inexpensive Austen books, particularly those produced for the modern military. But it turns out this is the third and final effort at the topic. … Because Jane Austen was generally well received by the scholarly community from early on, beginning with Sir Walter Scott, it is easy…
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‘Friendly Companionship’ in ‘Terrible Environment’
In a recent blog, we saw the importance of books to soldiers in the field during World War I and World War II. Several Jane Austen novels, as well as a book about Austen’s work, were among those. Question: How did the soldiers, sailors, and air personnel get their copies? In the first war, large…
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Writing Lows and Highs in Austen-Inspired Stories, a Guest Post from Susan Kaye
The blog mistress of Always Austen has asked me to write a post in the stead of Barbara Cornthwaite. Barbara is my editor, and she will be familiar with what I have to write here as she has seen my raw writing firsthand. Poor thing. Jane Austen wrote in an unfinished book, Catherine or the Bower,…
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Austen’s Words Soothe Soldiers, Home Folks
Nearly eighty years after the end of World War II, it is fitting to remember that Britain’s bulldog leader once benefitted from the soothing words of Jane Austen during the world’s largest military conflagration. Winston Churchill lay abed with the flu during the middle of the war. His doctors told him: “Don’t work, don’t worry.”…
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An Excerpt from A Fortuitous Wager: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary
I am excited to share an excerpt from my newest work I anticipate coming out soon. Given that one of the most amusing ways I’ve learned valuable lessons was through wagers and challenges, I could not resist using it as a premise for one of my vagaries, and I hope you enjoy this in-edit so…