Celebrating 200 Years of Pride & Prejudice

Greetings and Happy New Year! 

Time just flitted away like a bird on wing and 2013 arrived all fresh and new. With the new year comes a wonderful anniversary of a well-loved classic... Pride and Prejudice. 

  A watercolor believed to be of Jane Austen painted by her sister Cassandra. 

 How does one honor Jane Austen's grand achievement?   In my most humble opinion the best way to celebrate the classic is to not just reread the book, but take the entire month to savor it, take notes, and ponder every aspect of the book from the rich dialog to the English scenery.  Perhaps research the times and tribulations of 1813 and discover as much as I can about Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen began writing First Impressions, the original title for Pride and Prejudice in 1797.  The book was finally published in January of 1813, exactly 200 years ago this month.  A second printing came about in October.  The copyright was purchased by Richard Bentley in 1833 and the tome has never been out of print since then.  An amazing 20 million copies of the book have been purchased.

So what was going on in the world in 1813, the year Pride and Prejudice was published.  Let's take a look at Ackermann's Repository and find out what appeared in the January 1813 issue. 

Napoleon was certainly on the minds of the English writer who wrote the column Retrospect of Politics in the January 1813 issue.  His description of Napoleon Bonaparte... "one of the greatest monsters of the human race." 

 In a more genteel article an illustration of
a Cottage Ornee along with the floor plan reminds me of pining for a particular house or room in a modern home magazine. 

   








And of course there was the lovely Regency
fashion that many of us in the 21st century
are still enamored with.

"A robe pelisse of bright morone velvet, formed quite plain, simply meeting in front, with rounded collar; trimmed entirely round with spotted ermine..."

There were patterns for making needlework, embroidery, and lace, opinions, and fun observances of love, courting, and friendship.

You'd find poetry mostly about admiration of the fair sex, longing, passion, and love.

The market prices of such items as coffee, sugar, and corn could be found along with the stock prices.

Want to know what the weather was on January 1, 1813?  It's there in the Meteorlogical Journal.  The mean temperature was 35.5 degrees on a cloudy day with a southerly wind. (To find the temperature on a given day search in issues two months forward from the date...January meteorological information is found in the March 1813 issue)

It's wonderful to be able to view this slice of life in the time of Jane Austen.  It's a tangible connection and it helps to understand her books just a bit more.    

How will you celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice?  Read the book?  Watch the enchanting renditions of the book through movies and television?  Or will you follow her footsteps on a literary holiday?  Please share your ideas of how best to celebrate Jane's most loved book, Pride and Prejudice.

  

 

Greetings,

It has been nearly a year since I've penned a post; shame on me.  Life does tend to get in the way, but for a bit I was spreading myself too thin and did not have the luxury of time to keep up the blog, work on my romance book, which includes lots of research, and do all the things that I must. One chilly, rain-filled morning this fall I decided to give it another go. 

Inspired by Ackermann's Respository, my blog is changing.  With a little imagination and the Adobe Photoshop workhorse, Elements 9, some CSS styles and HTML tweaking, I gave the appearance a personal twist.  There's more to the cover though.  I'll be posting tidbits of history as I research for my book and I'm planning to add links and resources that will help other historical romance writers. I don't know about you, but I would love to have everything in one neat and tidy virtual file cabinet. 

It all began with Regency attire and home decor descriptions.  Striving to write as accurate as possible descriptions led me to Ackermann's Repository, an English monthly periodical published between 1809 and 1829.  There's loads of information including fashion, landscape, and interior decorating plates along with a plethora of articles, some of which I'm planning to post about in the future.  

 

The fashion descriptions are wonderful.  Enjoy the snippets that describes the gowns pictured above:

Plate 18: Promenade Sea-beach Costume

A Grecian frock of fine French cambric or jaconoet  muslin, with corresponding border at feet in shaded purple embroidery: Roman back and front of the same.  Full long sleeves with a turned up cuff of lace; fastened with a bronze stud, set in gold. Read the entire description here. 

Plate 17: A Mourning Dress

Our plate will be found to represent a lady and her infant in slight mourning habits: the former composed of black gossamer net, or imperial guaze worn over a white satin slip.  A demi-traine. A round frock front, and short French sleeves, each edged with a rich vandyke lace. Curious for more?  You can find this description on the same page as the above link, but here it is again.  

 
So here I am changing it up by sharing the history that I love so much, the beauty that dazzles and the adventure of writing my first romance novel and striving to get it published. My plan is to add Regency Reference Pages, a Glossary, and more. I hope you'll find a comfortable sofa to lounge upon, settle in for a visit and glean bits of history from the eras that I love most: The Regency Period and the Tudor Years of England.