#jane austen
Costume designed by Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh for Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane (2007)
From the Irish Costume Archive Project
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Happy Netherfield Ball Day, everyone!
Shelf-Confidence BPC | April | Day 8 | Brokenhearted
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
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Ever wondered what people wore to costume balls in the Regency era?
All of these amazing ensembles (and more!) can be found in Wilson Library’s copy of Characters in the grand fancy-ball given by the British Ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, at Vienna.… This ball–given at the end of carnival in 1826–was filled with dramatic historical and literary costumes, counting Queen Elizabeth and Ivanhoe among its many “guests.”
If you want to know even more about all the costumes, entertainment, and drama of the ball, come take a look at the book in person for a little Jane Austen era party inspiration!
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Miss Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) & Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (Colin Firth), Pride and Prejudice (1995 BBC Miniseries)
I made a Mr Darcy months ago on commission. I finally found the time and hair sculpting confidence to take on Lizzie and those curls.
I see lots of posts where people answer this question with recommendations for classic historical romance authors like Georgette Heyer or more modern bodice-rippers like Julia Quinn or Tessa Dare. But to me that’s never quite the appropriate answer. Sure, if what you want is romance with country dancing and breeches, that’s fine, but surely if you want to read more things similar to Jane Austen, the best way to do that is to delve into her lesser known contemporaries. People Austen admired and people who admired her. People writing on similar themes and using similar language.
So this is my list of 10 novels from the 18th and early 19th century that you might like to try if you’ve read Austen and want to branch out more. These are just personal recommendations and based off what I’ve read; I’m very happy to hear other suggestions!
Worth noting as well that all of these are available online or free for kindle download. :)
Jane Austen really said ‘I respect the “I can fix him” movement but that’s just not me. He’ll fix himself if knows what’s good for him’ and that’s why her works are still calling the shots today.
Meanwhile Emily Brönte just said “We can make each otherworse.”
Mary Shelley said, “I can make him
Emma (2020)
Character Aesthetics - The Bennet Sisters
If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,“ said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.“
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I am drunk with sleep. I know nothing but the lull of sweet slumber in my mind. I want to be truly awake, feel the pleasure of romance, of poetry idealized in the image of two hands intertwined. The silhouette of shadows coming as one. When will i experience the spark, catch fire and burn with small confessions everyday, as another candle ignites and eases itself in my wandering heart
“The Dying Christian to His Soul” by Alexander Pope
VITAL spark of heav'nly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heav'n opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?
In Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, the passionate Romantic Marianne does not seem to care much for the 18th-century poet Alexander Pope: her sister teases her, “You have already ascertained Mr. Willoughby’s opinion in almost every matter of importance. You know what he thinks of Cowper [a popular poet] and Scott [a popular novelist]; you are certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought, and you have received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.”
Pope was a satirist of the Augustan era of literature (ending in the 1740s). The Augustans valued “common sense, moderation, [and] reason over emotion” (source), as well as empiricism. Romanticism (beginning in about 1798 for Britain) was all about intense emotions, the idealization of nature, and suspicion of science and industrialization. While the Augustans and the Romantics could agree on some things, the Romantics rejected the Augustans’ insistence on moderation and reason, just as Austen’s Marianne rejects Elinor’s cold common sense.
However, this poem is anything BUT cold and measured. It’s intense, an epiphany, an inspiration. The speaker is LITERALLY “carried away” by his experience of the ecstasy of death. It’s a socially acceptable ecstasy, clothed in a religious theme, but it’s ecstatic nonetheless. Even Marianne Dashwood could enjoy this particular poem by Pope.
