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Soon I'll be rereading John Wood Sweet's Sewing Girl's Tale and may
reread Judith Moore's The Appearance of Truth for the upcoming 4 week
course I'm teaching at OLLI at AU

Not far behind Winifred Holyby's outh Riding, to be followed by Vera
Britain's The Dark Tide, for the summer 6 week course I'll be teaching
at OLLI at Mason

Andrea and I are exploring Anna Seghers and Christa Wolf in our
weekend zoom. It is a genuine wonder to me why so few courses in
women's literature are taught at any of the OLLIs I teach at or
attend. Or Politics and Prose? The people at OLLI at York keep trying,
but classes have too low enrollment and are cancelled. Why do most
women seem indifferent to literary feminism? I stand out for
continuing to do them frequently

I try to get to Austen Variations blog I'm reading onwards ever so slowly

Ellen

Yes it is.It shows the family were a literary bunch. Letters &
documents also survive when there is a huge house, with an attic that
no one is using. James Austen regarded himself as a poet & writer;
George, the father, was a scholar with a private library pof his own,
the mother wrote social verse ...

Ellen.

On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 10:24?AM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

It is surprising that so many letters survived. Jane's brothers were not
settled in one place. Even Henry moved around. Letters have a better
chance of survival when both parties stayed in one place.
Nancy

It is surprising that so many letters survived. Jane's brothers were not
settled in one place. Even Henry moved around. Letters have a better
chance of survival when both parties stayed in one place.
Nancy

Austen wrote to other people. We are told there were 3 packets between
her & Frank, the older sailor brother. The granddaughter, we are told,
without asking permission, early one morning destroyed the lot. The
tone in which that is told suggests disapproval, what of it's not
clear.. There was a correspondence between her and Martha Lloyd, her
and Ann Sharp, some few to Eliza, to other friends, her nephew, to the
nieces Fanny and Anna. Most of all this destroyed, -- or never kept.
Scattered business letters we may call them. Maybe to Edgeworth with
that gift of a copy of Emma.

Ellen


On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 10:28?PM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

It was the accepted practice that when a person died, the relatives
retrieved their letters to the deceased, if they had been kept. Letters
were seldom solely for the person to whom addressed, particularly females.
The letters were usually read aloud to the family. Postage was expensive so
few sent letters to multiple people at the same address unless one had a
birthday or other special day.
Cassandra did cut up letters to give people just the autograph and some
letters no doubt were lost.
Cassandra and Jane usually lived together and i is only that Cassandra
was asked to help Edward after his wife died and that she helped out
elsewhere that we have any letters at all. Instead of blaming Cassandra
for destroying mythical letters, she should be honoured for preserving so
many.
Nancy

On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 10:01?PM Dorothy Gannon via groups.io
<dorothy.gannon@...> wrote:

Ellen, I well remember the Fanny wars. At the time I'd have said I wasn’t
especially fond of the novel, but it was due to your defense of MP that I
went back and reread it for the first time. Up till then, it was the only
Austen novel I hadn’t read multiple times. I’ve since come to appreciate
the richness of the writing and the characters, and that Austen was really
trying something new.


Nancy wrote:
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.


Never thought of that, Nancy. It almost makes more sense, tho.

Dorothy

It was the accepted practice that when a person died, the relatives
retrieved their letters to the deceased, if they had been kept. Letters
were seldom solely for the person to whom addressed, particularly females.
The letters were usually read aloud to the family. Postage was expensive so
few sent letters to multiple people at the same address unless one had a
birthday or other special day.
Cassandra did cut up letters to give people just the autograph and some
letters no doubt were lost.
Cassandra and Jane usually lived together and i is only that Cassandra
was asked to help Edward after his wife died and that she helped out
elsewhere that we have any letters at all. Instead of blaming Cassandra
for destroying mythical letters, she should be honoured for preserving so
many.
Nancy

On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 10:01?PM Dorothy Gannon via groups.io
<dorothy.gannon@...> wrote:

Ellen, I well remember the Fanny wars. At the time I'd have said I wasn’t
especially fond of the novel, but it was due to your defense of MP that I
went back and reread it for the first time. Up till then, it was the only
Austen novel I hadn’t read multiple times. I’ve since come to appreciate
the richness of the writing and the characters, and that Austen was really
trying something new.


Nancy wrote:
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.


Never thought of that, Nancy. It almost makes more sense, tho.

Dorothy

Ellen, I well remember the Fanny wars. At the time I'd have said I wasn’t especially fond of the novel, but it was due to your defense of MP that I went back and reread it for the first time. Up till then, it was the only Austen novel I hadn’t read multiple times. I’ve since come to appreciate the richness of the writing and the characters, and that Austen was really trying something new.


Nancy wrote:
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.


Never thought of that, Nancy. It almost makes more sense, tho.

Dorothy

To Nancy, I remember. I was a defender of Fanny. Imust love the six
novels as I never tire of them. The best Austen faithful style film
for me is the 1995 Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds.
I don't dislike Austen's letters exactly; they are not easy to
understand cut out of context, and bowdlerized. They are written by
the same person who wrote the fiction and can help us understand her
books and something of her life and character. On your last belief
that's not the sense of Mary Austen's statement; Edward Austen-Leigh's
daughter is one of those who writes Austen destroyed a majority of the
letters. This is from memory, but I recall she does not specify which
or what, just "a majority."

Ellen

On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 11:20?AM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

I like her letters for being a view into life of the day. They tell us,
also, that she was a real person. A person with links and dislikes and a
sometimes sharp tongue( or pen). I think Fanny Price is the most
misunderstood character in Austen's novels. Remember all the Fanny wars
that used to erupt on Austen-L and other fora? I don't understand how so
many can say they hate her, However, I do believe that a good many of
those who say they love Austen mean they love the movie versions of Pride
and Prejudice.
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.
Nancy

On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 11:07?AM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

I'm reading this between sequels -- I might reread The Other Bennet
Sister. I'm finding it very fresh, stimulating, but not sure how to
blog/write about it. It seems to me Todd is doing something unusual: she
comes in at an angle which is usually omitted: her gut reactions, partly
founded in personal history and hr reading of other l'ecriture-femme I'd
call it.This is the level that undergirds and explains a close reading or
other kind of book (scholarly, source study &c) about books. The problem
I'm not sure how to write coherently myself. But it is very interesting. I
find my gut reactions to Austen's books were intially and still are quite
different, but think hers are the more frequent. And thus it has
explanatory power for me. For example my favorite heroine is Elinor
Dashwood, and after that Fanny Price; the book I'd start with Sense and
Sensibility. Far from finding Austen's letters captivating, I find them
interestingly bitchy, resentful, always partisan.

More when I've finished. I plan an omnibus blog when I finally am feeling
stronger not so tired.

Ellen

I like her letters for being a view into life of the day. They tell us,
also, that she was a real person. A person with links and dislikes and a
sometimes sharp tongue( or pen). I think Fanny Price is the most
misunderstood character in Austen's novels. Remember all the Fanny wars
that used to erupt on Austen-L and other fora? I don't understand how so
many can say they hate her, However, I do believe that a good many of
those who say they love Austen mean they love the movie versions of Pride
and Prejudice.
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.
Nancy

On Fri, Apr 25, 2025 at 11:07?AM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

I'm reading this between sequels -- I might reread The Other Bennet
Sister. I'm finding it very fresh, stimulating, but not sure how to
blog/write about it. It seems to me Todd is doing something unusual: she
comes in at an angle which is usually omitted: her gut reactions, partly
founded in personal history and hr reading of other l'ecriture-femme I'd
call it.This is the level that undergirds and explains a close reading or
other kind of book (scholarly, source study &c) about books. The problem
I'm not sure how to write coherently myself. But it is very interesting. I
find my gut reactions to Austen's books were intially and still are quite
different, but think hers are the more frequent. And thus it has
explanatory power for me. For example my favorite heroine is Elinor
Dashwood, and after that Fanny Price; the book I'd start with Sense and
Sensibility. Far from finding Austen's letters captivating, I find them
interestingly bitchy, resentful, always partisan.

More when I've finished. I plan an omnibus blog when I finally am feeling
stronger not so tired.

Ellen

I'm reading this between sequels -- I might reread The Other Bennet Sister. I'm finding it very fresh, stimulating, but not sure how to blog/write about it. It seems to me Todd is doing something unusual: she comes in at an angle which is usually omitted: her gut reactions, partly founded in personal history and hr reading of other l'ecriture-femme I'd call it.This is the level that undergirds and explains a close reading or other kind of book (scholarly, source study &c) about books. The problem I'm not sure how to write coherently myself. But it is very interesting. I find my gut reactions to Austen's books were intially and still are quite different, but think hers are the more frequent. And thus it has explanatory power for me. For example my favorite heroine is Elinor Dashwood, and after that Fanny Price; the book I'd start with Sense and Sensibility. Far from finding Austen's letters captivating, I find them interestingly bitchy, resentful, always partisan.

More when I've finished. I plan an omnibus blog when I finally am feeling stronger not so tired.

Ellen

I used Easter calendar changes for Austen calendars, Woman in White &
Clarissa. Austen erases years since her novels were revised. Necessary
for epistolary & journal novels.



My Austen calendars are used and cited by Austen readers and scholars
many times.
Ellen

I've been watching the superb 7 part 1978 serial written by Dennis
Potter, featuring Alan Bate & Anna Massey. I read the book some years
ago, and I think, like the recent Far from the Madding Crowd,
featuring Carey Mulligaan, and 2018 Woman in White by Fiona Seres ,
Potter captures the best of the book, its moral design and inner
spirit. Often recent British serials are travesties (especially when
backed by US money), but when they are good, they are superb, witness
the 2018 Little Women (Emily Watson as Marmee),. The Mirror and the
Light, by Peter Straughn, featuring Rylance (he carries it) improves
on the book.

An older one hour documentary not to miss: India's Partition A
Forgotten story by Gurind Chadha (Bhaji on the Beach

On other hand, after all the Miss Austen serial is lugubrious, takes
itself and Keeley Haws to seriously. I hated Bride & Prejudice


Ellen

Maria Frawley will conduct one on Elizabeth Gaskell (5 sessions) this
summer at Politics and Prose: North and South, Cranford

Ellen

I'm neck-deep in a revived interest in Juana I of Castile, and am
stockpiling a slew of primary documentation related to her. It's amazing
to me how accessible some of this material has become. I remember crying
along with my parents, around 1975, because we couldn't afford a series of
medieval chronicles which we really, really wanted. They're all
available now on Google Books and Archive.org! Oh, I wish our parents,
especially our mom, were still here to take advantage of this.

Maria

On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 12:22?PM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

I mention them more often because I can't cover as much, and sometimes
am behind or skip a given group read. So I tell of these others as
sometimes they are the same kind of book

Beyond Duke's Children restored, I'm reading The Bertrams for another
Trollope group, and following a favorite FB group of readers (TWWRN)
by watching a 1978 many episode Mayor of Casterbridge, and I read all
the postings, and try toget to the text. In some ways it seems to me
far more interesting than some of the more famous Hardys. The script
is by Dennis Potter!. I do find that often a superb adaptation can
improve on the book.

I've now begun Forster's A Passage to India for my teaching, and am
reading about the Raj, Anglo-Indian lit. I love it. Last night a
terrific documentary by Gurinder Chad on India's Partition: The
Forgotten (pr distorted) story

On my own for sheer pleasure: Janet Todd's Living with Austen. She
really is intelligent, the one is wonderfully relaxed. I often
disagree but she separates her views from the text. That's unusual

A feminist biography of Vera Brittain

The Mirror and the Light by Mantel -- along with delving into the
women therein (Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard) to discover why
Cromwell was beheaded,and I believe I've understood. He was in the
crosshairs of Henry's deranged sexual anxiety and deep shame because
he was often impotent, More on this Sunday night.

I've had to put aside for a couple of Week's Outlander 3, Voyager but
I'll get back to her, Ditto an excellent fictional biography of Water
Scott: Ragged Lion

And I attend a very few classes

Ellen

On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 11:06?AM Tyler Tichelaar via groups.io
<tyler@...> wrote:

Ellen often mentions her other projects and books she's reading. Since

it's the month of Shakespeare's birthday, I am reading Stephen Greenblatt's
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. It is quite
interesting though a lot is supposition trying to fill in the likely
possibilities of what happened in his life since we know so little of his
biography. I also plan to read a couple of his plays before the month is
out - probably Cymbeline and Timon of Athens, which I've never read before.

I've also been reading Louis Couperus' novels. I just finished Old

People and The Things That Pass and think it a true masterpiece about two
elderly people with a dark secret and how that effects both of their
families. He is known as one of the greatest Dutch authors and far more
readable than Multali and Max Havelaar.

Tyler

I mention them more often because I can't cover as much, and sometimes
am behind or skip a given group read. So I tell of these others as
sometimes they are the same kind of book

Beyond Duke's Children restored, I'm reading The Bertrams for another
Trollope group, and following a favorite FB group of readers (TWWRN)
by watching a 1978 many episode Mayor of Casterbridge, and I read all
the postings, and try toget to the text. In some ways it seems to me
far more interesting than some of the more famous Hardys. The script
is by Dennis Potter!. I do find that often a superb adaptation can
improve on the book.

I've now begun Forster's A Passage to India for my teaching, and am
reading about the Raj, Anglo-Indian lit. I love it. Last night a
terrific documentary by Gurinder Chad on India's Partition: The
Forgotten (pr distorted) story

On my own for sheer pleasure: Janet Todd's Living with Austen. She
really is intelligent, the one is wonderfully relaxed. I often
disagree but she separates her views from the text. That's unusual

A feminist biography of Vera Brittain

The Mirror and the Light by Mantel -- along with delving into the
women therein (Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard) to discover why
Cromwell was beheaded,and I believe I've understood. He was in the
crosshairs of Henry's deranged sexual anxiety and deep shame because
he was often impotent, More on this Sunday night.

I've had to put aside for a couple of Week's Outlander 3, Voyager but
I'll get back to her, Ditto an excellent fictional biography of Water
Scott: Ragged Lion

And I attend a very few classes

Ellen

On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 11:06?AM Tyler Tichelaar via groups.io
<tyler@...> wrote:

Ellen often mentions her other projects and books she's reading. Since it's the month of Shakespeare's birthday, I am reading Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. It is quite interesting though a lot is supposition trying to fill in the likely possibilities of what happened in his life since we know so little of his biography. I also plan to read a couple of his plays before the month is out - probably Cymbeline and Timon of Athens, which I've never read before.

I've also been reading Louis Couperus' novels. I just finished Old People and The Things That Pass and think it a true masterpiece about two elderly people with a dark secret and how that effects both of their families. He is known as one of the greatest Dutch authors and far more readable than Multali and Max Havelaar.

Tyler

I agree. I doubt you can find and number all the Jane Eyres that have
been made. Ellen

On Fri, Apr 11, 2025 at 9:39?AM Nancy Mayer via groups.io
<regencyresearcher@...> wrote:

Haven't there been enough movies based on P & P? Austen wrote six novels
and the minor works. Why don't they look at Edgeworth's Belinda or
Burton's Self Control. The latter would be a great one as it wouldn't
matter too much if the producer wrecked it. While a solid core of readers
still do read Austen, many more get their ideas of her books and of the
regency period from the movies.
Nancy

On Fri, Apr 11, 2025 at 6:20?AM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

?
Dolly Alderton to Write Pride and Prejudice Starring Emma Corrin and

Jack Lowden

The actors and Olivia Colman will star in the new six-part series

adaptation.

--
Rory O'Farrell <ofarrwrk@...>

I have not liked last couple of faithful type aausten movies. I didn’t
like their exaggerations nor shallow comic tone. Olivia Coleman must go
along. The movie where she played Queen Anne was an obscene travesty,
basically misogynistic. It won many awards I recall.

Ellen

Haven't there been enough movies based on P & P? Austen wrote six novels
and the minor works. Why don't they look at Edgeworth's Belinda or
Burton's Self Control. The latter would be a great one as it wouldn't
matter too much if the producer wrecked it. While a solid core of readers
still do read Austen, many more get their ideas of her books and of the
regency period from the movies.
Nancy

On Fri, Apr 11, 2025 at 6:20?AM Ellen Moody via groups.io <ellen.moody=
[email protected]> wrote:

?
Dolly Alderton to Write Pride and Prejudice Starring Emma Corrin and

Jack Lowden

The actors and Olivia Colman will star in the new six-part series

adaptation.

--
Rory O'Farrell <ofarrwrk@...>

I have not liked last couple of faithful type aausten movies. I didn’t
like their exaggerations nor shallow comic tone. Olivia Coleman must go
along. The movie where she played Queen Anne was an obscene travesty,
basically misogynistic. It won many awards I recall.

Ellen

I'm reading it and it's excellent. I also recommend as the best book on
Austen I've read in a long time, Janet Todd's Living with Jane Austen

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Thornfield Hall <comment-reply@...>
Date: Fri, Apr 11, 2025 at 1:02?AM
Subject: Excuse Me, Jane Austen, and Rediscovering “The Bertrams”
To: <ellen.moody@...>


“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a
computer, needs to spend less screen time.” Excuse me, Jane Austen. I NEED
TO BREAK UP WITH THE INTERNET. And so I curled up in a cozy chair with a
neglected Trollope…

Read on blog
<>
or Reader
<>
[image: Site logo image] Thornfield Hall <> Read
on blog
<>
or Reader
<>
Excuse
Me, Jane Austen, and Rediscovering “The Bertrams”
<>

By *Kat* on April 11, 2025

*“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a
computer, needs to spend less screen time.”*

Excuse me, Jane Austen. I NEED TO BREAK UP WITH THE INTERNET.

And so I curled up in a cozy chair with a neglected Trollope novel, *The
Bertrams.*

I’m not sure anyone reads *The Bertrams* anymore, but I can testify that
Trollope is very popular in the twenty-first century. I joined a Trollope
Yahoo group in the early 2000s, and there must have been a hundred fans.

Two of Trollope's series, *The Pallisers *and the *Barsetshire* books, are
considered his masterpieces . I prefer two stunning novels, *He Knew She
Was Right* and *The Way We Live Now*.

And *The Bertrams*, a splendid, often sad novel about love, rivalry, and
work, is one of his better books. Sadly, it is out of print. That is
inexplicable to me. It must have to do with Trollope’s reputation as a
middlebrow writer. And so readers assume that only the famous books are
worth reading, or that Trollope is a mere storyteller – and to an extent I
agree with that - but this smoothly-written minor classic explores
perennial human struggles: work undertaken out of need rather than liking,
lovers’ break-ups over quarrels rooted in finance, and incompatibility in
marriage.

An alternate title for the book could be *Friends and Rivals*.

In the beginning of *The Bertrams*, Trollope sketches the youthful
education of two friends and rivals, George Bertram, whose spendthrift
father dumped him in England while his rich grandfather pays his school
fees, and Arthur Wilkinson, a hard-working boy whose clergyman father
struggles to pay tuition.

Their educations are identical but the results divide them. At school
Arthur works persistently, but George wins the scholarship to Oxford. At
Oxford Arthur works hard for two years, while George appears to do nothing
for three. Trollope writes, “It had always been George’s delight to study
in such a manner that men should think he did not study.” And so George
gets a first in classics, while Arthur is crushed to get a second.

This rivalry, however, ends after graduation. George and Arthur have much
in common: both are scholars, and both are religious. Surprisingly, it is
brilliant George, not Arthur, who wants to be a clergyman. Arthur, a fellow
at Oxford, becomes a vicar only after his father dies, because he must
support his mother and sisters. And his life is miserable. His mother is
domineering: the church was given to Arthur on the condition that most of
the salary go to his mother.

But George *wants *to be a vicar. He would have loved Arthur’s job. He
travels to the Holy Land, and has many mystical experiences. But he also
meets a beautiful, cold young woman, Caroline, his grandfather’s ward. She
has a lot of money, and is extremely materialistic. They fall in love, but
she is callous: she selfishly admits she will *no*t marry him if he goes
into the church. And so he decides to study law, which bores him and whose
practice often seems unjust to him.

And this issue of having the wrong job rings very true. How many people end
up working in banks or insurance (T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens? It
didn't bother them), teaching (most high school teachers quit after five
years), or working in an office or a restaurant (everybody at some time or
another).

Trollope also describes the friendship of two women, which parallels that
of the two men. Caroline and Adela are close friends but opposites in every
respect: Caroline is obsessed with finance and insists on postponing her
marriage to George for three years so he can get established; the time
period is too long, and the two quarrel and break up. Adela is spiritual
rather than materialistic, and is scandalized by Caroline's treatment of
George. Adela is in love with Arthur, who cannot afford to marry and does
not seem keen on Adela anyway. (He is not a romantic figure.)

These are some gritty issue here. And of course the reader wonders if the
lovers will ever get together. Always we wonder this in Trollope's books.
But this is no *Can You Forgive Her?* or * The Way We Liv*e *Now*. Still,
it is long and beautifully-written, and if you want to get off the
internet, it will entertain you for hours.
Comment
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?
Dolly Alderton to Write Pride and Prejudice Starring Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden

The actors and Olivia Colman will star in the new six-part series adaptation.




--
Rory O'Farrell <ofarrwrk@...>

I have not liked last couple of faithful type aausten movies. I didn’t like their exaggerations nor shallow comic tone. Olivia Coleman must go along. The movie where she played Queen Anne was an obscene travesty, basically misogynistic. It won many awards I recall.

Ellen

Laura did understand from this hospital doctor, showed me the Mayo clinic site:



It's notan infrequent mechanism behind strokes & blood clots

Ellen

Long ago I read somewhere that cats became popular because
they wash themselves. After the discovery of germs, they were
seen as clean and therefore healthy animals.