MORE AUSTEN WEBSITES
www.janeausten.co.uk
www.janeausten.co.uk
ALSO www.literarywarwickshire.com explores Austen, Eliot, Gaskell, Larkin, Shakespeare and Tolkien in Warwickshire
Seeking Jane Austen Chat Page
WELCOME to the Chat Page of Seeking Jane Austen which is updated frequently - so keep coming back! Email with any Austen news you’d like to share: austenchat@hotmail.co.uk
AUSTEN (AND ME!) IN KENT
It sounds a bit obsessive to be following one’s favourite writer around the country in order to find a new home but that’s what I seem to be doing!
Having lived in the Midlands for 16 years a few miles from Stoneleigh where Jane’s mother’s relatives lived (see Midlands page), I’ve now moved to Kent where her father came from!
TRAVELLING WITH AUSTEN
Julian Spencer Rouse has been in touch to tell me about his driver-guide tours of Austen country. An interesting off-shoot of Julian’s travel business Echo Tango is to organise personal itineraries for Austen fans, chauffeuring them around many of the sites described in www.seekingjaneausten.com and sharing his knowledge about Austen’s life and writing.
If this interests you, you can find out more from his websites:
OSCAR FOR DARCY?
Bit of a tenuous link to Austen, I know, but I’ve just read that Colin Firth has been nominated for an Oscar for his current film A Single Man. For many of us, he will forever be associated with his portrayal of Darcy in the 1995 TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Fifteen years later I for one can’t read the book without picturing the actor, who now says (according to The Observer) that the three women in his life are his wife, his mother and Jane Austen!
Susan (February 2010)
This is not really by design - I came from Kent originally so I’m going back to my own roots - however I’m going to enjoy getting better acquainted with Jane Austen’s connections here.
I’m looking forward to seeing the gardens at Goodnestone Park in Spring and Summer (home of Jane’s sister-in-law, see Kent page) and taking a closer look at Tonbridge where her father was born, raised and educated.
I’ve just read an article about an interesting-sounding walk around Tonbridge initiated recently by Kent Libraries and Archives, who enlisted the help of the Kent branch of the Jane Austen Society. It stops off at various buildings and gardens associated with the Austens and you can get an audio guide too. Here’s a link for more information: jane austen tonbridge
www.jollyfineknits.com
Hand-knitted cardigans,mittens etc for babies and children. Great gifts!
Hand-
DVD of the BBC’s recent adaptation of EMMA and tie-in edition of the book