Authors Electric

During this glorious May Bank Holiday, when the temperature rose to 25C and the house smelled of summer, I spent much of my time in the garden. I sat and read, watched the frogs in the pond but I also got down to some desperately needed weeding. It was when I was dealing with this year’s explosion of dandelions when I was struck by an odd comparison. Like a good novel or short story, the dandelion has hidden depths. Not only do the roots burrow deep and tenaciously, they spread themselves throughout the vegetable patch, just as a novel can insinuate itself into the subconscious--  a case in point being the archetypal romantic hero, forever characterised by the urbane Mr Darcy, or the wild Heathcliff. They may not be the best role models, certainly neither of them would make good twenty-first century husbands but they would be hard to eradicate from the female psyche, however liberated we believe ourselves to be. As would be the image of the feisty heroine such as Demel...

by Bill Kirton Excellent news coinciding with the recent 200 th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice revealed that hitherto unseen fragments of alternative narrative departures had been found in the papers of a private collector in Boston . Perhaps the most startling was one revealing the author’s original account of the wooing of Elizabeth . The full text is appended below. The gentlemen had joined the ladies and the card-tables had been placed but Darcy, whose countenance betrayed quite openly the displeasure he would feel at being compelled to tolerate conversation which he was certain would be superlatively stupid, made his way into the withdrawing room where he was agreeably surprised to find Miss Bennet seated at an escritoire.      ‘Why, Miss Bennet, to be sure,’ he said. ‘I wonder that I find you here absorbed in reclusive meditation at a moment when the company is preparing to initiate the evening’s entertainments.’ ...

Yesterday, 28th January 2013, was the 200th birthday of Jane Austen's most famous novel 'Pride & Prejudice'. It was marked by a 'readathon' at the Jane Austin Centre in Bath, hooked up with a 12 hour broadcast with Jane Austen Societies in Australia and North America. A conference has also been organised at Cambridge.The conference will explore the original historical context of the novel, as well as the numerous screen adaptations and literary spin-offs the book has inspired. In the coming weeks the BBC will celebrate the anniversary of the book by recreating a Regency ball, like one featured in its pages, and there are several more events planned throughout the year, to celebrate the anniversary. Many new books about the writer have been published, with examinations of the history of the novel, and there is also a new high-end hardback edition available. First published by Thomas Egerton in 1813, Pride and Prejudice was Jane Austen's secon...