Monday, July 17, 2017

Where to Follow Jane Austen and Find Fan Clubs

House where Jane Austen lived for the last years of her life. Now  museum. Photo from Wikipedia.

Problem
I know there's a Jane Austen statue or person outside a museum in Bath, but where else can I go? Would I find a fan as far away as Singapore.

Answers
1 Bath Museum. most visually appealing from the outside and in the busy, bustling city of Bath.
2 House where she lived for last years.
3 Winchester Cathedral. Disappointed me. Not a lot to see or say.
4 If you fancy yourself as the next Jane Austen, Winchester has a writers' festival every summer, good for would be writers who can stay in university accommodation.
Gravestone. Photo from Wikipedia.
Fan Societies Worldwide
UK
USA
Singapore
Society of fans who dress up, using spree fabric to recreate clothes. Not as far fetched as it at first sounds. In Jan Austen's era imported sprees were used and appreciated for colourful ladies clothes.

Story
As a young teenager I had heard of Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen but had trouble remembering which was which. Later I discovered :

The Brontes sisters were poor and had miserable lives and wrote stories of horror and passion. Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre about a poor governess in a house with a terrifying mad woman. The governess nearly commits bigamy, but ends up marrying a man only when he is widowed in a fire after he goes blind. Sister Emily wrote the tragedy Wuthering Heights. Anne wrote a miserable story about drunkenness. The three girls all died young, in their thirties.

By contrast, Jane Austen's books are full of humour and irony.
I studied Jane Austen at school, a girl's Grammar School, in England, for A level. The book was Mansfield Park. It is not my favourite book. Most people most enjoy Pride and Prejudice.

Tips
List of 22 sites with visually appealing pictures:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/eleanorbate/lost-in-austen?utm_term=.ql9O9lOYo#.nbb3kD3Ke

Jane Austen's Worldwide Fan Club
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40093010

Winchester Writers' Festival
http://writersfestival.co.uk

Quotations from Jane Austen:
From Goodreads:
Pride and Prejudice: 'A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.'
(Post being researched. More later.)

Jane Austen books are on
Amazon
Ebay

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share your favourite posts. 

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