OHMYGODDESS! This is just too funny!
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jane Austen. Show all posts
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Friday, July 22, 2011
Woooo Wooooo Work Out Music!
This just happens to be one of my favorite put-together You Tube videos - by Heather. She's a genius, pure and simple. Jane Austen = Men + Women + Conflict + Sexual Tension + Obstacles to Overcome + Happy Endings + rip-roaring story-telling! Mix it up with CHRISTINA and, well, this is why I love doing a work-out dance routine to this video! As the British say, thank you veddy much.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Jane Austen - New Biography "Jane's Fame"
From National Public Radio (NPR):
Biography Offers New Glimpses Of Jane Austen
March 25, 2010
It has been almost 200 years since Jane Austen's death but her books remain some of the most widely read in English literature. Claire Harman, author of the book Jane's Fame, about Austen's life, discusses her popularity.
Transcript:
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
Jane Austen has given us some our favorite love stories, movies and TV programs, and daydreams of characters like the rich and handsome Mr. Darcy. And quotations: It is a truth universally acknowledge that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a wife.
How did this spinster, born in 1775, who live most of her life in an English village, come to inhabit imaginations in the 21st century?
Claire Harman answers that question in her new book, "Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World."
For one thing, Claire Harman says, Jane Austen wrote in a completely new style.
Ms. CLAIRE HARMAN (Author): She really took out of the 18th century all the flimflam and the verbosity that had held it back, really, and reshaped the novel. I mean she modernized the novel single-handedly and before she was published.
WERTHEIMER: Modernized it how?
Ms. HARMAN: By making it shorter, more streamlined, funnier. She's such an intellectual and she's writing love stories, so you get a wonderful combination of very clear thinking, very astute analysis of society and of human nature. And her jokes are terribly funny.
WERTHEIMER: She was not writing about kidnappings and sword fights and...
(Soundbite of laughter)
WERTHEIMER: ...all the sort of romantic and gothic-ee(ph) stuff that was current when she was young.
Ms. HARMAN: No, she didnt put in scenes of high drama, anything unrealistic. She kept to simple storylines, three or four families in a country village, credible characters. I mean they step out of those books as if we know them from everyday life today. I mean they are so well observed in such enduring types.
WERTHEIMER: Jane Austen was reasonably successful even in her lifetime, and then she had a kind of a trough - a period where no one read her. And it began to look as though her books would just die with her.
The biography that was written by her nephew, that helped just sort of propel her into a wider readership.
Ms. HARMAN: Oh, yes, very much so. I mean that was really lighting the blue touch paper for Austen's fame, because it dealt almost exclusively with Jane Austen's supposedly meek and genteel personality and hardly anything about the books. Suddenly readers who were vaguely aware of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility" were made even more aware of them by this personality of the lovely aunt.
And James Edwards' memoir of his aunt made her into a sort of sentimental object. You know, and people loved her as a person and as a character, as well as the books and sometimes instead of the books.
WERTHEIMER: Do you think she really was like that, that sort of meek and mild and the dear aunt and the loving sister and so forth?
Ms. HARMAN: Well, she's certainly a loving sister and she was certainly a beloved aunt. But she wasnt necessarily a nice person at all. I mean there's really nothing in the letters to suggest anything other than a very sharp-witted and at times rather acid-tongued woman.
And, you know, the mind behind the novels could only be a very discerning, very critical mind. I mean she's - the famed irony of Austen's novels is really a way of saying that she was quite cynical and very worldly.
WERTHEIMER: You told me something that I had never heard before in this book, that Jane Austen had big fans in the trenches in the First World War - a sense of Austen and other literature of her period as a moment of escape.
Ms. HARMAN: Thats right. The 18th century novelists and writers were very popular in the trenches in the Great War. And yes, Austen was used in the fever chart that the War Office drew up to treat shell-shocked soldiers. She was put top of that chart, in terms of how therapeutic her works could be in a dire situation where a man was grievously wounded and needed to be read to. Austen's novels were thought to be the most comforting.
WERTHEIMER: I think there are a lot of people in the 21st century who feel that way about Jane Austen. Certainly I do. I have three of her books on my electronic reader for, you know, when things go horrible on me, I can sit down and read for a little while and calm down.
Ms. HARMAN: You know, when Im on an airplane, for instance, I always turn - if there's a Jane Austen adaptation, I will watch it for the Nth time because I always feel as if Im in mortal danger on an airplane and I want the reassurance of Austen or, you know, a similar writer and the comfort of that known thought.
And yet the wonderful thing about Austen is however many times you read those books, they're always surprising. I mean you know what the outcome of the plot is going to be, but she still manages through her shared skill to keep you in a state of suspense.
So you know, when you get near to the end of "Emma" you think, gosh, will Mr. Knightley actually propose?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. HARMAN: And it's absurd. Of course you know he's going to propose. What else is there to happen? It's Austen's amazing ability to be fresh every time you read her.
WERTHEIMER: In your account of Jane's fame, every time that her popularity seems to sag a bit, something saves her - well-timed biographies in the 19th century. And then maybe her biggest rescuer of all, the movies in the 20th century.
Ms. HARMAN: Certainly. Well, since the 1995 BBC film that really surprised everybody with its intense interest, great success, and nobody realized how that could be followed up by even more films, even more adaptations and riffs on them. You know, you had all those films like "Clueless" and "Bride and Prejudice." And you now have strange spin-offs like the zombies books last year, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."
Who would have thought that a book that contained 85 percent of Austen's text would sell so much more than a hundred percent of Austen's text? I mean it's really amazing.
WERTHEIMER: If Jane Austen were alive today, one thing she would be is stinking rich...
(Soundbite of laughter)
WERTHEIMER: ...from all of the rights to the movies and the books and whatnot.
Ms. HARMAN: Yeah.
WERTHEIMER: But do you think she would have had the faintest notion that all this could have happened?
Ms. HARMAN: Not in the slightest. Because Jane Austen's fame is disproportionate - I mean she's a genius but still her fame is disproportionate to anybody's genius. It has grown and it has moved away from the text. It occupies people's minds in ways that dont relate to the books but relate to fantasies and dreams around the books.
And she would have been quite appalled, I think, at even more fame than she had in her lifetime, which was little enough. She didnt want to be gawked at by neighbors who'd discovered she was an author. She wanted to maintain her integrity and her freedom to look at the world and be able to honestly say what she thought about it.
WERTHEIMER: Claire Harman's book is called "Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World."
Thank you very much.
Ms. HARMAN: Thank you.
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Biography Offers New Glimpses Of Jane Austen
March 25, 2010
It has been almost 200 years since Jane Austen's death but her books remain some of the most widely read in English literature. Claire Harman, author of the book Jane's Fame, about Austen's life, discusses her popularity.
Transcript:
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
Jane Austen has given us some our favorite love stories, movies and TV programs, and daydreams of characters like the rich and handsome Mr. Darcy. And quotations: It is a truth universally acknowledge that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a wife.
How did this spinster, born in 1775, who live most of her life in an English village, come to inhabit imaginations in the 21st century?
Claire Harman answers that question in her new book, "Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World."
For one thing, Claire Harman says, Jane Austen wrote in a completely new style.
Ms. CLAIRE HARMAN (Author): She really took out of the 18th century all the flimflam and the verbosity that had held it back, really, and reshaped the novel. I mean she modernized the novel single-handedly and before she was published.
WERTHEIMER: Modernized it how?
Ms. HARMAN: By making it shorter, more streamlined, funnier. She's such an intellectual and she's writing love stories, so you get a wonderful combination of very clear thinking, very astute analysis of society and of human nature. And her jokes are terribly funny.
WERTHEIMER: She was not writing about kidnappings and sword fights and...
(Soundbite of laughter)
WERTHEIMER: ...all the sort of romantic and gothic-ee(ph) stuff that was current when she was young.
Ms. HARMAN: No, she didnt put in scenes of high drama, anything unrealistic. She kept to simple storylines, three or four families in a country village, credible characters. I mean they step out of those books as if we know them from everyday life today. I mean they are so well observed in such enduring types.
WERTHEIMER: Jane Austen was reasonably successful even in her lifetime, and then she had a kind of a trough - a period where no one read her. And it began to look as though her books would just die with her.
The biography that was written by her nephew, that helped just sort of propel her into a wider readership.
Ms. HARMAN: Oh, yes, very much so. I mean that was really lighting the blue touch paper for Austen's fame, because it dealt almost exclusively with Jane Austen's supposedly meek and genteel personality and hardly anything about the books. Suddenly readers who were vaguely aware of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility" were made even more aware of them by this personality of the lovely aunt.
And James Edwards' memoir of his aunt made her into a sort of sentimental object. You know, and people loved her as a person and as a character, as well as the books and sometimes instead of the books.
WERTHEIMER: Do you think she really was like that, that sort of meek and mild and the dear aunt and the loving sister and so forth?
Ms. HARMAN: Well, she's certainly a loving sister and she was certainly a beloved aunt. But she wasnt necessarily a nice person at all. I mean there's really nothing in the letters to suggest anything other than a very sharp-witted and at times rather acid-tongued woman.
And, you know, the mind behind the novels could only be a very discerning, very critical mind. I mean she's - the famed irony of Austen's novels is really a way of saying that she was quite cynical and very worldly.
WERTHEIMER: You told me something that I had never heard before in this book, that Jane Austen had big fans in the trenches in the First World War - a sense of Austen and other literature of her period as a moment of escape.
Ms. HARMAN: Thats right. The 18th century novelists and writers were very popular in the trenches in the Great War. And yes, Austen was used in the fever chart that the War Office drew up to treat shell-shocked soldiers. She was put top of that chart, in terms of how therapeutic her works could be in a dire situation where a man was grievously wounded and needed to be read to. Austen's novels were thought to be the most comforting.
WERTHEIMER: I think there are a lot of people in the 21st century who feel that way about Jane Austen. Certainly I do. I have three of her books on my electronic reader for, you know, when things go horrible on me, I can sit down and read for a little while and calm down.
Ms. HARMAN: You know, when Im on an airplane, for instance, I always turn - if there's a Jane Austen adaptation, I will watch it for the Nth time because I always feel as if Im in mortal danger on an airplane and I want the reassurance of Austen or, you know, a similar writer and the comfort of that known thought.
And yet the wonderful thing about Austen is however many times you read those books, they're always surprising. I mean you know what the outcome of the plot is going to be, but she still manages through her shared skill to keep you in a state of suspense.
So you know, when you get near to the end of "Emma" you think, gosh, will Mr. Knightley actually propose?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. HARMAN: And it's absurd. Of course you know he's going to propose. What else is there to happen? It's Austen's amazing ability to be fresh every time you read her.
WERTHEIMER: In your account of Jane's fame, every time that her popularity seems to sag a bit, something saves her - well-timed biographies in the 19th century. And then maybe her biggest rescuer of all, the movies in the 20th century.
Ms. HARMAN: Certainly. Well, since the 1995 BBC film that really surprised everybody with its intense interest, great success, and nobody realized how that could be followed up by even more films, even more adaptations and riffs on them. You know, you had all those films like "Clueless" and "Bride and Prejudice." And you now have strange spin-offs like the zombies books last year, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."
Who would have thought that a book that contained 85 percent of Austen's text would sell so much more than a hundred percent of Austen's text? I mean it's really amazing.
WERTHEIMER: If Jane Austen were alive today, one thing she would be is stinking rich...
(Soundbite of laughter)
WERTHEIMER: ...from all of the rights to the movies and the books and whatnot.
Ms. HARMAN: Yeah.
WERTHEIMER: But do you think she would have had the faintest notion that all this could have happened?
Ms. HARMAN: Not in the slightest. Because Jane Austen's fame is disproportionate - I mean she's a genius but still her fame is disproportionate to anybody's genius. It has grown and it has moved away from the text. It occupies people's minds in ways that dont relate to the books but relate to fantasies and dreams around the books.
And she would have been quite appalled, I think, at even more fame than she had in her lifetime, which was little enough. She didnt want to be gawked at by neighbors who'd discovered she was an author. She wanted to maintain her integrity and her freedom to look at the world and be able to honestly say what she thought about it.
WERTHEIMER: Claire Harman's book is called "Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World."
Thank you very much.
Ms. HARMAN: Thank you.
Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Monday, April 20, 2009
More on Austen
I watched "Lost in Austen" over the weekend. I thought it was great fun. Some amazing plot twists occur when Lizzie Bennet isn't around to keep things on track. Unfortunately, the Darcy character was really nasty to 21st century Amanda Price - who ended up swapping places with Elizabeth Bennet, much to Amanda's chagrin. If I'd been Amanda and Darcy said some of those things to me he said to her, he'd be stooped over permanently from a damaged scrotum. That they fall in love is absolutely improbable; no one could ever love this Darcy. He was gorgeous in a wet shirt, though.
I see a new review too, by Mark Bostridge (Literary Review) on yet another Austen-related book: AUSTENMANIA
Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World By Claire Harman (Canongate 342pp £20)
Friday, April 3, 2009
Lost in Austen
Ohmygoddess! I had no idea this book and movie existed until a week or so ago, when I happened to come across a reference to it while I was hunting out things to blog about here.
Three or four nights ago, I did a search at You Tube, not knowing if I'd find anything, and found it! Unfortunately, it's totally disjointed and you have to click here and then there to try and piece it all together, and I did not succeed in doing that, watching 30 second snippets from several different sources, it was horrid - but what I did manage to view was absolutely SO FAB and it whetted my appetite for more.
I enjoyed "Pride and Prejudice" (the 1940, 1996 and 2006 versions) and Bollywood's take-off, "Bride and Prejudice," in fact, when I feel a need to cheer myself up I play the "Bride and Prejudice" DVD and dance all around the family room. It never fails to bring a smile to my face, especially remembering the summer of 2007 during Isis and Michelle's visit when we all entertained dondelion, who was regally stretched out on the sofa like some grey-goateed raja, with our energetic if inexpert dancing to the Indian rock-and-roll rythyms pulsing from the DVD. I have a feeling that "Lost in Austen" will do the same to lift my sagging spirts during this never-ending winter.
So tonight I'm pre-ordering the DVD from Amazon.com - it's due for release on April 14th. Oh, I can hardly wait!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Oh Jane! Is Nothing Sacred?
Good Goddess! What next? Lassie goes Cujo??? (Image [not from article]: Alleged portrait of Jane Austen circa 1815).
From The New York Times Art Beat
February 17, 2009, 11:31 am
Austen Meets Alien in ‘Pride and Predator’
By Dave Itzkoff
For some viewers, the idea of another Jane Austen-inspired period drama is sufficiently monstrous, but a coming film project seeks to update the formula with actual monsters, Variety reported.
The movie “Pride and Predator,” directed by Will Clark and written by Mr. Clark with Andrew Kemble and John Pape, will juxtapose brooding aristocrats with a brutal alien that lands in 1800s-era Britain, attacking residents and leaving them with neither sense nor sensibility.
The film, to be produced by Elton John’s Rocket Pictures, is the latest work to mix the hoary costume genre with elements of horror. A book called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” credited to Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith and published by Quirk Books, will combine the Austen novel with “all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.”
And a coming novel by Michael Thomas Ford called “Jane Bites Back” depicts the 19th-century author as a frustrated vampire, taking revenge on those who have made money from her work.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Jane, Jane, Jane
Is this a portrait of Jane Austen? If so, it was taken just a few years before her death at age 43 in 1817.
I like this Jane - she's fashionably dressed and flirtatious - perhaps a likeness taken by someone with a crush on a middle-aged Jane??? I believe it's Jane because the "nose" is there, and those "fine eyes." Even in this miniature, her personality comes sparkling through.
This is the very important, recently recognised, 19th Century Portrait of Jane Austen, painted in 1815 and discovered in the exceptional "Liber Amicorum" (Friendship Book) belonging to the Rev. James Stanier Clarke, the Librarian of the Prince Regent (later King George IV of Great Britain and Ireland). Clarke was a competent, if amateur, watercolourist whom Jane Austen acknowledged as her friend in the last letter she wrote to him in 1816. Detailed and solid evidence of the Book and the Watercolour has been published in "James Stanier Clarke and his Watercolour Portrait of Jane Austen" by Richard James Wheeler and is available.
Jane Austen's First Love?
As per other events (real and imaginary) in Jane Austen's life, her relationship - or lack thereof - with one Tom Lefroy has lead to thousands upon thousands of words being written. Me - I'm a sucker for a sob story...
From The Times
June 11, 2008
Tom Lefroy, the real-life inspiration behind Darcy
Carol Midgley: Wednesday profile
“Skinny geek”. “Pale wimp”. “Wispy-haired girlie”. Thank goodness none of these could apply to that rugged hero of many a female fantasy - Mr Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice, eh? When Colin Firth emerged dripping from a lake in the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, a nation of women swooned that, yes, that is exactly how we'd imagined Darcy to look. As the novel says, he was a “fine, tall person”, with “handsome features” and “noble mien” and a sexy swagger of superiority.
But, oh dear, look what's happened. A 3in watercolour of Thomas Langlois Lefroy, the man thought to be the real-life inspiration behind Darcy, has just been made public and - how can we put this kindly? - we doubt that he'll be setting many hearts a-flutter. Though Lefroy, an Irish-born politician and judge who had enjoyed a flirtation in his early twenties with Austen, has a perfectly pleasant face in the picture; there's just no way that he has a six-pack. His features are so delicate that he looks like he might even weigh less than Elizabeth Bennet. Less sex god, more Lib Dem MP.
The portrait, painted by the English miniaturist George Engleheart in 1798 two years after Lefroy and Austen were forced to part because his family didn't consider her to be marriage material, will be on sale at the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair next week with an asking price of £50,000. It is one of only two portraits of Lefroy known to exist. Austen was a rector's daughter and still 13 years away from her first success, Sense And Sensibility, so didn't fit the bill.
Lefroy later described his feelings for her as “boyish love”. Just before they separated Austen wrote: “At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy... My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.” Three years later Lefroy married the heiress Mary Paul and had a successful legal career, becoming chief justice of Ireland and dying at 93. He named his eldest daughter Jane - scant compensation for Austen, who never married.
As for the rest of us, they say you should never get too close to your heroes. Sweet-faced Lefroy may prove the point.
**********************************************************************************
There was one comment made on the story at the time I read it (earlier this evening):
Er - should a 19 year old Georgian-era Irish boy look like a 1990's 30+ Colin Firth? Tom Lefroy's first daughter was called Mary. There are at least 4 other paintings of him in existence, one in a very prominent place in UK law, and 2 marble busts, one on very prominent show in an Irish University.
Edward Lefroy, Marazion, UK
If this isn't a novel, it should be! Is this "Edward Lefroy" real - and if so, is he a descendant of THE Tom Lefroy??? And what's this about Tom Lefroy's oldest daughter being named Mary? So her name was actually MARY CHRISTMAS LEFROY? Oh Please - even the most idiotic parents would not do that to a kid, would they? On the other hand, that may be why reports say she never married...
According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, everyone says Wiki entries should be taken with a grain of salt, but for my part, every single one of the entries I've ever checked in my admittedly obscure searches for information has - upon subsequent research - turned out to be accurate! So please, give Wiki a break, okay?) Tom Lefroy's oldest daughter was named Jane Christmas Lefroy, although she was most likely named after Tom's rich's wife's mother - a happy coincidence shall we say...
Unlike in novels, people don't die of broken hearts. Instead, they suck it up and carry on, because life is to be lived, unless one commits suicide. To put it bluntly, we continue to eat, poop and sleep day in and day out, and unless one is born independently wealthy, after a certain age we all have to make a living. A sad fact of life, not the stuff of romantic melodrama, perhaps, but true nonetheless. I love a sob story as much as anyone, but in the cold hard light of tomorrow morning, when I have to get up, scrub up, feed my critters and head off to the office on a foul, filthy, over-crowded bus, any "romance" in my soul goes temporarily underground, so to speak. Otherwise, one would never be able to give an "EXCUSE me" elbow in the ribs to an obnoxious hip-hopper as one is squeezing off the rear exit. As a woman of a "certain age," I can now get away with that now, tee hee. One of my life's little joys...
So, what about Tom? Of COURSE The Times did NOT publish the portrait of the wimpy 19 year old Tom Lefroy. However, Wiki did have a portrait of a very distinguished looking Tom at age 79 (if the caption is to be believed, as it was said to have been painted in 1855, and he died at age 93 in 1869). He's a handsome man, given his age - and sure doesn't look like 79 - at least, not what I'm certain 79 would have looked like 150 years ago! So perhaps the portrait artist was just a "wee bit kind" as the saying goes. He's a handsome man, nonetheless. Ditch the wig and put the dude in a 21st century Wall Street suit and he'd fit right in - he's got a modern-looking face and, obviously, while he lived, he had an eye to the main event...
Added at 8:45 p.m. What ho! I have found an image of the young Tom Lefroy. I don't think he looks wimpy at all, not according to the fashion of the times. The eyes and eybrows, especially, are quite sexy. Sort of reminds me of a man I had the hots for back in the 1980's -
From The Times
June 11, 2008
Tom Lefroy, the real-life inspiration behind Darcy
Carol Midgley: Wednesday profile
“Skinny geek”. “Pale wimp”. “Wispy-haired girlie”. Thank goodness none of these could apply to that rugged hero of many a female fantasy - Mr Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice, eh? When Colin Firth emerged dripping from a lake in the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, a nation of women swooned that, yes, that is exactly how we'd imagined Darcy to look. As the novel says, he was a “fine, tall person”, with “handsome features” and “noble mien” and a sexy swagger of superiority.
But, oh dear, look what's happened. A 3in watercolour of Thomas Langlois Lefroy, the man thought to be the real-life inspiration behind Darcy, has just been made public and - how can we put this kindly? - we doubt that he'll be setting many hearts a-flutter. Though Lefroy, an Irish-born politician and judge who had enjoyed a flirtation in his early twenties with Austen, has a perfectly pleasant face in the picture; there's just no way that he has a six-pack. His features are so delicate that he looks like he might even weigh less than Elizabeth Bennet. Less sex god, more Lib Dem MP.
The portrait, painted by the English miniaturist George Engleheart in 1798 two years after Lefroy and Austen were forced to part because his family didn't consider her to be marriage material, will be on sale at the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair next week with an asking price of £50,000. It is one of only two portraits of Lefroy known to exist. Austen was a rector's daughter and still 13 years away from her first success, Sense And Sensibility, so didn't fit the bill.
Lefroy later described his feelings for her as “boyish love”. Just before they separated Austen wrote: “At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy... My tears flow as I write at the melancholy idea.” Three years later Lefroy married the heiress Mary Paul and had a successful legal career, becoming chief justice of Ireland and dying at 93. He named his eldest daughter Jane - scant compensation for Austen, who never married.
As for the rest of us, they say you should never get too close to your heroes. Sweet-faced Lefroy may prove the point.
**********************************************************************************
There was one comment made on the story at the time I read it (earlier this evening):
Er - should a 19 year old Georgian-era Irish boy look like a 1990's 30+ Colin Firth? Tom Lefroy's first daughter was called Mary. There are at least 4 other paintings of him in existence, one in a very prominent place in UK law, and 2 marble busts, one on very prominent show in an Irish University.
Edward Lefroy, Marazion, UK
If this isn't a novel, it should be! Is this "Edward Lefroy" real - and if so, is he a descendant of THE Tom Lefroy??? And what's this about Tom Lefroy's oldest daughter being named Mary? So her name was actually MARY CHRISTMAS LEFROY? Oh Please - even the most idiotic parents would not do that to a kid, would they? On the other hand, that may be why reports say she never married...
According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know, everyone says Wiki entries should be taken with a grain of salt, but for my part, every single one of the entries I've ever checked in my admittedly obscure searches for information has - upon subsequent research - turned out to be accurate! So please, give Wiki a break, okay?) Tom Lefroy's oldest daughter was named Jane Christmas Lefroy, although she was most likely named after Tom's rich's wife's mother - a happy coincidence shall we say...
Unlike in novels, people don't die of broken hearts. Instead, they suck it up and carry on, because life is to be lived, unless one commits suicide. To put it bluntly, we continue to eat, poop and sleep day in and day out, and unless one is born independently wealthy, after a certain age we all have to make a living. A sad fact of life, not the stuff of romantic melodrama, perhaps, but true nonetheless. I love a sob story as much as anyone, but in the cold hard light of tomorrow morning, when I have to get up, scrub up, feed my critters and head off to the office on a foul, filthy, over-crowded bus, any "romance" in my soul goes temporarily underground, so to speak. Otherwise, one would never be able to give an "EXCUSE me" elbow in the ribs to an obnoxious hip-hopper as one is squeezing off the rear exit. As a woman of a "certain age," I can now get away with that now, tee hee. One of my life's little joys...
So, what about Tom? Of COURSE The Times did NOT publish the portrait of the wimpy 19 year old Tom Lefroy. However, Wiki did have a portrait of a very distinguished looking Tom at age 79 (if the caption is to be believed, as it was said to have been painted in 1855, and he died at age 93 in 1869). He's a handsome man, given his age - and sure doesn't look like 79 - at least, not what I'm certain 79 would have looked like 150 years ago! So perhaps the portrait artist was just a "wee bit kind" as the saying goes. He's a handsome man, nonetheless. Ditch the wig and put the dude in a 21st century Wall Street suit and he'd fit right in - he's got a modern-looking face and, obviously, while he lived, he had an eye to the main event...
Added at 8:45 p.m. What ho! I have found an image of the young Tom Lefroy. I don't think he looks wimpy at all, not according to the fashion of the times. The eyes and eybrows, especially, are quite sexy. Sort of reminds me of a man I had the hots for back in the 1980's -
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