Happy 239th Birthday, Jane Austen!

Your Regional Coordinator writes:

First, a very happy birthday to Our Author!! At age 239, Jane Austen just keeps getting better and better. The photo above shows the birthday cake served last Saturday at JASNA Rochester’s birthday luncheon. (And the cookies shared by JASNA Syracuse and the JABC-CNY on Saturday the 6th in Hamilton were excellent as well!)

Second, the annual JA’s birthday gift from JASNA to the world--the new issue of JASNA’s electronic journal, Persuasions On-Line--is now available at this link (http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol35no1/toc.html). 

The “Annual General Meeting 2014” section contains many of the papers on Mansfield Park that were presented in Montreal this past October, including my own “Fanny Price as Fordyce’s Ideal Woman? And Why?” Whether or not you were able to attend the Montreal AGM, you should enjoy the papers in this section.

The “Miscellany” section includes a rich variety of papers on other Austen-related topics. For instance, Natalie Walshe’s “The Importance of Servants in Jane Austen’s Novels” relates directly to our All Hallows discussion in Binghamton in November. And Montreal AGM Coordinator Elaine Bander’s “Fanny Price and Lord Nelson” compares MP’s “creepmouse” heroine to England’s (and Syracuse/Rochester Co-RC Lisa Brown’s) great naval hero!

As always, JASNA and its members owe a huge debt of thanks to Susan Allen Ford and the Persuasions editorial board for all the work they do on JASNA’s journals (and to Carol Moss, JASNA’s webmistress, for her help with Persuasions On-Line). I was very proud to have Susan (at right in the photo below) introduce my breakout in Montreal; indeed, without the work she did on the Chawton House Press republication of Dr. James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women, I wouldn’t have had a breakout to present! And Susan’s own Montreal paper on another conduct book, “‘Assisting the Improvement of Her Mind’: Chapone’s Letters as Guide to Mansfield Park,” also appears in this issue of Persuasions On-Line.

Nervous presenter and calm introducer: A. Marie Sprayberry and Susan Allen Ford.