In Minneapolis, fictional home to The Mary Tyler Moore Show...
...we celebrated the 200th anniversary of another spunky heroine, Elizabeth Bennet! Nicely illustrating the mingling of the Regency era with the 21st century, here's NY Metro Co-Regional Coordinator (and my roommate) Meg Levin against the Minneapolis skyline.
The "Meryton Market" Emporium was of course a beehive of activity throughout the AGM. Here, the hard-working staff of Jane Austen Books rings up an early transaction.
An outstanding feature of this AGM was the "Regency Room," containing an exhibition of costumes from the Guthrie Theater's recent production of P&P plus a dazzling array of items from author and Minnesota Region member Candice Hern's collection of Regency-era magazines, fashion prints, and other artifacts. Below, a few of Hern's reticules, purses, and other "beautiful ornaments" that would have made Lydia Bennet "quite wild"!
Two of the Guthrie's costumes, along with a display of items from Hern's collection relating to the 1817 death and funeral of the Prince Regent's only daughter, Princess Charlotte. (For more information about Charlotte, go here for your RC's Persuasions On-Line paper about the Prince Regent, "Sex, Power, and Other People's Money.")
The author signing on Friday evening was another highlight. Plenary speaker John Mullan could hardly keep up with the demand for his book What Matters in Jane Austen?.
Good friends at the authors' tables included Susan Allen Ford, editor of Persuasions and Persuasions On-Line, who wrote the introduction to Chawton House Library's republication of Dr. James Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women...
...and Kathleen Anderson (left) and Susan Jones, Co-RCs for the South Florida Region and authors of Jane Austen's Guide to Thrift.
The banquet and ball on Saturday night included a number of celebrities! While your RC had a chat with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II...
...we were also honored with the presence of "Dr. and Mrs. James Fordyce"...
...and the Regency-era traveler "Lady Hester Stanhope" (who had obviously just returned from the Middle East)!
Two Janeites who would be celebrities at any AGM: Former Syracuse Region member and present NY Capital Region member Diane Levine greets the one and only Baronda Bradley of North Texas. Baronda's ball costume--a show-stopper as usual--harks back to 1775, the year of Jane Austen's birth.
The AGM closed with a panel presentation at Sunday brunch highlighting another meeting between the Regency era and the 21st century: the YouTube sensation The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Your RC was unfortunately too far from the dais to get a good photo of the panelists, Bernie Su, Kate Rorick, and Jenni Powell, but here's a slide from the presentation.
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