Those virtues were not of the dazzling kind;

But deep and solid as the golden mine;

His dress was simple and his manners plain;

Frugal, without a sordid love of gain;

Unalterably just, but not severe;

His temper steady and his judgment clear;

With courage still th’ oppressed to defend,

He always prov’d himself the poor man’s friend,

According to this rule, I saw him live;

His left hand knew not what his right hand gave,

He never deem’d it courage to blaspheme

Nor madly sport with the Eternal name,

But to his maker, daily homage paid

With decent reverence and without parade.

His genius – but I must myself command

Nor speak of what I do not understand:

But well I know the sciences he loved,

And many a youth his lessons have improv’d.

He in his fam’ly had the happy art

Without constraint to reign in every heart,

His wife and children on his will could rest

And thought whate’er he did or said was best.

His modest merit general notice drew,

His friends were num’rous and his foes were few.

Such was your father; strive to be the same,

Copy his virtues, and deserve his name.

Is it possible to identify Saunders – or to conclude that he was, indeed, “fabulous” (in the sense of “mythical” or “unreal”) – from the tone of Letter #44? Probably not. The letter is written in a breezy style and peppered with the sort of Austen drollery that might suggest a similarity between the “famous Saunders” and his letters to other excessively diverting fare that Austen frequently enjoyed – something in the vein of The Heroine or The Female Quixote. However, it’s helpful to remember that Austen’s reading material was not confined to burlesque novels; it includes works on military institutions, the slave trade, foreign travel and Sherlock’s sermons. If Austen’s literary taste is the indicator, “Saunders” is as likely to be the author of a comic romance as a volume of theological essays.

Back to square one. What epistolary “Saunders” would have come to Austen’s attention around 1805?

In 1794, the playwright, poet and Christian ethicist, Hannah More, proposed that a series of morality tales should be published, with the intention of counteracting the flow of lurid penny literature aimed at the lower classes. At a gathering of potential supporters, More asked a guest to read a story that she had written as a sample of the sort of tale she would like to see published. That story, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, recounts a meeting and dialogue between a gentleman, Mr. Johnson, and a humble shepherd. The shepherd, living in a rural hut, with a number of children, an ailing wife, threadbare clothes and little to eat, is nonetheless cheerful, faithful and trusting in divine providence, the embodiment of the simple “cottage piety” that

1794

More wanted to represent in her proposed project. The reading was a success, and More began to plan for the writing,

1871

publication and distribution of a number of simple stories illustrating the consequences of sin, and the virtues of godliness. These works – Cheap Repository Tracts – were published and distributed from mid 1795 to the end of 1797,  with The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain being among the first to be issued. The circulation was about two million copies per year, and when More, who was writing at least half of the material, was unable to continue the effort, the Cheap Repository Tracts offered very little new material, relying upon reprints and repackaging of previously published work. While many of the tales were forgotten, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain was frequently reprinted, increased in popularity and continued to appear in collections and as an individual pamphlet, for nearly a hundred years after its initial publication.

What is the link between Austen’s April, 1805 letter and the “fabulous” Saunders?”

In January, 1805, a few months before Austen’s “Saunders” comment, The Evangelical Magazine, published an article titled A Short Memoir of the Late David Saunders, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. This article served as a reminder to readers that More’s still-popular story, which had rarely been out of print since its first appearance ten years earlier, had been based on an actual encounter: “Mr. Johnson” was More’s friend, the Reverend James (later Sir James) Stonhouse and the nameless title character was the Wiltshire shepherd and “cottage preacher”, David Saunders.

Saunders, born in 1717, though a simple country shepherd, was renowned for his thorough knowledge of Scripture and pious life. He worked as a shepherd for thirty years, and was also an unofficial clergyman, preaching and holding prayer meetings at his cottage. When infirmity and blindness compelled him to retire, he was supported by his neighbors, and also by Stonhouse who remained a lifelong friend. Throughout his life, Saunders enjoyed a reputation for his humility, Christian faith and self-discipline, but it was More’s tract gave him renown. When a grave stone was placed at his burial site some thirty years after his death (in 1796), part of the inscription read: Known through every quarter of the globe, under the pious appellation of The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain whose little history has now been read with admiration by multitudes of Christians in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

By April, 1805, More’s tract had been frequently reprinted, in editions that often supplemented the text with biographies of Saunders and copies of his letters. Austen would certainly have heard of him and would have had reason to believe that Mr. Hampson’s friend was a Saunders relation, as the shepherd and his wife had sixteen children. The only remaining puzzle is the plural, letters in Austen’s “…whose letters have lately been published.” I could only find a single letter of Saunders’ that was published prior to 1805; it appeared in an 1803 issue of The Evangelical Magazine. it was not until 1806 that any publication advertised itself as ‪The True History of David Saunders, the Pious Shepherd of Salisbury Plain‬: ‪To which are Added, Some of His Letters, Never Before Printed‬.

If you are thinking about writing a sequel, adaptation, or new novel featuring a minor Austen character as Austen might have done, it helps to decipher how Austen writes. It is more than a matter of knowing the period – in fact, knowing the period may be least important component. After all, Jane Austen did not write historical novels, she wrote contemporary novels, so it really is not important for an adaptive writer to explain how an entail works or the color of someone’s barouche. Writing like someone else can be tricky; if you have ever seen an impressionist, the good ones do more than getting the voice right – they get the inflection, the cadence, the body language. There is a book called What Jane Austen Ate, and What Charles Dickens Knew; to write like Austen, you have to grasp, not merely what Austen ate or knew, but what Austen did, not only regarding setting and  social order, but what techniques she employed as a narrator and wordsmith.

It helps (that is, it helped us in writing Lady Vernon and Her Daughter, and with our current project), to have a few key volumes on the Austen shelf (or shelves) in your home library. A few may be taken for granted – Deirdre LeFaye’s Jane Austen’s Letters, and perhaps something like LeFaye’s  Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. You may pick up an annotated book, or James Edward Austen-Leigh’s A Memoir of Jane Austen or something fun like So You Think You Know Jane Austen?, and of course you have all of Austen’s fiction. Here are a few more that I think would be excellent additions to the Austen writer’s library.

I would consider Mary Lascelles’ Jane Austen and Her Art (Clarendon Press, 1939) to be an essential. Lascelles begins with a brief bio of Austen and the evolution of her literary taste, and then goes into a very clear study of Austen’s narrative style, with wonderful kernels of observation, such as Austen’s suggesting of her characters’ social variants in syntax and phrasing rather than vocabulary when they speak, or the pithy observation that a literary strategy – “What a young woman needs if she is to become a heroine of fiction is a little neglect and ill usage” – may have been extracted from experience. Of course some rules are meant to be broken and in Lady Vernon we did depart from two of Lascelles’ observations: that the marriage proposal of a lover is never verbally expressed (Mr. Collins doesn’t count; he cannot be considered an authentic lover); and a conversation exclusively between gentlemen (with a lady participating or at least being in the room), does not occur.

I had once remarked to an editor that Austen’s novels come down to two interconnected issues: marriage and money.  Except for Emma Woodhouse, none of Austen’s heroines are so well off or well connected that they can anticipate “marrying up”; a number of siblings, a neglectful or imprudent father, a reversal of fortune threaten to keep many of Austen’s heroines from that “… pleasantest preservative from want” and “…the only honorable provision” for a gentlewoman of modest means, which marriage certainly was. How a marriage was contracted, how a wife, a widow and children were provided for was as inextricably linked to material assets as to personal ones. It’s helpful to understand what Mrs. Bennet means when she exclaims “What pin money…” Lizzy will have, or how Mrs. Jennings comes by her jointure. Amy Louise Erickson’s Woman and Property in Early Modern England (Routledge, 1993) takes the reader only to the early 18^th century, but otherwise is a very clear, and clearly documented, study of women’s rights to ownership of money and property as unmarried women, as wives and as widows, and the precise meaning of terms like “dower” and “settlement”, with some interesting case studies. As a counterpart, Susan Staves’ Married Women’s Separate Property in England, 1660-1833, studies four categories of women’s property: dower; jointure; separate property and pin money; allowance for maintenance.

A profession common to Austen’s novels was one with which she was personally familiar: the country clergyman. The church may be the profession of choice for the hero – Edmund Bertram, Henry Tilney – or it may be the comfortable resort of the self-important and the ambitious – Mr. Elton or Mr. Collins – or it may be the prospect of securing nothing better than the lowly curacy, which limits the aspirations of a young man like Charles Hayter or Edward Ferrars. If you are writing Austen, it does help to be somewhat familiar with what livings were (and when they provided enough to live on) as well as what a clergyman’s obligations were to his patron and his parish. Irene Collins’ Jane Austen and the Clergy (Hambledon and London, 2002) takes the reader through the education, obligations and living situations of the country clergyman and links what Austen must have observed: that the English clergy represented a variety of individuals, from those who were genuinely called to the vocation to those who did not have the talent or ambition to distinguish themselves in the military or the law. There is even the suggestion that those clergymen who are particularly animated – Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton – may have been so well-drawn because Austen saw them as a more accurate representation of the clergyman’s covetousness for a good living; even in Persuasion, there are schemes to oust poor Dr. Shirley, who has “zealously” discharged his duties for more than forty years, from his post in order to free up the Uppercross parish.

Among my favorite books about Austen’s work is Peter J. Leithart’s Miniatures and Morals; The Christian Novels of Jane Austen (Canon Press, 2004). (Chapter One is titled: Real Men Read Austen. What’s not to love?) Leithart describes the “miniaturist” nature of Austen’s writing, proclaiming that “…she does more with less than any other writer in English.” Like Lascelles, Leithart observes the relationship between syntax and character in Austen’s dialogue. Unlike Lascelles, Leithart defends the theory that Austen’s Christian morality is the underpinning of her narrative style; he even concludes that Austen is “a humorist because she is a moralist”, noting that, like Elizabeth Bennet, Austen “never mocks what is genuinely good.” After the initial introduction to Leithart’s analysis of Austen’s style, a chapter is devoted to each of her major novels in relation to the moral principles that determine not only the content, but literary style: morals and manners in Pride and Prejudice, charity in Emma, restraint in Sense and Sensibility and so on. Beyond Leithart’s cogent, and good-humored, analysis of Austen’s novels, is a well-organized format with each chapter beginning with a synopsis and ending with both “review questions” and “thought questions”. Not only should this be an essential on every Austen writer’s shelf, it would be an excellent text for an upper high school study of Austen’s work.

So, if you’re writing an Austenesque work, what books do you keep on the Austen section of your shelves?

Stolen Magic, the third novel in Stephanie Burgis’ infectiously adorable Kat Stephenson trilogy is out today!  I am heading out to the various bookwilds of NYC to see which lucky store is going to get my money, and I highly encourage you to do the same. (With your local bookstores, that is.  You don’t have to head up to NYC.)  I am so excited that this book is finally out, I think I will have to invent a new word for how I’m feeling.  ’Exhubergast,’ I’m thinking.

Sequels are tricky things. Can you recapture the magic of the original while telling an entirely new story? Can you satisfy both your old readers without losing your new ones? Should you have that Babysitters Club second chapter where they explain that Kristy came up with the idea but they hold meetings in Claudia’s room because she’s the only one with a private phone line? Or is that going to get really old around the tenth book, when the Pikes take Stacey and Mary Anne to the shore to help out with their annual vacation?

Happily, this is not a problem for Burgis, as Renegade Magic, the second book in Stephanie Burgis’ phenomenal Kat Stephenson trilogy, is every bit as fun as it’s predecessor.  And, happily for both me and the Universe (though not so happily that we won’t be sending that memo), I learned of Renegade Magic immediately after learning of Kat, Incorrigible, so there was none of this ‘being oblivious for a year’ nonsense to make me feel like an idiot. So I was able to put down #1 and pick up #2 immediately.  Which is a wonderful thing, because it is Completely Awesome.

How? (you ask.)  Well, let me give you a few reasons…

1) The cover. Now, I know the cover is not something the author ultimately has control over, but I do feel like I have to pause to point out how completely in love with I am all of the Magic covers.  As you saw above the cut, Renegade Magic follows the tradition started in Kat, Incorrigible by have the most wonderful cover. Seriously – can we talk about how scrumptious these things are? I really have to hand it to the people in the Art Department at Athenum — these things really are fabulous. They’re not just fun and beautiful and have all of those delicious colors that just pop on the bookshelves, they really capture the feel of the books (at least for me).

Seriously – just look at them!

2) Elissa’s Wedding. So, um, spoilers, I guess? (Sort of.)  (Not really.) The book starts out well for all the characters, with Kat’s oldest sister, Elissa, looking forward to her impending wedding, and Angeline and Frederick “The Smolder” Carlyle having worked things out (if unofficially). The lead-up to the wedding, in particularly the three sisters getting ready and heading to the church, is beautiful and a little heart-breaking and one of my favorite parts of the book. There’s about a page or so where Burgis’ describes Kat’s feelings as they’re preparing for the wedding and heading to the church is so bittersweet it made my heart ache. We see how Elissa is lovely and glowing and happy, and Angeline is helping her, and Kat is simply watching them, trying to process it all. After all, they didn’t have phones or airplanes or even Twitter, so Elissa’s marriage means all of their lives are going to change. She’s not going to be there in the morning when Kate wakes up, and while it’s not like they’re never going to see her again, it does mean there’s going to be long and frequent times when they don’t see her. It’s a lovely piece of writing, and actually had me tearing up —

— and then takes a complete U-turn just as the wedding starts into completely Crazyville. If you remember from the first book, Frederick abandoned his studies at Oxford to trek across country after Angeline cast a spell for her One True Love. (He was a bit of a googily-eyed doofus at first, but he got better.) He stayed on at the Stephensons’, ostensibly to study the classics with Mr. Stephenson but mostly so he and Angeline can make smoldering googily-eyes at each other. Apparently word got back to Mama Carlyle, and she is not happy about it because she bursts into the middle of the wedding, determined to prevent her son from making a huge mistake. Not only is she certain that Miss Angeline must have used her arts and allurements to draw her precious darling in, but she has been informed by reputable sources that Angeline’s mother was a witch. Frederick might as well have announced that he was marrying a milkmaid.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the ‘reputable source’ was Lady Fotherington. You know, the woman who is both a reputable member of the ton and a Guardian, and who’s antagonism towards the late Mrs. Stephenson seems to have no limits, not even death. (Mrs. Stephenson’s death, that is; Lady Fotherington is fully alive and kicking, even after Kat punched her in the face. Which was awesome.)

This kicks of a good half of the book’s action, as, since Mama Carlyle threatens to tie Frederick’s fortune up in knots so he’ll be dependent on her forever (he’s not technically of-age yet, unfortunately) and drags him out of Dodge. As you can guess, this causes Problems.

3) Kat’s Stepmama. One of the things I love about Burgis’ writing is that no character is just flat (well, except for Frederick’s mom, who appears to be just flat-out crazy). And my favorite example of this is the 2nd Mrs. Stephenson, or Stepmama, as she’s known to the Stephenson children. Kat and Angeline make no secret of the fact that they don’t like their Stepmama. (Elissa tries to be nice, and Charles is usually asleep.) And Stepmama isn’t exactly subtle with her rather intense focus on making sure that all the girls have eligible matches. (She’s not too keen on the ‘witch’ thing, either.) In fact, her marriage machinations kicked off a lot of the action in the first book, with her attempts to snap up Lord “Please Ignore The Rumors About My First Wife’s Mysterious Death” Neville for Elissa. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler if I tell you that everything worked out in the end, and neither will you be surprised, I think, if I tell you that Stepmama’s marriage plots jumpstart a lot of the action in Renegade as well. You see, Stepmama doesn’t exactly react well to the Angeline/Frederick drama at Elissa’s wedding. She and Angeline have a nasty habit of setting each other off, actually, and Stepmama reacts to Angeline’s less-than-stellar behavior and her canceled ‘understanding’ with Frederick by dragging everyone to Bath to stay with her cousins. The plan is to foist Angeline on Bath society so that she can find a husband — any husband — under threat of not being ejected from the Stephenson family if she doesn’t. Angeline, who has a bit of a temper and, like Kat, a tendency for mad schemes, immediately concocts a plan to set up a scandalous flirtation with the most scandalous man she can find (in this case it’s one Lord Scarwood), and make herself so notorious that nobody will want to marry her — thereby buying herself and Frederick some time to deal with his insane mother.

Of course, she doesn’t actually tell Frederick about these plans…

This, obviously, causes problems. Well, both the the Scarwood thing and the witchcraft thing causes problems, particularly between Kat’s Stepmama and her cousins. Which leads to a truly awesome moment, because no matter how much antagonism there may be between the second Mrs. Stephenson and her step-daughters, when it comes down to it, their Stepmama will go to the wall for them. We see this a bit in Kat, Incorrigible, but even more so and more awesomely in Renegade. when Stepmama’s cousin starts laying into Kat for getting her dear, sweet baby girl involved in magic. Stepmama steps up and totally throws down. And it is Awesome.

4) Charles. You know who we haven’t seen much of? Charles. That’s right, Kat’s brother, who was sent down from school and who spent most of the first book sleeping. One nice thing Stephanie does is focus on different Stephenson siblings; it gives Renegade Magic a nice balance between old and new, as these are characters we’ve seen before, but not this much or in this way. Incorrigible was mostly about the problem of Elissa’s marriage (namely whether or not there would be one, and who exactly it would be to), with quite a lot of Angeline as well. Now, in Renegade, there’s a good deal of Angeline, with Charles thrown in for good measure. There’s a really nice Charles moment (right after Stepmama’s Moment of Awesome, as a matter of fact) when he faces down Lady Fotherington, who is once again demonstrating the many and various ways she can insult the Stephenson women, and more or less shows her to the door.

Charles also stumbles into quite a bit of trouble while they’re in Bath and Kat has to extricate him. You see, the Angeline/Frederick drama is only part of the story. The other part? Well, it seems there are some nefarious magical doings going down in Bath. Fortunately, Kat is there to find out what’s happening and fix things. (As with the previous book, Kat Does Things, and it is still awesome.) Unfortunately, Kat’s not in the ideal situation to do anything as she’s been kicked out of the Guardians. You know, those select ultra-magical people who are charged with the protection and care of England? The very important position and power that Kat inherited from her Mama? Yeah, that’s gone now. You see, shortly after the circus that was Elissa’s wedding, Kat had a bit of a face-to-face with the ever-delightful Lady Fotherington about 1) ruining her sister’s wedding, 2) ruining her other sister’s unofficial engagement, and 3) continuing with the insults to her dead mother. (You’d think among the many, many rules of conduct governing one’s behavior, not insulting someone’s dead parent would be right at the top of the list.) Unfortunately, Kat has this confrontation right in front of Lord Ravenscroft, the head of the Guardians, who has the ability to boot her out of the Guardians, and who carries around canary yellow handkerchiefs, which should tell you a lot about him right there. Plus he’s not above tormenting a little girl. So there’s that.

Kat’s eviction means she can no longer access Guardian HQ, nor be tutored by the kindly if slightly stuffy Mr. Gregson. Without proper instruction, she’s never going to be able to develop her powers, which means all she has to help her find out what, exactly, is up with all those strange things going on in the Roman Baths are the few spells she’s already learned, and Lucy.

Oh, that’s right.

5) Lucy. As in Lucy Wingate, second and youngest daughter of Mrs. Wingate, Stepmama’s cousin. Mrs. Wingate and her older daughter, Maria, are rather nasty pieces, but Lucy is so completely adorable. She latches onto Kat almost from the first, and Kat does find this a little frustrating, because, well, Lucy can be a little silly, and she’s a bit of a chatterbox. But she quickly turns out to be really sweet and a lot of fun, a girl who manages to be a good person and a good friend in spite of her constantly critical big sister telling her what a doofus she is, and the type of girl who will rush out to help said awful sister even if she doesn’t understand what she’s doing or why she’s doing it. Even if it’s dangerous.  For example, Kat decides to sneak out to the Roman Baths to see if she can find out more about what’s going on.  She can’t tell anyone what she’s up to, so she can’t ask anyone to go with her, and she’s a little young to be heading off on her own, so she disguises herself as the older Miss Wingate.  Lucy sees what she thinks is her sister sneaking out of the house, and hurries after her — and almost immediately gets harassed by a group of guys and Kat has to come to her rescue.  It’s a moment I like, both because it shows us a little more about who Lucy is, and also because — see, all you feisty Regency romance heroines who buck tradition and go galavanting around London or Bath or Brighton or wherever without a proper chaperone?  There’s a reason why everyone gets so grumpy when you do that.

The moment also forces Kat to reveal her magical abilities to Lucy, who reacts with instant and unblinking enthusiasm.  Which is refreshing in an England where magic is seen as something that no proper family should associate with.  And it’s good that Lucy’s gung-ho, because she turns out to be unexpectedly very sensitive to magic…

In case you’re wondering, you can get both Kat, Incorrigible and Renegade Magic at all of those places I listed above.  Just in case you want to prepare yourself properly for the release of Stolen Magic, which is coming out in five days.  Calendars, people.  Have you marked them?

I admit, it’s kind of tricky doing book reviews, especially of books in your genre. (Which, in this instance means middle grade fantasy and Regency fiction). I mean, if you write military sci-fi, and you read a military sci-fi you don’t like, should you talk about it? Can you? Can you give a fair, honest, unbiased review of a book that you didn’t much care for, if that author happens to be on the shelf right next to you?

Though sometimes shelf placement works out really well.

Fortunately, that’s not the case here, and not just because Stephanie Burgis is up with the B’s and I am all the way towards the end with the R’s. It’s not the case because when I was reading Kat, Incorrigible, it only took about 70 pages for me to descend into fully on, sparkly-eyed squee. This book, in a word, is awesome.

But before we get into the awesome I think we need to briefly talk about the Universe. And I don’t mean ‘The Universe” as in “the world where Kat, Incorrigible is set,” I mean the Universe in general. (Trust me, we will get to the book.) I have always operated with the understanding that the Universe should work in certain ways. Call me naïve, if you will. I thought that when something completely awesome comes into being, I was to be made aware of it in a prompt and timely fashion. I thought we had an agreement. Such was not the case here. Kat, Incorrigible had been out for a year — a year, Universe, really? — before I discovered it. The Universe and I are going to have to have words. There is going to be a Letter to the Universal Editor. Clearly, something has to be rectified.

You will be getting a memo! A memoooo!!

All right, so here’s the deal: Kat, Incorrigible, is a middle grade fantasy, starring 12yo Katherine Stephenson, vicar’s daughter and heir to her mother’s powerful magic. “Aha!” you might say, “this is a Jane Austen blog (mostly), so how can you review a middle grade fantasy?” Aha! to you, I say, for, as you might have guessed from the word ‘vicar’ in there, this middle grade fantasy just happens to take place in the Regency period. Katherine — ‘Kat’, to her family — is the youngest of four children, including the ethereal Elissa, the headstrong Angeline, and the hapless Charles. Their father is a quiet, scholarly man who spends most of his time in his library, and their mother is dead. Has been ever since a few days after Kat was born, and all Kat really knows about her is that she was a witch. You see, this is an Alternate England, where witchcraft does exist, but it’s rather like being a shoemaker — people can practice it, if they have the talent, but no proper gentleman’s family would dream of associating with them. Which is probably why their socially-minded Stepmama has locked up all their Mama’s things; she’s determined that the girls will marry well and that’s not going to happen if we have to deal with any of this witching nonsense.

Stepmama’s actually pretty desperate to get one of the girls married well, as Brother Charles has recently been sent down from Oxford after partying a little too hearty and, oh, yeah, gambling away the family fortune. (Thanks for that, Charlie.) The best prospect is the wealthy Sir Nevillle, who has money leaking out his ears and is interested in Kat’s eldest sister, despite all those witchcraft rumors, and…um…is also rumored to have killed his first wife. Okay, that’s not exactly right. It’s less ‘killed’ and more ‘driven her to her death,’ which is totally and completely okay under the law.

That doesn’t sound a lot better.

So of course something must be done. But except for Stepmama — and their Papa, who doesn’t notice much outside of his Greek scholars — and Charles, who’s always sleeping — all right, so it’s just Angeline and Kat, but they’re determined to stop Elissa from marrying Sir Neville. Which she will totally do because in addition to being sweet and kind and a second mother, she’s also read The Mysteries of Udolpho about four thousand times and rather fancies herself a gothic heroine, sacrificing her happiness for the sake of her family.

So here, without further ado (and, let’s be fair, we’ve had a lot of ado already), here are the 5 reasons why Kat, Incorrigible is awesome. In no particular order.

1) Kat Does Stuff. Kat is an awesome heroine, and a role model no matter what your age. She’s smart, resourceful, and proactive; her family has a problem, and she is going to fix it, 12yos or no. When the going gets tough,the kid gloves come off, shall we say. For example, we first meet Kat as she’s sneaking out of the house — hair cut short, dressed as a boy, determined to sneak up to London and get a job. She almost makes it to the garden gate before sister Angeline catches her.

Now, I am of two minds about this. I love that, with that completely wonderful 12yo practicality, Kat is like “We need money? I will go get a job” because, omg, yes a job, somebody get a job, even though I know it’s Regency England there aren’t really, shall we say, career opportunities. But I also have to admit that twelve is a little young to be heading out to the workforce, especially as Regency England had yet to catch on about child labour laws.

I seriously love how Kat just throws herself headlong into situations, how for good or ill she is at least going to do something. Early on, Kat discovers that Angeline has broken into the Ultra-Off-Limits Cupboard where Stepmama locked all of (real) Mama’s witchy things and has been using Mama’s spellbooks. (As the children of a witch, all of Kat’s siblings have the potential for witchcraft.) Kat decides, okay, fine, Angeline’s not the only one who can do magic and sneaks down to the Ultra-Off-Limits Cupboard to find something of Mama’s she can use.

What she finds is a mirror. A gold pocket mirror, which is of course not just a gold pocket mirror. It’s also a portal to a Secret Headquarters for Guardians — a small, select group of powerful magic-users who are responsible for the safeguarding and protection of England. (Which is very important, as we’re currently at war with France.) (Well, not ‘we’ us, ‘we’ them.) You see, Kat’s mother was not simply your common shoemaker-variety witch, but a Guardian. And while any one of a witch’s children may have a talent for witchcraft, only one of a Guardian’s children will inherit their Guardian abilities. Yes, that’s Kat.

As it is, Kat’s Guardian powers manifest themselves in only two ways — being able to break spells, and pulling herself through the mirror into Guardian HQ. Only two powers, but Kat uses them to great variety and effectiveness. For instance, there’s a thrilling sequence where Kat and Co. go to an assembly, only for it to be held up by a highwayman, only for Kat to —I can’t spoil it, it’s too much fun. Just go read it.

2) Telepathy! When Kat first uses her Mama’s mirror to travel to the Secret Guardian HQ, , where she meets the snobby Lady Fotherington and the studious Mr. Gregson. They both try to impress upon her the importance of Guardians to England, and how she has to learn how to use her powers responsibly. Now, Mr. Gregson is pretty cool about this, in a stuffy-tutor-who-nonetheless-cares-about-you kind of way. Lady Fotherington is not. And unfortunately Kat doesn’t make a great impression on her new Guardian colleagues when Lady Fotherington’s insists on bad-mouthing Kat’s Mama one too many times and Kat punches her in the face! And it is AWESOME. It was like Burgis read my brain because Lady F was going on and on, and, I swear, I had just thought ‘oh my goodness, someone just punch her in the face already,’ and then Kat DID. Seriously, you guys, it was like in cartoons when a character goes all dewy-eyed and hearts and fairy dust start sparkling everywhere. The book and I had a moment.

3) Frederick Carlyle. Kat is not the only one in the Stephenson family to Do Things. Angeline, who as her mother’s daughter also has the potential for witchcraft. Specifically, she’s cast a spell to bring her One True Love to her, in the hopes that when he eventually shows up he’ll be rich enough and not completely repulsive, so that she can marry him and save Elissa accepting Sir Neville. Her OTL turns out to be a Mr. Frederick Carlyle, who actually does show up, bewitched and goggle-eyed, having walked across several counties to find her. Which is at first hysterical because Frederick immediately starts proposing to Angeline at every opportunity, and it’s really hard to keep the witchcraft thing under wraps when you’ve bewitched a total stranger, but eventually Kat manages to break the spell which means that Frederick can get his smolder on forthwith. And, may I say, ladies, he does a good smolder.

4) The Stephensons Act Like A Real Family. There are two kinds of families I see a lot in books that I don’t believe — the ones where everyone’s hateful all the time, and the ones where it’s all hugs and kisses and kind words and singing ’60s pop songs and having boys-vs-girls contests to see who can build the biggest ice cream sundae. The Stephensons fight and get angry, and they stick their noses in each other’s business and act like they know what’s best for everyone, but they also love each other deeply and are willing to fight and sacrifice for each other. Even brother Charles, who gambled away the family fortune and spends the entire book sleeping. Burgis is awesome at writing real, genuine feelings; for instance, Kat accidentally smashes up all of her Mama’s things during the whole sucked-into-a-mirror-and-finding-out-she’s-a-Guardian thing.  You can feel the deep, overwhelming (and, in Angeline’s case, seething) hurt her sisters experience at discovering that the last few things they had of their mother are gone.  Their anger with Kat, and the way it takes time for them to forgive her, struck me as very genuine.  It’s a testament to the writing that I knew exactly what Elissa and Angeline were feeling, not just because it was described so well, but because it felt universal.  I’ve felt like that towards my siblings when I was young.

5) Roller Coaster. When I’m reading a really good book — when I care about the characters and the plot is picking up and I’m in love with the language — there’s always a moment when I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. I can feel the hook of excitement in my chest, and the sense of I can’t wait to see what happens next, and the bright, glowing realization of I love this book, and I feel like I’m at the top of a roller coaster, just as the car begins to plummet. A good book is sheer exhilaration.  I was halfway through Kat when that feeling struck and, as I was on the bus home, I almost missed my stop.  (That’s turning into another hallmark on the Is It A Good Book Scale — do I end up riding the bus for another 20 minutes because I’ve only been paying attention to the book.)

The best news is that Kat, Incorrigible is part of a trilogy; Renegade Magic, the second book (which we’ll be talking about Thursday), came out last year in hardback, and will be in paperback very soon, and the third one is due out in exactly a week.  As you can probably guess, this is a cause for Much Excitement.

It is an A+++++++++++++++

A brief overview, you ask?  Certainly.

Death of a DJ:  Cat Austen, a cop’s widow with six overly-protective older brothers (five cops and one priest), takes a freelance assignment to profile a pair of shock jocks. When one of them is gunned down, Cat teams with homicide cop, Lt Victor Cardenas to track down the killer.

Fruitcake: The discovery of a corpse donned in a Santa suit draws Cat Austen into a conspiracy involving an Atlantic City casino mogul and his fashion designer wife.

Cheat the Devil: A young woman’s death interrupts Cat’s getaway with Victor when she is discovered to be the most recent of several murder victims linked to an Atlantic City parish and its priest, Cat’s brother.

Check them out on Amazon today!

My expectation of having nothing to say to you after my last letter, if not the Truth, is very near it. I can only say that I have nothing that was of interest or pleasure to me, though you, my dear sister, may find some diversion in it.

On Sunday last, as I was leaving from church, I fell prey to the insufferable Digweeds once more, and they would not be at peace until I promised to drink tea with them this evening to watch another of their Programmes. I have found very little of merit in these Programmes, and cannot comprehend those who will sacrifice the better part of an evening to them. The Digweeds, however, would hear no refusal, and cried, “How can you not wish to see the Oscars! You must come to see the Oscars!” in such an insistent fashion, that I gave a hurried before their vociferous demands invited scenes unpleasant to more than myself.

I had, at least, the comfort of knowing that this Proposal would not lead to a weekly summons, as this particular Programme is but an annual Ceremony whereupon those who devise and put up the Playlets, of which I have spoke in my previous letters,all come together to single out some of their Profession for particular Honours. The notion of watching people who have got so accustomed to the praise of the Public coming together to praise each other is of little interest to me, but the Digweeds assured me that it was an excellent opportunity to observe all of the latest fashions, and that there would be the additional diversion of some music.

I arrived promptly at seven to find the Digweeds already assembled before their Device, and believed that I had mistook the time, but they assured me that it would be at least an hour or more before the commencement of the Programme, and that what they were watching was only a Prologue to the Occasion. This Prologue consisted of a Promenade, whereupon the Candidates for the Honours were set upon by a number of fawning Hosts and Hostesses and complimented upon their appearance and quizzed upon their finery, and importuned for the names of their dressmaker and jeweler, to which the long-suffering Candidates reply with admirable forbearance. The ladies, it seems are singled out above the gentlemen for this impertinent teazing; they for the most part, are asked little more than to introduce the mothers and grown-up daughters that they have brought to the Event. Their wives, I suppose, chuse to stay at home where they may watch the proceedings in peace and comfort.

Once all have been ushered into a great Theatre, a Master of Ceremonies appears and attempts to divert those present with a succession of quips and jests, often made at the expense of the anxious Competitors. Occasionally, one might catch a look of displeasure from one of the Objects, yet for the most part, they all affect a show of good-humour and forebearance.

There are a great many of awards to be presented, and it is the custom of the Programme to begin with a presentation to a Performer, who will step forward to triumph over his rivals with a great show of humility and a little speech of thanks to all of his acquaintance. A number of lesser awards are then presented by Performers of some renown to Candidates that nobody cares for, and the sole purpose of this seems to be to liberate Viewers at home so that they may go in quest of some light fare or pour out tea and coffee without any apprehension that something agreeable or diverting will be missed (a quest that is likewise reserved for those episodes of necessary Commerce that disrupt the Programme at frequent intervals).

 As the Digweeds had promised, there was something of music to relieve the tedium of this prolonged Affair, but these were in the form of some dancing, or a chorale or a solo Performer who rendered a great, wailing ballad. When two hours had passed with nothing more remarkable than this parade of Honours and indifferent Music, I attempted to make my excuses, and was shocked to hear from Miss Digweed that the Programme was but half finished. Indeed, only last week, I attended a ball at the Mayhews’, and danced from nine in the evening until four o’clock the next morning, and I declare that I did not feel half as weary as I did after two hours of this Programme.

 Miss Digweed assured me that the most significant Honours and the finest Speeches were saved to the last, and yet does it not display a want of sense or feeling to withhold until the end what a spectator may then be too weary to enjoy? I saw nothing at all to suggest that what was laid out in four hours could not be accomplished in one, unless it is to provide an Occasion for as many Performers as possible to air out their finery and show off their humility, generosity and other amiable qualifications.

As for the name “Oscars” given to the Occasion, I cannot satisfy your curiosity upon this point, unless it is drawn from Lord Byron’s Oscar of Alva as a subtle suggestion that, among the Performers at least, this annual rivalry is taken up in deadly earnest; or, it may be (as I am inclined to think) that it is an allusion to the volume wherein that verse is contained, that is, Hours of Idleness.

Your affectionate sister,

Etc, etc

]]> http://janetility.com/?feed=rss2&p=1168 5 http://janetility.com/?p=1160 http://janetility.com/?p=1160#comments Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:37:00 +0000 admin http://janetility.com/?p=1160   Here is a delightful Valentine’s Day poem, published in 1808, from the point of view of a gentleman who was “not handsome enough to tempt” his lady love.

A VALENTINE

 Sent in the name of a Gentleman to a Lady

Who ridiculed his Appearance

By

       Elizabeth Trefusis (1763-1808)

You will wonder, my dearest, how Leonard should dare

Throw his wit and his form at the feet of the fair;

That wit, at whose nod fools and caitiffs all bend,

That form, which love slights, but intenders the friend!

Now, our kind mother Nature no step-mother proves

All her children she chastens, yet all of them loves;

To some, she gives beauty, to some, she gives wealth,

To some, pride of birth, to some, labor and health’

On me, though, health, beauty and riches ne’er smiled

Yet this parent indulgent still gifted her child;

They speak from my lips! Virtue speaks in my heart!

And the world, my dear charmer, full often have said

That the faults of my face were atoned by my head!

Though defective my form, and imperfect my gait

Yet the line from my head to my heart is quite straight,

The line which fair virtue from intellect drew!

The line – O, that line which divides me from you!

From you, the sweet daughter of fashion and whim,

With beautiful bosom and ankle so slim;

With bosom display’d, and with ankle protruded,

With Nature’s allurements too vainly obtruded.

While I, the enchantments of science conceal,

And my soul’s dearest charities shrink to reveal,

Unless by the lash of kind satire I dare

Call the man back to honor, to virtue the fair!

Yet to virtue, my dearest, you never were wanting

Great favors refusing, frivolities granting!

Then check these frivolities, seem what you are,

And the world shall allow that you’re good as you’re fair!

I have heard, and believe it, that opposites prove

The sweetest incitements to friendship and love;

If you then are noble and wealthy and pretty,

Your Leonard is worthy, wise, learned and witty;

Your frolic and sweetness his moments shall cheer

His gentle philippics your conduct shall steer:

Then take him, fair nymph, and let friendship’s warm ray

Greet the sun which enlivens our Valentine’s Day.

Had Austen made up her mind to dislike Edgeworth, she would have been in a decided minority. The novels of Maria Edgeworth (who, unlike Austen, did not publish anonymously), were critical, popular and financial successes. Unlike Austen, Edgeworth enjoyed a long career: her first work of fiction (a collection of short stories) was published in 1796, and her last, the novel Orlandino, was published in 1848.

Maria Edgeworth

Edgeworth’s first novel was an immediate success. Castle Rackrent (1800) both satirizes and indicts property neglect and landlord absenteeism, problems that invited the exploitive practice of “rack-renting”, where a middle-man would lease a large tract of estate property from the landlord on reasonable terms and then sub-let it to tenant farmers at exorbitant rates.

Jane Austen

Inspired by the registers of the Edgeworth family’s Irish property, the novel is the narrative of Thady Quirk, the steward of Castle Rackrent for four of its masters. The first master, Sir Patrick is a convivial squanderer who has left his estate in such debt that his creditors seize corpse to hold it hostage until they are paid.

    His successor, the litigious Sir Murtaugh Rackrent, maintains that the insult to Sir Patrick’s body acquits him of the debts, and funds a succession of lawsuits by selling parcels of land and from draconian fines imposed upon his tenants. (The proverbial chicken that crosses the road is guilty of “trespass”). His wife, “…of the family of Skinflints…” provisions her household by claiming “duty fowls and duty turkies and duty geese…eggs – honey – butter …” from by charging a fee to intercede with Sir Murtaugh on behalf of his oppressed tenants.

    Sir Murtaugh is succeeded by his younger brother, the spendthrift Sir Kit, who shows up at the estate only for some hunting and to run up debts, flees to Bath where he carelessly signs off on bills forwarded to him by his agent. Having brought his debts to critical mass, he attempts to remedy the situation by marrying a Jewish heiress, who foils his attempt to get hold of her fortune by converting it, before their marriage, into inalienable property in the form of a diamond necklace. (Edgeworth, received a letter from a Jewish-American reader who rebuked her for her stereotypical treatment of Jews; she attempted to make amends in a later novel, Harrington).

    The last heir, the distant relation, Sir Condy, is a free-spending schemer; having squandered his money, he elopes with an heiress whose family promptly disinherits her. Debts mount to the point of Sir Condy’s arrest, a disgrace postponed by his election to Parliament. At the end of his debt-ridden stint as an MP, Sir Condy returns to a neglected Castle Rackrent that has fallen into disrepair, is abandoned by his wife, swindled out of the remains of his estate by Quirk’s conniving son, Jason, and dies poor and friendless.

    Edgeworth’s observations on the potential for ruin and disgrace brought on by neglect were renewed in her later novel The Absentee (1812), and appear to have been views that Austen shared. Embedded in all of Austen’s novels is some example of the consequence of the interrelated neglect of duty, family and property.

    On an income of two thousand a year, Mr. Bennet might have easily set aside a comfortable provision for his widow and daughters; neglecting to do so potentially consigns six women to poverty upon his death, unless some of the girls marry well. Unfortunately, he does not even do what he can to make them attractive marriage prospects: their education was inconsistent, left to the inclination of “…such of us as wished to learn”, while “Those who chose to be idle certainly might”, and his own antipathy toward London keeps his daughters from the sphere where many good matches were secured. Even Elizabeth’s immediate conclusion that a commotion at Hunsford was the result of the pigs raiding the garden hints at a familiarity with this occurrence that does not speak well for the maintenance of Longbourn’s fences.

    Sir Walter Elliott, while scrupulous about the state of his property, placed himself “dreadfully in debt” because his vanity has determined that his income is “…not equal to…the state required in its possessor”. To his credit, Sir Walter refuses to sell off an alienable portion of Kellynch – he will mortgage it only – out of a commitment to pass an undivided property to the heir. Unfortunately, the heir could not be less deserving of the effort; William Elliot neglects the family connection in favor of immediate gratification. He is both so greedy and so disconnected from obligation (or both) that while he mocks the Elliot name and title, he is willing to elevate a butcher’s granddaughter to the rank of Lady Elliot. One wouldn’t blame Sir Walter if he retaliated by disposing of the saleable tract of land.

    Both Sir Thomas Bertram and General Tilney fall into a similar neglect of their households, Sir Thomas by “teaching [his children] to repress their spirits in his presence”, while General Tilney was “always a check upon his children’s’ spirits”. In the former case, Sir Thomas neglects his duty by providing education without principled example; he “sacrificed the right to the expedient”, and in doing so, allows his children to fall in with associates who lead the heir into debt and near death, the eldest daughter to disgrace, while the younger elopes to avoid the “greater severity and restraint” that Sir Thomas might impose upon her following Maria’s scandalous conduct. It appears that only the prudence of one parent can counteract the faults in the other; one wonders if Henry and Elinor Tilney would have turned out so well if they had been left to the apathetic Lady Bertram and the enabling Mrs. Norris, or whether, under the influence of Mrs. Tilney, Maria and Julia might have turned out better.

    And while one criticizes Darcy at risk, the reader is told, rather than impressed with, his attention to Pemberley. While he “…cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these”, a remark that Caroline endorses with, “I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place”, he is pretty much an absentee landlord. A wealthy gentleman might visit somewhere for the shooting in the fall, and pass a couple months in town in the winter; Darcy, on the other hand, comes from London with Bingley’s family in September, stays until the end of November, returns with the Bingleys to town until he visits Rosings in the spring. While, according to Mrs. Reynolds, Darcy spends “half his time” at Pemberley, it doesn’t appear that he finally shows up until he encounters the Gardiners and Elizabeth in July; nearly eleven months pass without his spending any substantial amount of time at “that noble place”.

    Perhaps if Darcy had been more attentive to household matters, he would not have been so “unhappily deceived” in Mrs. Younge’s character, nor would his sister’s honor and happiness been salvaged by his premature arrival at Ramsgate.