And the "P&P Starter Kit" Winner is . . .

This week has been a bit crazy and I keep remembering I need to post the name of the winner of my "Pride and Prejudice Starter Kit" contest while I'm at work. Then I get home and space out!

Finally I've remembered while at home! The winner is . . .

Carly M.!!! I'll be sending the items listed here ASAP, Carly!

-1 new dvd copy of the 2005 film "Pride and Prejudice"
-1 new copy of the novel "Pride and Prejudice"
-3 Regency cards with envelopes & 1 Regency postcard
-1 box of Twinings tea, black tea variety pack
-1 pair of cream colored wristwarmers, hand-knit by me (or a color of your choice, based on what I have on hand)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you all for entering! I wish I could send the whole thing to all of you (maybe someday)! If you would like to receive a little consolation prize please comment on this post and I will e-mail you!

Cheers! x

Happy 202nd Anniversary, Pride and Prejudice! ---And a Very P&P Giveaway!

Happy 202nd Anniversary to one of my favorite novels, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice! It was published 28 January 1813.

I don't blog very much these days but have been wanting to do a P&P giveaway for awhile. What better day to do it than today?

The Details:
No purchase necessary! This giveaway is sponsored solely by me.

The "starter kit" prize includes these items, pictured below:
-1 new dvd copy of the 2005 film "Pride and Prejudice"
-1 new copy of the novel "Pride and Prejudice"
-3 Regency cards with envelopes & 1 Regency postcard
-1 box of Twinings tea, black tea variety pack
-1 pair of cream colored wristwarmers, hand-knit by me (or a color of your choice, based on what I have on hand)

There are several ways to enter, some which can be done daily, which you can check off in the Rafflecopter box below (or else you won't be entered):
-Leave a comment on this blog post
-Visit my Etsy store Facebook page
-Tweet a link to this blog post
-Pick a favorite item in my Etsy store (you don't even have to buy anything!)
-Follow me on Twitter (if you want, not mandatory)
-Share this post on some social media site

The contest runs today through midnight PST, Friday, 30 January 2015 (actually, 11:59pm PST Friday). The winner will be chosen randomly with Rafflecopter, be contacted via e-mail, and (hopefully) announced Saturday, 31 January 2015! If the winner does not respond within a reasonable amount of time I will choose another winner---unless I decide to wait to announce, which wouldn't be so much fun. ;)

 The winner will need to provide me with a mailing address (which will be kept confidential) so I can send you your prize. Contest open to US residents only, please. (Sorry and thank you!) I might make an exception for Canada!

Enter below! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Netherfield Ball Day!!

Happy Netherfield Ball Day!!

"We have not met since the 26th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield."
~Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice"

My P&P the Musical Cast

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the Pride and Prejudice Musical at Jane Austen Today, so here are my picks (I'm not going to pick a whole cast and a couple are the same as Ms. Place's choices):

Josh Groban as Mr. Darcy: He isn't proud and aloof like Mr. Darcy, but Josh's Voice is the only one worthy of Mr. Darcy.


Emmy Rossum as Lizzie Bennet: She has a gorgeous voice and would be fantastic as Lizzie.


Michael Buble as Charles Bingley: His voice isn't as classic as Josh's, he can be adorably goofy, and I think he would be a great Bingley.


Carrie Underwood as Jane Bennet: Beautiful voice and beautiful girl. Perfectly suitable for Jane.


Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Mr. Wickham: He's super sexy and can sing, as he did in August Rush.


And then I think I would cast Britney Spears as Lydia Bennet, Jessica Simpson as Kitty Bennet, the beautiful Mandy Moore as Mary Bennet (even though Mary is plain---Mandy was super as Jame in A Walk to Remember).

I'll have to keep thinking (before tomorrow!).

Who would you cast?

Josh Groban as Mr. Darcy!?!?

In my dreams! :) Over at one of my favorite blogs, Jane Austen Today, Ms. Place is having another fantastic contest: a Pride and Prejudice Musical Contest. This one is so clever and exciting!

Here is how to enter:

I have put together my ideal Pride and Prejudice musical cast. You can disagree with my choices. Just leave a comment suggesting other singer/s and in which role they should sing. You may make as many suggestions as you like, but all your nominees must be singers. At the end of two weeks (March 29), I shall place the names of everyone who left a suggestion in a hat and draw the winner.

Ms. Place has chosen my favorite, Josh Groban, as my favorite, Mr. Darcy, and Emmy Rossum, who was fabulous in The Phantom of the Opera, as Lizzie Bennet. Oh, and gorgeous Gerard Butler as Mr. Wickham! I can't argue with any of those choices! Use the above link to read the rest of Ms. Place's musical cast and enter your own! I know I plan to do so.

The winner gets a cd copy of "Pride and Prejudice, the Musical" by Rita Abrams and Josie Brown. You can listen to clips by visiting Ms. Place's post for the links.

I will post my cast here and in the comments on Ms. Place's post after I have thought about it for awhile.

Good luck!

Josh Groban as Mr. Darcy?!?! Oh la la!

P&P 2005 Gift Set!

Oh, I was so very delighted to see this! I am a huge fan of the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film and this gift set is full of fabulous extras! It came out today and I got it at Walmart this evening for something like $14.96, which is half off. There was no mention of the sale in the dvd section, but after I the checker scanned it I nearly danced the waltz.

Features include:

• The gorgeous gift box. Inside there is a space to write the owner's name (make sure you use elegant handwriting!)

• Both the widescreen and full frame versions of the film

• The Politics of Dating Featurette

• The Stately Homes of Pride & Prejudice

• Galleries of the 19th Century

• Pride & Prejudice Family Tree

• A 64-page Production Photo Book

• The full CD Soundtrack. Beautiful music!

• All the special features found on the original film

I am so very excited to have this special edition of Pride & Prejudice!

Create a JA Icon and Win!

Attention Jane Austen Fans: Over at Jane Austen Today Ms. Place is having a Jane Austen Icon contest!

The person with the best JA Hero/Heroine Icon will win a copy of Lori Smith's book A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Adventure, Love, and Faith. Ms. Place will also be using the icons in posts.

You have until 4 November to send in your creations. You will find Ms. Place's contest info and e-mail at the above link.

So far there haven't been many entries, so get creating! I want to see some Matthew MacFadyen & Keira Knightely P&P icons!

Here is one I just made:

Book Review: Lost In Austen

In the middle of July, a lady named Catherine, from Riverhead Trade publishing company, e-mailed and asked if I would like to receive an advance copy of Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Watson, a Brit who graduated from Oxford, where she specialized in Jane Austen. I said I would be delighted and have since received the book and read it.

Lost in Austen is, as the subtitle suggests, a sort of "choose your own adventure" book. I remember reading them when I was younger, but none were as amusing as this!

As the press release says:

As Elizabeth Bennet, you the reader control the story, and thus the outcome of the book. For example, a wrong turn on the way to Netherfield takes you into a Sense and Sensibility landscape where you meet, fall in love with, and are forsaken by John Willoughby; accept an invitation to Bath, and you could find yourself in Northhanger Abbey, where the beguiling Henry Tilney makes you an offer you won’t want to refuse.

You can read the book in two ways: play along with the game and keep track of your scores, or just read it and choose whichever option you prefer, without reference to points. I chose to play and keep track of my scores. At the beginning, the author recommends the reader keep track of five categories: Accomplishments, Intelligence, Confidence, Connections, and Fortune on separate slips of paper (or at least sides of paper), as you will be writing a lot of numbers. Alongside Accomplishments, you also keep track of your failures. Your Connections are split between "Superior" and "Inferior." As you read, you make choices, gain points, subtract points, and discover your accomplishments, failings, superior and inferior connections. Your score can vary wildly, as your feelings of intelligence and confidence, etc., do in real life. Sometimes you come across a question or a little quiz, and the answer you choose nets you a certain number of points or causes you to lose points.

Webster followed Pride and Prejudice quite closely and based the points off of the novel (and other J.A. novels). I only once ran across characters from another novel, but when I skimmed through saw some very interesting references to other J.A. books. I really felt like I was reading Jane's novel, but with a super little game thrown in. It was great fun to keep track of my points (even when I was deep in the negatives!) and try to decide how to behave as Elizabeth Bennet.

In the end, I was successful and achieved a prudent marriage and lovematch with none other than Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, my Dream Man!

Lost in Austen could easily be played with another person (or a couple of Janeites!). It is a very amusing novel and I highly recommend it to any Jane Austen fan (or anyone who might be interested in becoming a Janeite!). I look forward to reading it again and creating another adventure. You will be able to find Lost in Austen by Emma Campbell Webster at any bookstore beginning 7 August 2007. If you buy it, please do let us know what you think!

Book Information: Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster (ISBN: 978-1594482588; 7 August 2007; $14.00; paperback)

My Book and Notes

Book Review: Letters From Pemberley

The second Jane Austen book I was sent and asked to review is Letters From Pemberley: the First Year by Jane Dawkins. (You can read my first review, of Old Friends and New Fancies, here.)


As the title implies, Letters From Pemberley: the First Year is a series of twenty-five letters from the new Mrs. Darcy (aka Elizabeth Bennet) to her sister, the new Mrs. Bingley (aka Jane Bennet). Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that a letter played an important part in changing Elizabeth's feelings about Darcy, so Dawkins choice of letters as her medium fits quite well.

Dawkins described her work as "an old-fashioned patchwork quilt, where in place of the scraps of fabric . . . there is a line or a phrase or a sentence from one of Jane Austen's books or letters stitched alongside the lesser scraps" of Dawkins' work. She also took favorite characters from other Austen novels, gave them different names, and worked them into Lizzie's letters. It was very amusing to pick out who was who or which lines were from which books or letters (I even kept a little list! It is quite gratifying to figure these things out!).

I quite enjoyed Letters From Pemberley: the First Year and was glad that Dawkins did not feel the need to make Lizzie, Darcy, Jane, Bingley, Georgiana, and other characters new again. We read Jane Austen novels repeatedly because Jane created such realistic and fabulous characters. I think too often people try to "improve" upon them, which just cannot be done. Dawkins also understands this and wrote these letters in Lizzie Bennet Darcy's persona, not some other Lizzie's. I can easily imagine Jane having written these herself.

Lizzie is adjusting to life as mistress of Pemberley and wife of Mr. Darcy, attempting to develop a deeper relationship with Darcy's sister, Georgiana, and find her place in a higher level of society than she is used to living in. As much as her family drove her crazy on occasion, she misses being with them. Her letters to Jane describe her activities, her feelings, and her hopes.

Elizabeth and Jane are closest to each other out of the five Bennet daughters and their letters provide solace as they make their ways in their new lives. I can imagine doing the same with my sister (if she wrote letters).

I look forward to reading Letters From Pemberley: the First Year again (and figuring out more of Jane's lines!) and would recommend it to any Austen fan! You can find it at any bookstore. Do pick up a copy and let us know what you think!

Book Information: Letters from Pemberley: The First Year by Jane Dawkins (ISBN: 978-1-4022-0906-2; May 2007; $13.95 U.S./ $17.95 CAN; paperback)

My thanks to Cathy at Sourcebooks, Inc.!

On the Anniversary of Her Death

One hundred ninety years ago today, 18 July 1817, Jane Austen died. She was only 41 years old. The world lost a brilliant novelist. Thankfully, we still have her brilliant novels:

Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Northanger Abbey
Mansfield Park


What better way to honor Jane than by reading her delightful novels today? I highly recommend any of them, though my favorites are Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion.

Ms. Place posted this tribute at Jane Austen's World.

Requiscat in Pace, Jane!

Janey-smarts

I got 20 questions out of 20 right, so I don't know how they arrived at this percentage, but here it is:

Your Score: You Win!!! :

You scored 18 % Janey-smarts

WELL DONE!!! Is she your favorite author too?? Even if she's not, you definitely know your stuff! Have your read the novellas? Of those, I recommend _Lady Susan_. :>

You scored higher than 99% on Janey-smarts

Link: The Semi-difficult Jane Austen Test written by princessmargo78 on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

My nickname as a child was "Janey," not the usual "Janie."

If You Participated . . .

. . . in the Battle of the Mr. Darcy's at Jane Austen's World, you might want to visit and pick your favorite Colin Firth picture. Ms. Place promised to put the photo of the winner in her sidebar and wants your help on deciding which of the four choices it will be.

And don't forget to vote for Jane Austen at The Book Mine Set. You have until 3 July.

The Darcy Battle Has Ended

Ms. Place has posted the winner here.

A total of 1,218 votes were cast in the battle between Mr. Darcy (as played by Colin Firth) and Mr. Darcy (as played by Matthew MacFadyen). An outstanding turn-out!

Ms. Place has also provided an excellent activity to capture our imaginations now that the battle is over.

I certainly enjoyed participating in the Battle of the Mr. Darcys.

What an excellent diversion!

I love this picture, so I thought I would post it again:

When He Says He Loves Her

My friend Aj sent me the link to this and I just had to post it! We both love Josh Groban and Pride & Prejudice, so this video brings the best of both together! Enjoy! So pretty!


I found this one:



And another that Aj found:



I found a bunch more here, including a video set to "Remember When It Rained." Hooray!

Visit Jane Austen's World and vote in The Battle of the Darcys: Colin Firth vs. Matthew MacFadyen. The contest runs through tomorrow. Matthew needs our help! UPDATE: voting ends in an hour! 9pm PST/12amEST

Vote for Mr. Darcy

Don't forget to visit Jane Austen's World and vote in The Battle of the Darcys: Colin Firth vs. Matthew MacFadyen (my favorite Mr. Darcy!).

The battle is heating up and the Matthew MacFadyen fans have rallied! Ms. Place has decided to let the contest go for a week and you may vote once per day.


Here Ms. Place has provided some excellent links about the two Mr. Darcys.

Go vote! Mr. Darcys all around!

A Darcy Battle

Visit Jane Austen's World and vote in The Battle of the Darcys: Colin Firth vs. Matthew MacFadyen (my favorite Mr. Darcy!).

Ms. Place has basically declared a winner, but you can still vote (for Matthew!!!).

Reading Burns Calories

Did you know that reading (especially Pride and Prejudice!) burns calories?

That's according to a recent study:

The researchers say when a person has been engaged in reading for a few hours, his basal metabolic rate doubles.

People normally burn around one calorie per minute when sitting still, they say. However, reading encourages the production of adrenaline, and thereby causes BMR to rise to up to 1.75 calories per minute.
[. . .]
They say if a person reads at a rate of 300 words a minute, he may burn off more than 1,100 calories by the end.

And my favorite:

9. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen (443 calories)

Get reading!

Vote for P&P!

Via Austen-tatious:

Head over to The ultimate NY book bracket: Semifinals and vote for my favorite Pride and Prejudice! It is up against Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner .

Which Classic Female Literary Character Am I?

Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?

You're Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!
Take this quiz!








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*Sigh*

I saw this photo and HAD to blog it. Isn't it absolutely gorgeous. Thanks to Poebegone on Flickr for having it!

Pride & Prejudice - Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet 05,
originally uploaded by poebegone.

I ADORE this picture!