Happy Birthday Jane Austen December 16, 1775

Happy Birthday to my favourite author... Jane Austen

born December 16, 1775.

A great Jane Austen cake from www.saltcakecity.com...

Although she had some success in life, although originally know as only By A Lady as it was considered too forward for a woman to be a published author and quite scandalous.

I don't think there are many writers whose novels have been published in so many versions, made into as many plays than Jane Austen

My favourite film version is the 1995 one above with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. The Keiea Knightley versions has too many historical errors to be my favourite. Jane appearing at the Netherfiekd ball with no golves is a glaring error that would have ruined her socially!

I very much liked this version of Sense and Sensibilty with a wonderful cast.

I have a toss up decision between the Persuasion version with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds...

 

or Sally Hawkins and Eupert Penry-Jones... 

Oh welll... I had better watch them again!

And so many Jane Austen spin offs... Peide and Prejudice and Zombies? Vampires? Yep!

And an annual Christmas read for me on my kindle...

Jane and the Twelve Days Of Cheistmas by Stephanie Barron... with Jane Austen as Regency sleuth... great fun, and historically well done!

So Happy Birthday Jane! And for the many gifts of joy you gave us in your writings!

Jane Austen and Downton Abbey. A great night of TV

What a fabulous night of TV last night! It rarely happens in our neck of the woods and on our modest TV package...basic + Fox Soccer channel!!! But we have a PBS...struggling at the moment, but there.

First we had Jan Austen's Persuasion with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones which is a very good shortened version of the book. I actually like Amanda Root's Anne Elliott a bit better, and the longer version has more of my favorite book moments, but a good Jane Austen at any length is a treasure!

Then we had Miss Austen Regrets...taken from many of Jane Austen's letters to her sister Cassandra and niece Fanny. The dramatization tries to establish the factors leading to her characterizations and story lines. The movie starts Olivia Williams who was Miss Fairfax in a PBS Emma and Hugh Bonneville from Lost In Austen and currently Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey.

Then we had the 2 hour opening episode of Downton Abbey. We so enjoyed being back to that great series! Although a bit more difficult to get through because of the warfare scenes, it was as absorbing as season 1. I was also so pleased that PBS US finally got smart and credited the American public for the ability to enjoy full length period drama. We in the USA got only 1/2 of season 1, as the PBS pundits thought the USA would be unable to follow or be interested in the concept of entailed inheritance and so sold the USA drastically trimmed versions. I was furious! But this season is the full length. Huzzah!!!!!

Roll on Sunday evening!