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Was Jane Austen's aunt a sex worker?: Jane Austen at Home, part 1
Lucy Worsley, Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, 250th Birthday Edition. Hodder & Stoughton, 2024. Image source: Jane Austen Centre, BathIn December 1786 Jane Austen's widowed Aunt...
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Eliza de Feuillide, Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin"
Deirdre Le Faye, Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza de Feuillide. Eliza to her cousin Philly Walter, 17 January 1786: ". . .the purpose of the abovementioned Journey [to...
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"Alas he is married as well as myself": Eliza de Feuillide continued
Eliza Hancock (later de Feuillide Austen), by an unknown French artist, 1780. Image source (reversed): Miss Jane AustenA continuation of Eliza de Feuillide, Jane Austen's "outlandish cousin."Shortly...
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Favorites of 2024: Movies and television
"The sleep of reason produces monsters," Plate 43 of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, 1799. Image source: History of Medicine Division, US National Library of Medicine.Favorite movies seen in 2024In a...
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Favorites of 2024: Recorded music
Favorite recorded music of 2024OperaThis was an especially rich year for new discoveries in opera. I limited myself to five choices, but my list could easily have been twice as long. In alphabetical...
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Favorites of 2024: Live performances
We saw a lot of great live performances this year, so it was difficult to narrow my choice of favorites to just eight. In chronological order of performance:Premier Ensemble of the San Francisco Girls...
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Favorites of 2024: Books
Fiction Favorites of 2024This week LitHub published a list of its editors' favorite stories of the past year. The first entry on the list was Bradford Morrow's "In Search of the Rarest Book in American...
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Mad, bad, and dangerous to know: Three historical novels
Emma Donoghue. Image source: The Idle WomanJorge Luis Borges' 1939 story "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote" brilliantly illustrates the impossibility of writing historical fiction without...
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Lise Davidsen in recital
Lise Davidsen accompanied by Malcolm Martineau at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, Tuesday 4 February 2025. Presented by Cal Performances. Photo credit: Katie Ravas for Drew Alitzer Photography. Image...
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Suggested reading: The first ten weeks edition
Protestors march in New York City on 5 April 2025. Image source: Associated PressYesterday hundreds of thousands of protestors gathered across the country to oppose the actions of the new...
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Every Valley: Handel's Messiah
George Frideric Handel by Philip Mercier, c. 1730. Image credit: Händel-Haus, Halle. Image source: All About HandelToday is the 283rd anniversary of the première of Handel's Messiah in Dublin on 13...
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A season of Handel operas, part 1: Acis and Galatea
Polyphème surprenant Acis et Galatée (Polyphemus surprising Acis and Galatea) [detail] by Auguste Ottin, 1863. Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris. Image credit: Daniel Stockman, CC BY-SA...
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A season of Handel operas, part 2: Alceste
La mort d'Alceste, ou l'Héroïsme de l'amour conjugal [The death of Alcestis] (detail) by Jean-François Pierre Peyron, 1785. Image credit: Louvre, Paris. Image source: SpeakertyAlceste (1750). Lauren...
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A season of Handel operas, part 3: Giulio Cesare
César remet Cléopâtre sur le trône d'Egypte [Caesar offers Cleopatra the throne of Egypt], by Pierre de Cortone (Pietro da Cortona), ca. 1637. Image source: Musée des Beaux-Arts de LyonGiulio Cesare...
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A season of Handel operas, part 4: Ariodante
Lurcanio prevents his brother Ariodante from throwing himself on his sword when he sees Polinesso entering Ginevra's apartments. Illustration by an unknown engraver after Thomas Coxon (1591) after...
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Death Comes To Pemberley
DVD cover image for the BBC adaptation of P.D. James'Death Comes to Pemberley. Image source: themoviedb.comDeath Comes To Pemberley. BBC Drama Productions, 2013. 180 minutes (3 episodes).I am not a fan...
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"Twenty times the use a man is": Two Chronicles of Carlingford
Can there be too much of a good thing? I was once among those who approached the extremely prolific writers of the nineteenth century with skepticism and condescension. Given their astonishing...
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Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the abolition of the British slave trade
Amazing Grace DVD cover. Image source: Amazon.comAmazing Grace (2006) tells the story of William Wilberforce and the abolitionist campaign in Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Directed...
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Fingersmith
Cover of the U.S. edition of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (Riverhead, 2002). Image source: Underground Books on Abebooks.comThe story may sound familiar to anyone who has seen Park Chan-wook's The...
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"So rapturous a delight": What Jane Austen's characters read (and why), part 1
The Reader by Marguerite Gérard and Jean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1786. Image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeIn her book What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024),...
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"I am not a great reader": What Jane Austen's characters read (and why), part 2
The Reader by Marguerite Gérard and Jean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1786. Image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeIn her book What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024),...
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"To be a renter, a chuser of books!": What Jane Austen's characters read (and...
The Reader by Marguerite Gérard and Jean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1786. Image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeIn her book What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024),...
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"Meaning to read more": What Jane Austen's characters read (and why), part 4
The Reader by Marguerite Gérard and Jean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1786. Image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeIn her book What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024),...
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"I will not allow books to prove anything": What Jane Austen's characters...
The Reader by Marguerite Gérard and Jean Honoré Fragonard, c. 1786. Image source: The Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeIn her book What Jane Austen's Characters Read (and Why) (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024),...
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