To have just realised that Mr Collins got Mrs Collins in the family way.

[squoosh]

Have just re-read Pride & Prejudice for the first time in yonks and at the end Mr Collins mentions 'dear Charlotte’s situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. How had I not noticed that before?

I'd always imagined dear Charlotte avoiding that messy business by keeping him occupied with his sermon writing and his gardening and his pash on Lady Catherine.

But she was a woman who knew what she wanted so I wouldn't be surprised if she was the one who took conjugal matters in hand.

Good old P&P, the book that keeps on giving.

I am gravely affronted at being told to get out for not watching the beeb version glares beadily at the uncouth PPs who were so uncouth I must admit that I cannot abide Colin Firth and his immobile face, so that has always put me off somewhat.

YY to whoever suggested a JA bookclub or genteel reading circle, I haven't read S&S in years and would dearly love to discuss it with some like-minded folks. This is really an excellent thread.

Oh chanel, you NEED to watch it. Colin Firth IS Darcy. And it's so faithful to the book! Honestly, give it a go!

I'd be up for a S&S chat though!

Does anyone else think the older characters in P&P get most of the best lines and are a lot more 'fun' than the leads? I thought it shone through particularly in the BBC version, there were two really good parts for middle aged women there. And one for a bloke of course. I'm no actor, but it strikes me you could get your teeth into Lady C much more so than Jane, for example.

And yes please to a genteel reading circle. I'd love a thread on Mansfield Park to help me like Fanny Price. She strikes me as being so wet. And I have my doubts about Edward.

Oh chanel, relieved to find somebody else who doesn't get the Colin Forth love. The man looks perpetually constipated to me. I don't get it at all.

For those interested in JA's life, have you seen Miss Austen Regrets? It's closely based on her letters, and Olivia Williams is wonderful as JA.

oldestmum: hmm interesting. I find it hard to defend Fanny Dashwood tbh because her and her husband are SO horrible to the sisters. There's a bit where Elinor meets her half brother in a shop or something, where she's had to sell some of her mother's jewellery because they are so hard up, and he's going on about how his mother in law has given him £100 cash to spend on frivolities!

Fanny is played by Harriet Walter tho who is awesome :)

Caroline Bingley, tho, I think her character needs a resurrection as well. I get the impression that Mr Bingley was a total flirt with all the ladies, and she and Darcy didn't imagine Jane was any different. Caroline is clever and elegant and kind of funny as well. I hope she made a good match :)

Am I right in thinking that apart from 2 lines in Mansfield Park, there is NO conversation solely between men in any Austen book?

I need to have a think about Caroline Bingley, lucy. I'm working at home today (cough, cough) so have time. And you are right Harriet Walter was brilliant. That pinched mouth.

I don't remember that exchange about the jewellery so need to re-read asap. And as for your namesake, well!

Well - facepalm. I realised I was wrong about which of the Gardiners was Mrs Bennet's sibling as soon as I posted, but had lost the will to live because of trying to make my four year old go to sleep when he wanted to play 'Baby Robot'. It's interesting to think about the matrimonial fates of the three Gardiner siblings, when you think about it - the Gardiners approved-of, sensible, genteel London trade (presumably Mr Gardiner inherited whatever their parents had to leave), Mrs Bennets to Mr B's genteel but small and entailed estate, Mrs Phillips (am I right in thinking they don't seem to have children?) marrying into a Meryton smalltown legal business - do they live over the offices? Their place, despite all the entertaining they do, always sounds cramped...?

There are other instances of not-quite-reported interaction between men only, but only in very minor ways, like the bit in P and P where, after Jane and Bingley are engaged, Bingley goes out shooting with his future FIL and Mr Bennet is pleasantly surprised by his company. We're not told a word that actually passed between them, though. One imagines Bingley turning out to be a good shot and Mr B having a dawning 'Oh, not an idiot!' expression, and them coming back quite good friends.

I believe that bit in Sense and Sensibility where Elinor is at the jewellers with some of her mother's jewels and meets Robert Ferrars and his flashy toothpick is debated - I can't remember the phrase but I think the term 'negotiating for some old jewels of her mother's' is used? - as to whether she is in fact selling them to make ends meet or having old-fashioned settings altered for newer ones, which was quite commonly done.

Harriet Walter is a genius as Fanny Dashwood. Which film adaptation of Emma does she play Mrs Elton in? Way too old, but utterly brilliant, especially the way she trilled 'cara sposo' .

I don't get the Colin Firth as Darcy love at all, either, I must admit. I think he's a bit pudding-faced. I was always impressed with the casting of the now hilarious dated-looking 1980 BBC adaptation, with David Rintoul as Darcy and Elizabeth Garvie as Lizzy.

Shove, really interesting comments on JA's Conservatism (capital C because she is pretty much High Tory if you read her History of England, which is great fun... spectacularly biased but great fun) versus Rousseau and the Romantic movement. I'd say Northanger Abbey is even more overtly about this than Sense and Sensibility.

I'm suitably chastised for my kindle book! Although I'm also halfway through The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on it! Free classics always a bonus! I'd love us to keep this thread and start S&S. I've got that too but haven't got round to reading it😊.The BBC P&p is on Netflix.

Ahem

Some of you may enjoy this book when it comes out -- www.amazon.co.uk/Austen-Secret-Radical-Helena-Kelly/dp/1785781162

Re the source of the Bingley wealth, there's no indication that it's derived (directly) from slavery. They are 'from the North of England'; this, given that the town of Bingley, in Yorkshire, was industrialised quite early on, and gained a lot of income from woollen manufacture, probably suggests we should be thinking of factory owning.

I'd be up for a S&S thread too!

Paperbacked

We're told Mrs. Bennet's dad was an attorney in Meryton, so it may well be that Uncle Phillips marries into the family law firm. Odd that the Gardiner son doesn't take it over, though.

When 16yo JA wrote her History of England, I think she was primarily writing to be entertaining, to make her readers (or quite probably listeners) laugh out loud. The ridiculous bias is the joke...I suspect she is lampooning more serious historians whom she and her family had read and being contrary for the fun of it. After all historians are cautious and conservative (with a small c), so why not rampage through history throwing out wild assumptions, unsupported opinions and grave slanders, turning your favourites into romantic and tragic heroes and heroines.
Writing the history together must have had her and Cassandra in stitches.

Great thread!

My pet theory on Mr and Mrs Bennet's odd fertility pattern is that at some point (probably while Mrs B was pregnant with Lydia) Mr B went up to London, shagged a prostitute and caught an STD. He then passed it on to Mrs B, causing the infertility. And, possibly, the nerves.

Also agree that Bingley's family made their money in the mills or mines of Yorkshire. This causes a social insecurity which helps to explain both Caroline and Mrs Hirst's snobbery, and Bingley's willingness to be guided by the 'better-bred' Darcy in all things.

harlot Yes, the Bennett parents are a gift of comedy for any actor, I would have thought, as well as Lady C. They are really well written characters. You can see their flaws and picture them in your head really well. I haven't read the book in years, (although I started it last night again!) but I can still remember the characters and what they are like.

But is says in the book Rosie that Mr Bennet never gave into the temptations which can emerge from any happy marriage or something. Plus he hated London.

Are we starting S&S then?? I started listening yesterday, only one chapter in though.
Shall we keep it on this thread or start another? '19th Century Literature Book Club' or something less dull sounding?

The this us a brilliant Thread!

I'll need to get cracking on S&S, it's been ages since I read that. Mrs Ferrars is ace. She and Mrs Elton from Emma would have been bffs!

Or been deadly foes.

Oh fair enough Paperbacked re the jewels. It would be quite shocking for Elinor to be pawning/selling them

Elizabeth Garvie is my favourite Elizabeth but David Rintoul is too stiff for me (as it were)

Yes, Ill need to get cracking on S & S. Ill whiz through my P & P re-read too. There is a board for reading isn't there? I have a promotion about the new modern P & P that is in another book board.

May I ask, with regards to Mansfield Park, does anybody else get really bloody cross with Fanny? Just marry Crawford, for crying out loud! He's got his issues but he thinks the world of you. Pining for Edmund forever is no way to establish yourself, especially when you're the "blow in" from the poor part of the family.

Mr Bennet might have hated London a bit less if there were some 'distractions' there though. He certainly doesn't seem to still find Mrs Bennet as appealing as he once did...

That would make me sad though. I do love Mr Bennet, despite his failing to provide for the daughters. Maybe his books in his study keep him entertained in his old age instead.

Interesting STD theory!

I don't think Mrs Bennett can escape all or even most of the blame for the family's financial situation-
"... it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income."

Though she wouldn't have had control over the family money (or even her own £4,000) she would have been the one ordering food, clothes and any household expenses, which Mr Bennet would then have to pay. It's probable that she simply did everything on too grand a scale for their income.