For my review this month I have chosen the mini-series Pride and Prejudice (1980) produced by the BBC and PBS.

I have been blogging about Jane Austen for over five years and I have reviewed many books and movies, yet I have held off writing about the one that really turned me into a Jane Austen disciple—the 1980 BBC/PBS Pride and Prejudice. When something is close to our hearts we want to keep it in a special place, so my personal impressions of Fay Weldon’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s most popular novel has remained my own. In this bicentenary year, I think it is time for me to share.

It first aired in five (55) minute episodes on the BBC in the UK in 1979, and on US television on Masterpiece Theatre between October 26 and November 23, 1980. I was a great fan of Masterpiece and period drama and remember being quite excited to watch the new series. I was not disappointed in the first episode—in fact, I was mesmerized—and watched each episode again when they aired again each week on PBS. Considering that in 1980 disco music was all the rage and Magnum P.I. and Three’s Company were the most popular television shows, you might understand why this anglophile was entranced by a series set in Regency England with beautiful costumes, country houses, sharp dialogue and swoon worthy romance. I was totally hooked and started reading the novel for the first time while the series aired.

Now, considering that many of you who are reading this review where not even born by 1980, you might not get the significance of the way in which our entertainment was doled out to us in the those early days. There was the television broadcast, and that was it. In fact I did not own a VCR yet, so I could not tape a video. I had to wait another 10 years before I saw the series again after purchasing a VHS tape of the series. Shocking, I know. But remember that the Internet would not be born until the mid-1990’s and the concept of streaming video—it was totally 21^st century technology.

On reflection, why did I like P&P 1980 so much when it originally aired, and does it still stand up to the litmus test for P&P adaptations?

Even though the BBC had produced radio and television adaptations of Pride and Prejudice in 1938, 1952, 1958 and 1967, this would be the first time that a US audience would see a television series of Jane Austen’s novel. Some of us had seen the 1940 MGM move of P&P staring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, but it was hardly faithful to the novel and was a two hour theatrical movie. Very little of Jane Austen’s original language had been used, Let’s not even begin the conversation about the changes that were made. Now for the first time we could hear Austen’s words and see the plot unfold as she imagined it—well not word for word or scene by scene—but screenwriter Fay Weldon did adhere much more faithfully to Austen intensions than had been experienced before, nor since. Here is a list of the cast and production team:

• Elizabeth Bennet – Elizabeth Garvie
• Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy – David Rintoul
• Mr. Bennet – Moray Watson
• Mrs. Bennet – Priscilla Morgan
• Jane Bennet – Sabina Franklyn
• Mary Bennet – Tessa Peake-Jones
• Kitty Bennet – Clare Higgins
• Lydia Bennet – Natalie Ogle
• George Wickham – Peter Settelen
• Mr. Collins – Malcolm Rennie
• Charlotte Lucas – Irene Richard
• Mr. Bingley – Osmund Bullock
• Caroline Bingley – Marsha Fitzalan
• Lady Catherine de Bourgh – Judy Parfitt
• Director – Cyril Coke

I will spare you the rehash of the synopsis and cut to the chase. This adaptation flies freely by the strength of the screenplay and the interpretation by the director and actors. They act like Regency era ladies and gentlemen and in the manner that Jane Austen intended. Elizabeth Garvie as Elizabeth Bennet is perfection—as clever and impertinent as her book persona. If she has any defect it is that she is too perfect, appearing too controlled at every moment and not quite as spirited and flawed as one would expect. Her hero Mr. Darcy, portrayed by David Rintoul, is flawed, but that is his strength. He is stiff as a wooden solider and we hate him until we meet him again at Pemberley two thirds through the story. But, his portrayal is as Austen wrote the character: noble, proud, arrogant, overconfident and infuriating. His transition to a more open and engaging personality is a gradual shift which grows as his affection for Elizabeth does. His transformation from an arrogant prig to an amiable gentleman suitor for our heroine is a great character arch well worth waiting for.

Every director wants to put their own stamp on a classic and I cannot condemn Cyril Coke for taking his chance. He does not swerve off the garden path too far. There are two moments that are his creations that are memorable for me. The first was when Darcy hands Elizabeth the “be not alarmed, Madame,” letter after the first proposal. Elizabeth and Darcy meet along a path at Rosings Park and he hands her his letter. She accepts it and takes a seat on a fallen tree and reads it. We hear David Rintoul’s beautiful velvet voice and perfect diction, as a voiceover as she reads the letter. As he walks away from her, the camera pulls back and follows him. As he gets father away we see both Elizabeth and Darcy in the frame become smaller and smaller. It is quite affective in relaying his presence and driving home the fact that as she reads his explanation of his behavior, and she has her “until this moment I never knew myself” revelation, we are left with the sinking feeling that he has walked out of her life, and now how will she get him back?

The second great moment comes when Elizabeth and her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner are touring Pemberley. They have been told by the housekeeper that Darcy is far away in Town so they tour the estate with ease and awe. As they walk in a garden adjacent to the house, Elizabeth is admiring the facade and looks down to see Mr. Darcy’s dog appear around a corner of the building. His master soon follows and walks into the garden and is surprised to find Elizabeth at his home. They have an awkward meeting and Elizabeth and Darcy are stumbling for words and very uncomfortable. Mr. Darcy does not have a dog in the original novel, but this addition of the well-trained spaniel, as proud and contained as his master appearing as a foreshadowing to Elizabeth was brilliant.

The secondary characters really shine in this production too. Malcolm Rennie as Mr. Collins is just priceless. He is tall and toady and just the perfect smarmy buffoon. Peter Settelen as George Wickham is such a handsome, charming cad that we want to love him like Elizabeth is tempted to do. There is a scene where he and Lizzy are walking in the garden and all I can concentrate on are his canary breeches! Judy Parfitt gives us an imperious Lady Catherine de Bourgh that is quite younger than I had envisioned in the book, but still as imposing.

Since the 1980 P&P aired there has been one major miniseries filmed in 1995 and a theatrical movie in 2005. Everyone has their favorite and I have this pet theory why Janeites love one version and abhor another. Everyone seems to bond with the first version that they see, so for those who love the 2005 Keira Knightley version with pigs in the Longbourn kitchen and Mr. Darcy walking across a misty morning glade to find Elizabeth in her nightgown, or the 1995 version with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy taking a bath or a dip in Pemberley pond, think long and hard about what Jane Austen wrote about and what she wanted us to experience with her characters, and watch the 1980 version again.

5 out of 5 Regency Stars

Pride and Prejudice (1980)
BBC Worldwide (2004 re-issue)
DVD (226 minutes)
ASIN: B000244FDW

• Visit The Pride and Prejudice Bicentenary Challenge 2013 on Austenprose.com

A life-long acolyte of Jane Austen, Laurel Ann Nattress is the editor of the short story anthology Jane Austen Made Me Do It, and Austenprose.com, a blog devoted to the oeuvre of her favorite author and the many books and movies that she has inspired. She is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, a regular contributor to the Jane Austen Centre online magazine. An expatriate of southern California, Laurel Ann lives in a country cottage near Snohomish, Washington where it rains a lot. Visit Laurel Ann at her blog Austenprose – A Jane Austen Blog, on Twitter as @Austenprose, and on Facebook as Laurel Ann Nattress.

Ackermann’s Repository of Arts was an illustrated, British periodical published from 1809-1829 by Rudolph Ackermann. Although commonly called Ackermann’s Repository, or, simply Ackerman’s, the formal title of the journal was Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions, and politics, and it did, indeed cover all of these fields.In its day, it had great influence on English taste in fashion, architecture, and literature. The following excerpt from the April, 1814 edition displays a table and chair set designed for the Prince of Wales‘ Carlton House.

An early 19th century sketch of the entrance front of Carlton House in London.

Fashionable Furniture
We know that a people become enlightened by the cultivation of  the arts, and that they become great in the progress of that cultivation. That a just knowledge of the useful and a correct taste for the ornamental go hand in hand with this general improvement, the dullest observer may be satisfied by looking around him. We now acknowledge, that it is alone the pencil of the artist which can trace the universal hieroglyphic; understood alike by all, his enthusiasm communicates itself to all alike, and prepares the mind for cultivation. A national improvement is thus produced by the arts, and the arts are supported in their respectability by the calls which the improving public taste makes for their assistance; they are inseparable in their progress, and mutually depend on each other for support. In the construction of the domestic furniture of our dwellings we see and feel the benefit of all this. To the credit of our higher classes who encourage, and of our manufacturing artists who produce, we now universally quit the overcharged magnificence of former ages, and seek the purer models of simplicity and tasteful ornament in every article of daily call.

Carlton House Table & Chair

 

The table and chair which are the subject of the present engraving, are peculiarly of the description of improvement of which we are speaking. They exhibit a judicious combination of elegance and usefulness, do great credit to the artists who designed and executed them, and highly merit the patronage afforded them. They are from the ware-rooms of Messrs. Morgan and Sanders, of Catherine-street, Strand. They take the name of Carlton-House Table and Chair, as we presume, from having been first made for the august personage whose correct taste has so classically embellished that beautiful palace.
Ackerman’s Repository of Arts and Literature
April, 1814

 

Historical Information regarding Ackermann’s Repository from Wikipedia.com

I will admit, even I was swept away in the furor of home farming and could not resist the adorable ducklings for sale. Knowing that my sister in law intended on setting up a hen house that summer, I thought that the sweet little Mallard ducklings we found would be a fantastic present for her April birthday.

We only planned to get six.

It turns out that there are regulations about this sort of thing. At least in my state, you can’t purchase fewer than 24 ducklings at a time, before Easter (after which the number drops to 6 at a time.) I suppose this is to stop people from purchasing them for Easter baskets and then forgetting to care for them. Whatever the cause, what started as a lark, ended that evening with 2 dozen ducklings (minus the one that “got away” somewhere in the store…) , bedding, a waterer and feeder and a 50 lb bag of chick starter  in my kitchen. It was Saturday and the birthday was a week away.

“Wonderful!” I thought. It was our first year of homeschooling (need I say more?) What a great experience for our children! I would be the coolest mom ever. Two dozen ducklings to play with for a week before passing the responsibility on to someone else– and what responsibility could that possibly be? They were Mallards! The clerk promised that they would be cute all summer, fly south in the winter and then return to the pond spring after spring for years of fuss free duckling fun.

They were absolutely adorable that first day. I gaily planned to read Make Way for Ducklings, and ordered books about ducklings so that my children could fully immerse themselves in the joy of caring for their new friends. My neighbor let us borrow a large kennel to keep them in for the night and in spite of being somewhat confined, we soon discovered why poultry are not considered optimal house pets. Perhaps they would better have been named “water foul”.

The next day they moved to an empty wading pool on our deck while we commenced cleaning the floor and even the walls of our kitchen. Cute or not, by Monday night we had arranged to “drop by” my Sister in law’s home the next day to bring her an early gift.

Our nephew gets up close and personal with one of the grown up ducklings.

Fortunately, she was delighted (and remains so) with our offering. The ducklings rapidly grew and with a few exceptions all migrated south that winter. The three that stayed behind rapidly began expanding the flock once again. Today, their children and grandchildren enjoy the run of the farm by day, but return home in the evening, showing no signs of finding their own habitats in the nearby woods or water. They have been joined by several varieties of hens and roosters, Guinea hens and Peking ducks. Their wilder cousins did return to the pond this spring, bringing with them Canadian Geese, all of whom now call the farm home. Additional ducks have gone to live with other family members, following them around like house pets, reluctant to leave the safe familiarity of home and yard. It seems they are here to stay.

It seems ironic to me that the more “modern” we get, the more we realize the value of slowing down, of being mindful of what we eat and how and where it was grown.  With all the modern conveniences at our fingertips– canned this, frozen that, microwaveable anything–”country life” (even in the suburbs) has a renewed appeal. Something as small as raising a few hens or ducks can bring you satisfaction and a feeling of connection with past generations of men and women who raised their own produce, by choice or necessity; their meals made all the sweeter by the effort and cultivation that went into them.

Poultry yards full of mixed fowl were no uncommon thing in Jane Austen’s day, being necessary to even a small family’s need for meat and eggs (not to mention pest control!)  Indeed, the care and keeping of the poultry yard was near and dear to the Austen family. Letters show that Mrs. Austen and her wealthy son Edward Austen-Leigh, together, detailed plans for a hen house, and who can forget the dramatic theft of turkeys, which removed the last obstacle to Emma’s marriage? It was no doubt based on real life events (especially when taken together with the warning given by Mrs. Rundell, below!)

Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house was robbed one night of all her turkies — evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in the neighbourhood also suffered. Pilfering was housebreaking to Mr. Woodhouse’s fears. He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependance. While either of them protected him and his, Hartfield was safe. But Mr. John Knightley must be in London again by the end of the first week in November.

The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary, cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day; and Mr. Elton was called on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse.
-Emma

Period cookbooks, like Mrs. Rundell’s New System of Domestic Cookery offered tips not only on choosing fresh poultry in the market, but also for maintaining a healthy brood at home. Mrs. Rundell first published her book in 1806, however it remained in print for decades after. The following advice, from the 1859 edition, is useful to all would-be poultry owners. For a description of a period style hen house and poultry yard, read Mrs. Rundell’s New Family Receipt Book.

If the eggs of any other sort are put under a hen with some of her own, observe to add her own as many days after the others as there is a difference in the length of their sitting. A turkey and duck sit thirty days. Choose large clear eggs to put her upon, and such a number as she can properly cover. If very large eggs, there are sometimes two yolks, and of course neither will be productive. Ten or twelve are quite enough.

A hen-house should be large and high; and should be frequently cleaned out, or the vermin of fowls will increase greatly. But hens must not be disturbed while sitting; for, if frightened, they sometimes forsake their nests. Wormwood and rue should be planted plentifully, about their houses: boil some of the former, and sprinkle it about the floor, which should be of smooth earth, not paved. The windows of the house should be open to the rising sun; and a hole must be left at the door, to let the smaller fowls go in: the larger may be let in and out by opening the door. There should be a small sliding board to shut down when the fowls are gone to roost, which would prevent the small beasts of prey from committing ravages; and a good strong door and lock may possibly, in some measure, prevent the depredations of human enemies.

When some of the chickens are hatched long before the others, it may be necessary to keep them in a basket of wool till the others come forth. The day after they are hatched give them some crumbs of white bread, and small (or rather cracked) grits soaked in milk. As soon as they have gained a little strength, feed them with curd, cheese-parings cut small, or any soft food, but nothing sour; and give them clean water twice a day. Keep the hen under a pen till the young have strength to follow her about, which will be in two or three weeks; and be sure to feed her well.

The food of fowls goes first into their crop, which softens it, and then passes into the gizzard, which by constant friction macerates it, and this is facilitated by small stones, which are generally found there, and which help to digest the food.

If a sitting hen is troubled with vermin, let her be well washed with a decoction of white lupins. The pip in fowls is occasioned by drinking dirty water, or taking filthy food. A white thin scale on the tongue is the symptom. Pull the scale off with your nail, and rub the tongue with some salt, and the complaint will be removed.

It answers well to pay some boy employed in the farm or stable so much a score for the eggs he brings in. It will be his interest then to save them from being purloined, which nobody but one in his situation can prevent; and sixpence or eightpence a score will be buying eggs cheap.

DUCKS
Generally begin to lay in the month of February. Their eggs should be daily taken away except one, till they seem inclined to sit; then leave them, and see that there are enough. They require no attention while sitting, except to give them food at the time they come out to seek it; and there should be water placed at a moderate distance from them, that their eggs may not be spoiled by their long absence in seeking it. Twelve or thirteen eggs are enough: in an early season it is best to set them under a hen; and then they can be kept from

water till they have a little strength to bear it, which in very cold weather they cannot do so well. They should be put under cover, especially in a wet season; for, though water is the natural element of ducks, yet they are apt to be killed by the cramp before they are covered with feathers to defend them.

Ducks should be accustomed to feed and rest at one place, which would prevent their straggling too far to lay. Places near the water to lay in are advantageous; and these might be small wooden houses, with a partition in the middle and a door at each end. They eat anything; and when to be fattened must have plenty, however coarse, and in three weeks they will be fat.

Published by Ward, Lock, & Tyler of London;
Harry’s Ladder to Learning, 1869

GEESE
Require little expense, as they chiefly support themselves on commons or in lanes, where they can get water. The largest are esteemed the best, as also are the white and gray. The pied and dark-coloured are not so good. Thirty days are generally the time the goose sits, but in warm weather she will sometimes hatch sooner. Give them plenty of food, such as scalded bran and light oats; and as soon as the goslings are hatched keep them housed for eight or ten days, and feed them with barley-meal, bran, curds, &c For green geese, begin to fatten them at six or seven weeks old, and feed them as above. Stubble geese require no fattening if they have the run of good fields.

Vintage Currier and Ives print.

TURKEYS
Are very tender when young. As soon as hatched put three peppercorns down their throats. Great care is necessary to their well-being, because the hen is so careless that she will walk about with one chick, and leave the remainder, or even tread upon and kill them. Turkeys are violent eaters; and must therefore be left to take charge of themselves in general, except one good feed a-day. The hen sits twenty-five or thirty days; and the young ones must be kept warm, as the least cold or damp kills them. They must be fed often, and at a distance from the hen, who will eat everything from them. They should have curds, green cheese parings cut small, and bread and milk with chopped wormwood in it; and their drink milk and water, but not left to be sour. All young fowls are a prey for vermin, therefore they should be kept in a safe place, where none can come: weasels, stoats, ferrets, &c, creep in at very small crevices.

Let the hen be under a coop, in a warm place exposed to the sun, for the first three or four weeks; and the young should not be suffered to go out in the dew at morning or evening. Twelve eggs are enough to put under a turkey; and when she is about to lay, lock her up till she has laid every morning. They usually begin to lay in March and sit in April. Feed them near the hen-house; and give them a little meat in the evening, to accustom them to roosting there. Fatten them with sodden oats or barley for the first fortnight; and the last fortnight give them as above, and rice swelled with warm milk over the fire twice a day. The flesh will be beautifully white and fine flavoured. The common way is to cram them, but they are so ravenous that it seems unnecessary, if they are not suffered to go far from home, which makes them poor.”

Laura Boyle is the author of Cooking with Jane Austen and Friends. She is the proprietor of Austenation: Regency Accessories, creating custom hats, bonnets, reticules and more for customers around the globe. Her greatest joy is the opportunity she has to teach her 3 children from home– an unending adventure, better than any novel.

This game is played by two people, with small rackets, called battledores, made of parchment or rows of gut stretched across wooden frames, and shuttlecocks, made of a base of some light material, like cork, with trimmed feathers fixed round the top.

Georgian girl with Battledore and Shuttlecock by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779)

The object of the players is to bat the shuttlecock from one to the other as many times as possible without allowing it to fall to the ground.

From Mrs. Hurst Dancing, by Diana Sperling

Jane Austen, herself, played the game with her nephews. In 1808, she wrote to Cassandra

Yesterday was a very quiet day with us; my noisiest efforts were writing to Frank, and playing at battledore and shuttlecock with William; he and I have practised together two mornings, and improve a little; we have frequently kept it up three times, and once or twice six.

Games with a shuttlecock are believed to have originated in ancient Greece about 2,000 years ago. From there they spread via the Indo-Greek kingdoms to India and then further east to China and Siam.

There are Greek drawings extant representing a game almost identical with battledore and shuttlecock, and it has been popular in India, China, Japan, and Siam for at least 2,000 years. In Europe it has been played by children for centuries. A further development is badminton.

The original illustration from “A Girl’s Own Book“.

Lydia Maria Child’s Girl’s Own Book (1833) offers the following detailed explanation of the game:

This game is too well known to need much description The shuttlecock sometimes called the bird is a little ball stuck full of feathers the battledoors are covered with parchment and the object of the players is to keep the bird constantly passing and re passing in the air by means of striking it with the battledoors. Some people become so expert at it that they can keep it up more than a thousand times without once allowing it to fall Little girls should not be afraid of being well tired that will do them good but excessive fatigue should be avoided especially where it is quite unnecessary

Historical information from Wikipedia.com

Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant. Information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry (himself famous for his portrait of Edward Austen-Leigh, as well as the Rice Portrait) towards the end of Stubbs’s life. Stubbs worked at his father’s trade until he was 15 or 16, and after his father’s death in 1741 was briefly apprenticed to a Lancashire painter and engraver named Hamlet Winstanley. He soon left as he objected to the work of copying to which he was set. Thereafter as an artist he was self-taught. In the 1740s he worked as a portrait painter in the North of England and from about 1745 to 1751 he studied human anatomy at York County Hospital. He had had a passion for anatomy from his childhood, and one of his earliest surviving works is a set of illustrations for a textbook on midwifery which was published in 1751.

In 1754 Stubbs visited Italy. Forty years later he told Ozias Humphry that his motive for going to Italy was, “to convince himself that nature was and is always superior to art whether Greek or Roman, and having renewed this conviction he immediately resolved upon returning home”. In 1756 he rented a farmhouse in the village of Horkstow, Lincolnshire, and spent 18 months dissecting horses, assisted by his common-law wife, Mary Spencer. He moved to London in about 1759 and in 1766 published The anatomy of the Horse. The original drawings are now in the collection of the Royal Academy.

Mares and Foals in a Landscape. 1763-68.

Even before his book was published, Stubbs’s drawings were seen by leading aristocratic patrons, who recognised that his work was more accurate than that of earlier horse painters such as James Seymour, Peter Tillemans and John Wootton. In 1759 the 3rd Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures from him, and his career was soon secure. By 1763 he had produced works for several more dukes and other lords and was able to buy a house in Marylebone, a fashionable part of London, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Whistlejacket by George Stubbs (1724–1806) circa 1762

His most famous work is probably Whistlejacket, a painting of a prancing horse commissioned by the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, which is now in the National Gallery in London. This and two other paintings carried out for Rockingham break with convention in having plain backgrounds. Throughout the 1760s he produced a wide range of individual and group portraits of horses, sometimes accompanied by hounds. He often painted horses with their grooms, whom he always painted as individuals. Meanwhile he also continued to accept commissions for portraits of people, including some group portraits. From 1761 to 1776 he exhibited at the Society of Artists, but in 1775 he switched his allegiance to the recently founded but already more prestigious Royal Academy.

A Lion Attacking a Horse, oil on canvas, 1770, by Stubbs. Yale University Art Gallery

Stubbs also painted more exotic animals including lions, tigers, giraffes, monkeys, and rhinoceroses, which he was able to observe in private menageries. He became preoccupied with the theme of a wild horse threatened by a lion and produced several variations on this theme. These and other works became well known at the time through engravings of Stubbs’s work, which appeared in increasing numbers in the 1770s and 1780s.

George IV when Prince of Wales, 1791

Stubbs also painted historical pictures, but these are much less well regarded. From the late 1760s he produced some work on enamel. In the 1770s Josiah Wedgwood developed a new and larger type of enamel panel at Stubbs’s request. Stubbs hoped to achieve commercial success with his paintings in enamel, but the venture left him in debt. Also in the 1770s he painted single portraits of dogs for the first time, while also receiving an increasing number of commissions to paint hunts with their packs of hounds. He remained active into his old age. In the 1780s he produced a pastoral series called Haymakers and Reapers, and in the early 1790s he enjoyed the patronage of the Prince of Wales, whom he painted on horseback in 1791. His last project, begun in 1795, was A comparative anatomical exposition of the structure of the human body with that of a tiger and a common fowl, fifteen engravings from which appeared between 1804 and 1806. The project was left unfinished upon Stubbs’s death at the age of 81 on 10 July 1806, in London.

Stubbs’s son George Townly Stubbs was an engraver and printmaker.

From Wikipedia.com

My daughter (along with at least half of the seven year old girl population) is currently fascinated by horses and I recently picked up Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind for her to read. The story is a fictionalized account of the Godolphin Arabian. I had not realized that it was a true story when I first began to peruse it, but I quickly became engrossed in the story, which reads like any fairy tale (and, of course, has a happy ending!)

The Godolphin Arabian, painted by George Stubbs, some time before 1806.

According to Wikipedia, “the Godolphin Arabian (c. 1724 – 1753), was an Arabian horse who was one of three stallions that were the founders of the modern Thoroughbred horse racing bloodstock (the other two are the Darley Arabian and the Byerley Turk). He was given his name for his best-known owner, Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin.

The Godolphin Arabian was foaled about 1724 in Yemen, but moved several times before reaching England. At some time in his early years, he was exported, probably via Syria, to the stud of the Bey of Tunis. From there he was given to Louis XV of France in 1730. It is believed he was a present from monarch to monarch. Even so, he was not valued by his new French owner, and it is believed he was used as a carthorse.

The horse was then imported from France by Edward Coke and sent to his stud at Longford Hall, Derbyshire where he remained until the death of his owner in 1733.

He was bequeathed to Roger Williams, “proprietor of the St. James’s Coffee House”, who inherited Coke’s stallions. He was bought by the 2nd Earl of Godolphinand placed at his stud at Babraham, Cambridgeshire until his death on Christmas Day 1753.

The Godolphin Arabian is described as being of a brown bay colour with some white on the off heel behind. He stood at 15 hands (60 inches, 152 cm) and was distinguished by an unnaturally high crest which is noticeable from portraits of the horse. Most of his immediate offspring were also bay.

Controversy exists over the ancestry of the Godolphin Arabian; some writers referred to him as a Barb, because of his believed country of origin, Tunisia, on the Barbary Coast. Whyte in the 1840 History of the British Turf, refers to the horse as

“The Godolphin Barb, or as he has been improperly called, the Godolphin Arabian” (emphasis added) before further clarifying, “He was long considered an Arabian, although his points resembled more those of the highest breed of Barbs.”

However, portraits, showing a horse with a high-carried tail and dished profile, features that differentiate Arabians from Barbs, lead modern experts to believe he was more likely an Arabian. The confusion is understandable, but while the breeds have some characteristics in common and are distantly related, their phenotypes are quite distinct. There was also an argument raised that he was actually a Turkoman horse, merely called an Arabian in order to raise the stud fee. However, it is most widely believed that he was an Arabian or had primarily Arabian lineage.

The Earl of Godolphin referred to the horse as an Arabian, and he was described as such by the painter George Stubbs. Lord Godolphin later bought a second stallion in 1750. This one he clearly called a “barb”. Both were of a similar bay colour but the Barb had a star. Godolphin later bought a grey Barb which has also caused some confusion over the years.

Originally, this small stallion was considered inferior to the larger European horses of the time and not meant to be put to stud. Instead he was used as ‘teaser’, a stallion used to gauge the mare’s receptiveness. This changed when Lady Roxana, a mare brought to the stud specifically to be bred to a stallion called Hobgoblin, rejected her intended mate, and so the Godolphin Arabian was allowed to cover her instead.  The result of this mating was Lath, the first of his offspring, who went on to win the Queen’s Plate nine times out of nine at the Newmarket races. The second colt from this pair was Cade, and the third was Regulus. All three were the same gold-touched bay as their sire, with the same small build and high crested conformation. All were exceptionally fast on the track, and went on to sire many foals themselves. This was the start of the Godolphin Arabian’s prowess as a racing stud, and he spent the rest of his days as the Earl of Godolphin’s prize stallion, bred to England’s finest mares.

The American connection began with the filly Selima (born in 1745 out of Shireborn). She was purchased by Benjamin Tasker, Jr. of the Province of Maryland in Colonial America, carried to the new world, and raced between 1750 and 1753. She won the biggest prize of the era, 2,500 pistoles at Gloucester, Virginia which marked “the beginning of the remarkable racing contests between the rival colonies of Maryland and Virginia.” After this, she became a successful broodmare at the Belair Stud in Collington, Maryland.

Among the many famous horses he sired were Lath, Cade (full brother to Lath), Blank and Regulus. The Godolphin Arabian was leading sire in Great Britain and Ireland in 1738, 1745 and 1747.

The veterinary surgeon Osmer, as quoted by Prior described him in the following manner:

There never was a horse (at least, that I have seen) so well entitled to get racers as the Godolphin Arabian; for, whoever has seen this horse must remember that his shoulders were deeper, and lay farther into his back, than those of any horse ever yet seen. Behind the shoulders, there was but a very small space ere the muscles of his loins rose exceedingly high, broad, and expanded, which were inserted into his hindquarters with greater strength and power than in any horse I believe ever yet seen of his dimensions, viz fifteen hands high.

Within the stable block at Wandlebury is the grave of the Godolphin Arabian, the most famous of the Arabian stallions brought to England, and the ancestor of many of today’s thoroughbred racehorses. The horse died at Wandlebury in 1753 at the age of 29.

The Godolphin Arabian died at Gog-Magog, Cambridgeshire in 1753, aged around 29. The horse’s grave in the stable block of Wandlebury House can be visited. When he was interred, the occasion was marked with ale and cake.

Although today the majority of Thoroughbred horses’ sire lines trace to the Darley Arabian, many famous American horses of the past trace their sire line back to the Godolphin Arabian. These include Seabiscuit, Man o’ War, War Admiral, and Silky Sullivan. Today, dual Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow represents his line.

In Europe, his influence survives mainly through the 2,000 Guineas winner Known Fact, and his son, the champion miler Warning. This line has produced outstanding sprinters such as Diktat (Haydock Sprint Cup), Avonbridge (Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp) and Dream Ahead (July Cup). The Derby has not been won by a sire line descendant of the Godolphin Arabian since Santa Claus in 1964 and is nowadays dominated by descendants of the Darley Arabian.

So how, one asks, does this horse connect to the Austen family? The Austens, especially Edward and Henry, are known to have watched and enjoyed many a race. Perhaps they even had the opportunity to wager on one of the Godolphin Arabian’s many progeny. His Grand”son”, for instance, was Whistlejacket, who was the subject of one of the most famous horse paintings in history. This painting, by renowned artist George Stubbs (25 August 1724 – 10 July 1806), can be found in London’s National Gallery. It is truly impressive and one wonders if it was indeed unfinished as it is so striking in its simplicity.

Whistlejacket by George Stubbs (1724–1806) circa 1762

Stubbs, a friend of Ozias Humphrey (Janites will recall this artist’s work on Edward Austen-Knight’s portrait as well as the Rice Portrait), painted the work in 1762 for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, who subsequently displayed the piece at his home, “Wentworth Woodhouse”. Upon his death, the house and property, (though not his marquisate), passed to his nephew William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam.

Wentworth Woodhouse, as it appears today, resembles Pemberley in many respects.

Watson, Wentworth, Woodhouse, Fitzwilliam—all are names familiar to Janeites everywhere. It is surely no accident that they are brought here together in one family tree. There is even an “Emma Wodehouse” if one traces the line back to the 1600’s. Other branches of the same family include Vernons and even a D’Arcy connection! One wonders if Jane ever visited this estate, or at least sought inspiration from the pages of The Peerage.

In the 1790′s, Wentworth Castle (another family holding) was inherited by a young man named Frederick Wentworth, elevating him to the position of Earl of Strafford. Perhaps contemporary readers were beginning to ask questions, perhaps it was a family joke– it all seems too close to be a coincidence,perhaps forcing Sir Walter Elliot protestation, in Austen’s final novel, Persusaion,

“Mr. Wentworth was nobody, I remember, quite unconnected; nothing to do with the Strafford family.”

In any event, the painting, the painter, the estate and it’s family, all seem to be wrapped up in a package of Austen connections which we might never be able to fully unravel. Still, the history is remarkable, and the story worth reading. Further information about Wentworth Woodhouse can be found in Janine Barchas’s fascinating article, A Janeacation in Yorkshire?

Laura Boyle is the author of Cooking with Jane Austen and Friends. She is the proprietor of Austenation: Regency Accessories, creating custom hats, bonnets, reticules and more for customers around the globe. Her greatest joy is the opportunity she has to teach her 3 children from home– an unending adventure, better than any novel.

Honoured as a Top Performing Tearoom as Reviewed by Travellers on the
World’s Largest Travel Site

Bath, Uk – The Regency Tea Room at the Jane Austen Centre today announced that it has received a TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence award. The accolade, which honours hospitality excellence, is given only to establishments that consistently achieve outstanding traveller reviews on TripAdvisor, and is extended to qualifying businesses worldwide. Only the top-performing 10 per cent of businesses listed on TripAdvisor receive this prestigious award.

To qualify for a Certificate of Excellence, businesses must maintain an overall rating of four or higher, out of a possible five, as reviewed by travellers on TripAdvisor, and must have been listed on TripAdvisor for at least 12 months. Additional criteria include the volume of reviews received within the last 12 months.

Lenka Winter, the Tea Room Manager is pleased to receive a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence,” said,“We strive to offer our customers a memorable experience, and this accolade is evidence that our hard work is translating into positive reviews on TripAdvisor.”

“TripAdvisor is delighted to celebrate the success of businesses around the globe, from Sydney to Chicago, Sao Paulo to Rome, which are consistently offering TripAdvisor travellers a great customer experience,” said Alison Copus, Vice President of Marketing for TripAdvisor for Business. “The Certificate of Excellence award provides top performing establishments around the world the recognition they deserve, based on feedback from those who matter most – their customers.”

“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”
-Northanger Abbey

When Scott Southard set out to write a novel about Jane Austen, he purposefully avoided reading any of the recent spate of biographical fiction. This was to be an un-biography—the life he wished Jane might have led—a Jane Austen daydream. His goal, as stated in the dedication, was to make his wife laugh.

As a male writer, writing fiction featuring perhaps the most famous female writer of all time, Southard was in a class, if not by himself, then with very few to compete with. Certainly, he brings a new spin to the Austen oeuvre. His Jane is unlike any I’ve ever read—“a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice” if you will. A sharply tongued Marianne to Cassandra’s Elinor. Indeed, the world he has created for Jane, beginning with her life in Steventon, is full of characters that would later appear in one form or another in her works. Her dear friend Harriet, for instance, is a duplicate of Harriet Smith, in Emma.

Some may find this to lack creativity, they might assume that the author is indicating that Jane was unable to create realistic characters on her own, for the Jane in this novel is a writer, and does, over the course of the book, complete several of her now famous works. Others might look on it with the delight of discovering an old friend in an unexpected place. I prefer to think of it as the latter. After all, this is not a biography (as those familiar with the life of Jane Austen will quickly note) and it was written to make his wife laugh. How better to do that, you might ask, than to create a Lady Catherine De Bourgh imbued with the spirit of Mrs. Jennings? This is only one of the “sightings” which fill the book, adding to a diverse cast of characters, both real and imagined.

While shielding himself from recent publications, Southard saturated himself, instead, in Jane Austen’s own writings, reading through her works several times throughout the development of this novel. This familiarity with the entire Austen canon shines through, with much of the dialogue taken directly from her novels and letters (but with a twist). Lines are spoken “out of context”, combined with conversations from other works, and placed back into the mouths of Austen’s own friends and family.

The novel opens with Jane and Cassandra taking a walk in the countryside, only to discover a band of gypsies. The girls stop to have their fortunes told and when Jane asks after the future of her heart she is told,

“…you will have love…It will take you by surprise. When you least suspect it, when you are not looking for it. Remember…you will be surprised.”

With this, the scene is set and the “surprises” unfold.

If asked to sum up this book in one word, I would have to choose “unpredictable”. Going into it, all I knew was that it was not a biography, and its purpose was to satisfy the author by giving Jane the happy future he would have chosen for her. Safe to say, even for the advanced Austen scholar, it will be impossible to predict where the tale will twist and turn. For those of you who are exhausted by the innumerable retellings of Austen’s novels, this is a style entirely new.

This Jane resembles the “official” J.E.A.L.’s “Aunt” Jane as little “as the first of May doth the last of December”, however this Jane is quite capable of creating the riotously funny juvenilia we all love so much. This Jane painfully comes to learn the lessons of love that she teaches through characters, and if the course of true love never did run smooth, then at least, like Southard’s wife, and perhaps even the “real” Jane Austen, herself, we can smile, and even laugh at where that course will lead. After all, “For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

A purist will not like this novel. They will toss it aside (if not against the wall) and cry, “But George Austen Jr. did NOT have children!” They may grumble a bit at the setting the author has created with his modern American ideas about Regency England. They might even quote Jane back to him, suggesting that it was written “by a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian”. Would it be so hard, after all, to stick to the few facts that we do know? To do so, however, would be to limit the imagination.

If you are looking for something new this summer—something light, for reading at the beach, perhaps—and can, like a purveyor of fine fiction, willingly suspend your disbelief, you will, in the end, be rewarded by a quick paced novel unlike any you can ever have read, which injects new ideas and possibilities into the world of Jane Austen.

Southard never says whether or not he was successful in making his wife laugh. He does, however note, “with all its liberties, I cannot help but believe that Jane would have been amused by this book. For me, when I think of my time writing the book, it was a lovely daydream….”

A Jane Austen Daydream is available from Amazon.com in both print and Kindle formats. Click here to read An Interview with Scott D. Southard, of A Jane Austen Daydream.

List Price: $14.95
Kindle Price: $3.99
Paperback: 410 pages
Publisher: Madison Street Publishing (April 2, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0983671923
ISBN-13: 978-0983671923

 

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Laura Boyle is the author of Cooking with Jane Austen and Friends. She is the proprietor of Austenation: Regency Accessories, creating custom hats, bonnets, reticules and more for customers around the globe. Her greatest joy is the opportunity she has to teach her 3 children from home– an unending adventure, better than any novel.

“How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
-Pride and Prejudice

Ackermann’s Repository of Arts was an illustrated, British periodical published from 1809-1829 by Rudolph Ackermann. Although commonly called Ackermann’s Repository, or, simply Ackerman’s, the formal title of the journal was Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions, and politics, and it did, indeed cover all of these fields. In its day, it had great influence on English taste in fashion, architecture, and literature.

Many of the English fashion plates that remain from the Regency era are from Ackermann’s and while a wide assortment of topics were covered in each issue, fasshionable furniture was also highlighted. The following library table, from the January, 1814 issue, is suggested as the perfect piece for smaller homes and city apartments. Jane Austen spent time in London in 1814, with her brother Henry (his wife, Eliza, had passed away the previous year) Perhaps she wrote parts of her upcoming novel, Emma (1815) at a desk like this one, while staying at his home in Henrietta street.

The chaste and elegant library table represented in the annexed engraving, is of a convenient form and moderate size, and is so suited to an apartment of small dimensions: at the same time it exhibits that breadth of parts and greatness of design, which characterize most articles of modern furniture, and give a dignity heretofore unknown. The recess beneath renders it also extremely commodious for a writing-table, which was not the case with the library tables formerly constructed. The chair is designed with equal attention to elegance and convenience, and made to correspond. They may both be forged of mahogany, with rings and ornaments of bronze; the shelves of the table with divide, so as to admit either a row of folios and octavos, or two rows of quatros.
-Ackermann’s Repository of Arts and Literature
January, 1814

Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who lived a little way out of Highbury…Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those, for whom education had done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear! I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?”

“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else.”

“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.
-Emma

In 1806, Eliza Maria Ketelby Rundell (known to her readers as Mrs. Rundell) published a book of cookery and household hints entitled, A New System for Domestic Cookery, formed upon Princlples of Economy, and adapted to the Use of Private Families.  First directed towards her own daughters, and designed for the many young ladies who found themselves mistresses of their own homes in the ever growing Regency middle class. In her prefec to the 1814 edition, she writes:

Still, while addressing young wives on the running of their own homes, she finds the time to speak to them on the subject kindness to those less fortunate than themselves. The instructions may sound somewhat condescending, and later editions of this book edit them slightly, but they remain here as a glimpse into the mindest of the early 19th Century housewife.

The image of Emma, so understanding and compassionate to the poor of Highbury is quite a contrast to the picture of Lady Catherine De Bourgh, in Pride and Prejudice,

Elizabeth soon perceived that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty.

One likes to think that Jane, especially as daughter of the Clergyman of Steventon, would have been much more like Emma in her charitable ministrations, though whether she held them in the same view as Mrs. Rundell, can only be left to the immagination:

General Remarks and Hints
I promised a few hints, to enable every family to assist the poor of their neighbourhood at a very trivial expense; and these may be varied or amended at the discretion of the mistress.

Where cows are kept, a jug of skimmed milk is a valuable present, and a very common one.

When the oven is hot, a large pudding may be baked, and given to a sick or young family: and thus made the trouble is little:—Into a deep coarse pan put half a pound rice, four ounces of coarse sugar or molasses, two quarts of milk, and two ounces of dripping ; set it cold into the oven. It will take a good while, but be an excellent solid food.

Fish affords great nourishment, and that not by the part eaten only, but the bones, heads, and fins, which contain an isinglass. When the fish is served, let the cook put by some of the water, and stew it in the above; as likewise add the gravy that is in the dish, until she obtain all the goodness. If to be eaten by itself, when it makes a delightful broth, she should add a very small bit of onion, some pepper, and a little rice-flour rubbed down smooth with it.

But strained, it makes a delicious improvement to the meat-soup, particularly for the sick; and when such are to be supplied, the milder parts of the spare bones and meat should be used for them, with little, if any, of the liquor of the salt meats.

The fat should not be taken off the broth or soup, as the poor like it, and are nourished by it.