JASNA Pikes Peak Region meeting

Sunday June 5 I attended my first meeting of the Pikes Peak Regional Group of JASNA and found myself in a great discussion led by Rashel Hogue Carnefix: Barouches, Balls, and Breakfast.

Turnout was excellent (I think just shy of 20) at Poor Richard’s Discount Bookstore in downtown Colorado Springs, and after regional coordinator Leee Overmann made introductions, Ms. Carnefix started with a quick primer on Regency society and then examined the status of ladies and what they did to occupy their time, which was all well and good, but it was the questions she posed that provided the most interest, including:

• Who is the more eligible bachelor: Fitzwilliam Darcy or Edmund Bertram? As you can imagine, it was hard to divorce Darcy from the image of Colin Firth and truly examine what each man brought to the table.
• Compare and contrast Mrs. Dashwood and Miss Bates. Here you must examine Miss Bates stripped of her small talk and instead view how others appreciate her versus the impracticality of Mrs. Dashwood
• How would Anne Elliot and Catherine Morland differ on their ideas of calling? For instance, could Catherine call on Anne?

In addition to other topics, I learned about “fashion babies,” or the dolls that dressmakers would use to display the current fashions, useful in the days before fashion magazines and the Internet.

Ms. Carnefix also provided a reading list, which I provide here copied from a post I received from Ms. Overmann:

• Jane Austen for Dummies, Joan Ray
• 101 Things You Didn’t Know about Jane Austen, Patrice Hannon
• British History for Dummies, Sean Lang
• Georgette Heyer’s Regency World, Jennifer Kloester
• Jane Austen, A Companion, Josephine Ross
• Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners, Josephine Ross
• Jane Austen’s Town and Country Style, Susan Watkins
• Only a Novel, The Double Life of Jane Austen, Jane Aiken Hodge
• The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen, edited by Penelope Hughes-Hallett
• The Making of Pride and Prejudice, Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conlkin
• What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Daniel Pool
• Jane Austen’s Life, a videotape distributed by American Home Treasures, Inc.
• Letters to Alice on first reading Jane Austen, Fay Weldon

And several people suggested that Joan Klingel Ray’s Jane Austen for Dummies should also be included on the list

Also announced at the meeting is the summer reading group, beginning at 7 p.m. June 15 at Poor Richard’s, 320 N. Tejon St. You can email Becky at pikespeakjasna (at) gmail (dot) com for more information about the class or the reading list.