ABOVE: The 1813 Cruikshank caricature of The Prince of Whales: The Fisherman at Anchor.................. Read Colleen Sheehan's articles (including the footnotes) for the amazing Jane Austen connection:

http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/on-line/vol27no1/sheehan.htm

AUSTENMANIA HAS COME TO MIAMI-DADE AND BROWARD COUNTIES FLORIDA

On Sunday January 23 2011 at Alvin Sherman Library Nova Southeastern U. (NSU) in Davie NSU English Prof Suzanne Ferriss and I finally gave our presentations (she about Austen film adaptations and other modern cultural reactions to Austen's writing and I of course about Jane Fairfax the shadow heroine of Emma) and nearly two hundred Janeite "needles" were irresistibly drawn to our "magnet". Within the next month I will start a new blog for our new Miami-Dade/Broward Janeite community as soon as I can catch a breath! Our huge turnout arose primarily from....

THIS WONDERFUL ARTICLE ON THE (ENTIRE) FRONT PAGE OF THE TROPICAL (LIFESTYLES) SECTION IN THE SATURDAY MIAMI HERALD

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/21/2025048/for-the-love-of-jane.html

AND THIS IS MY EARLIER BLOG POST ABOUT MY ASPIRATIONS FOR MY EVENT WHICH WERE ALL EXCEEDED:

http://sharpelvessociety.blogspot.com/2010/09/austenmania-is-coming-to-miami-dade-and.html

ASIDE FROM MY TALK AT NOVA MY MOST RECENT PRESENTATION WAS....

...on Halloween weekend 2010 when I addressed the JASNA AGM in Portland Oregon on the topic "Remember the country and age in which we live": The Covert Death-in-childbirth Anti-parody in Northanger Abbey"

http://www.jasna.org/agms/portland/breakout.html

AND MY NEXT TO LAST PRESENTATION BEFORE THAT WAS...

...0n May 1 2010 when I addressed the JASNA-NY Regional Group on the topic of The Shadow Story of Emma: Jane Austen the Secret Feminist:

http://www.jasnany.org/pdf/may1.pdf

WANT ME TO GIVE A PRESENTATION TO YOUR JASNA REGIONAL GROUP?

I'll be addressing JASNA groups in Gainesville Fla. on 02/05/11 and later in 2011 in SF LA Portland and Sacramento on one of my Austenian shadow story topics. I want to present to other JASNA and other Austen-oriented groups in 2011. Email me at arnieperlstein@myacc.net if you're interested!

AND FINALLY PROF. FERRISS & WILL REPRISE OUR JOINT PRESENTATION AT THE NORTH REGIONAL BRANCH MIAMI-DADE PUB. LIBRARY ON SAT. SEPT. 17 FROM 1-4 PM....... MORE ON THAT LATER WHEN I START THAT OTHER BLOG!

Letter 21 is turning out to be a veritable La Brea Tar Pits of hidden meaning and I am still only in the second paragraph:

"Edward has been pretty well for this last week and as the waters have never disagreed with him in any respect we are inclined to hope that he will derive advantage from them in the end. Everybody encourages us in this expectation for they all say that the effect of the waters cannot be negative and many are the instances in which their benefit is felt afterwards more than on the spot. He is more comfortable here than I thought he would be and so is Elizabeth though they will both I believe be very glad to get away-the latter especially which one can't wonder at somehow. So much for Mrs. Piozzi. I had some thoughts of writing the whole of my letter in her style but I believe I shall not."

So we return to the topic from Letter 20 of Edward Austen (not yet Knight) taking the Bath waters. Aside from factual reportage of the uncertain effects of this treatment this at first seems straightforward and unironic. However there a distinctive edge in ""He is more comfortable here than I thought he would be"---which sounds exactly like the way JA in Letter 20 wrote about her mother's suddenly and mysteriously having the strength to climb stairs. Is it any wonder that JA could so vividly capture neurotic hypochondria so well in Mrs. Bennet Mr. Woodhouse and Mary Elliot?

I am even more intrigued by "the latter especially which one can't wonder at somehow". It seems clear to me that this is a continuation of the following passage in Letter 19 written nearly four weeks earlier describing the trip _to_ Bath:

"Poor Elizabeth has had a dismal ride of it from Devizes for it has rained almost all the way and our first view of Bath has been just as gloomy as it was last November twelvemonth."

And so I continue to take this as veiled references to Elizabeth being in the early stages of yet _another_ pregnancy while coping with a full nursery already. Edward's hypochondria turns from irritating quirk to tremendously selfish cluelesssness when we consider that when he thinks he feels bad (remember he is a 33 year old man who wound up living till a very ripe old age!) he uproots his wife and drags her to Bath for a month in search of relief from his symptoms even as she suffers _real_ physical distress caused entirely by Edward making her pregnant virtually continuously for over 6 years! She has pretty much never known what it feels like to be married and _not_ pregnant! And that renders even the seemingly unironic description of Edward's condition ironic as well--by giving the hypochondria several lines before touching on Elizabeth's condition almost in passing JA is pointing out that this is the way the conversation goes in the rented premises at Bath--it's all about Edward no room to consider Elizabeth!

What I hear here is the same moral computations that we see in JA's famous letter to Martha Lloyd about Princess Caroline--which is that JA is not a particularly big fan of the Princess and her blundering indiscretions but her guilt is mitigated by the fact that she is married to the biggest jerk in the entire kingdom who has treated her abominably. (any echoes of Emma are entirely intentional!). Similarly I think that JA and Elizabeth Austen were hardly a mutual admiration society and yet JA could have compassion for her unlikable snobbish not very well educated sister in law because of what she had to put up with as wife of the "Prince" of the Austen family--Edward!

That's what that very "pregnant" "somehow" means I claim.

And what's most tantalizing is that "So much for Mrs. Piozzi"---before writing this message I knew quite little about Mrs. Piozzi's (aka Thrale's) letters or other writings but I just had a very strong feeling of dissatisfaction with McMasters/Copeland's suggestion that it was the gossipy tone of those first few paragraphs that JA was suggesting to be an emulation of Mrs. Piozzi . Knowing JA as the trickster she was and knowing how much meaning JA could pack into a single underlined word--in this case "somehow"----I was certain that there was a good deal more to it than that.

And given that JA had just made a veiled reference to Elizabeth Austen's succession of Groundhog Days of morning sickness my guess was that JA must have had in mind comments by Piozzi in a similar vein.

So I Googled "Piozzi childbirth" and look what I found:

"[Mrs. Thrale's journals manuscript] was begun 17 September 1766 and continued until the close of 1778. It is very much a record of the domestic life of the Thrales containing an emotional and often painful account of Thrale's frequent [thirteen] pregnancies the illnesses of her children and the deaths of eight of her children before even attaining youth."

Like I said......

I can't even imagine what other wonders await in the _rest_ of Letter 21--JA is in rare form!

Cheers ARNIE

[The 80-ish Mary Watson of the Puget Sound chapter commenting on the 2010 JASNA AGM]

"...Two sessions were outstanding: Juliet McMasters on the more subtle deeper meanings of "Northanger Abbey" and a Darcy-like young lawyer Arnie Perlstein who revealed his very plausible theory that the "shadow story" behind much of Jane Austen's work is the horror of multiple childbirth and women's deaths. I am a Jane-Austen-as-feminist person and this really resonated with me!"

Thank you Mary!

"Arnie's theories [about Austen and Shakespeare] may strain credulity but so much the greater his triumph if they turn out to have persuasive force after they are properly presented and maturely considered. That is what publication is all about"