On December 16th, Jane Austen was born 250 years ago; reason for Mayflower Bookshop to celebrate her life and work with a festival on November 16h about this still popular 19th century author!
Austen is one of the most famous and beloved writers in the canon of English literature, thought by many to be second only to Shakespeare. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote in 1870: ‘Miss Austen understood the smallness of life to perfection. She was a great artist, equal in her small sphere to Shakespeare…’Today, Jane Austen’s six completed novels – Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion – are known and loved around the world.
Her name is a byword for wit, social observation and insight into the lives of women in the early 19th century. She is celebrated as a social observer, a moralist, a comic genius, and as a popular and universal writer.
The Mayflower Bookshop Jane Austen Festival will celebrate several aspects of her life and work. All lectures will be in Dutch.
The Festival starts off with an interview with miss Austen herself, followed by lectures on her lovelife (Ingrid Tieken), her poetry (Leo van Zanen), illness in her life and work (Ad Kaptein) as well as a workshop on Regency Letter Folding and a paneldiscussion (Louis Smit, Coco Hoek, Wim Tigges). To illustrate Austen’s work, a scene from ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is performed (in English) by the Mayflower Theatre Company under direction of house director Sigrid de Zwart, who will also introduce the scene.
For more information and full details, please consult the programme here; flyers are also available in Mayflower Bookshop in Leiden. Please note that only for the mini workshop Regency Letter Folding, making a reservation is required.
November 16th, 12h45-18h00, Breestraat 70 Leiden