What we’re about
A monthly, in-person book club for those interested in Jane Austen. We have made our way through her major works together and will generally cycle through these types of works moving forward:
-read or re-read a work by Jane Austen (eg. her novels, letters, and juvenilia)
-read a book about Jane Austen (biographies, literary criticism, etc.)
-read a work Jane Austen read herself (works by Walter Scott, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Wollstonecraft, etc.)
-read a work by someone who read Jane Austen (works by the Brontes, George Eliot, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Virginia Woolf, etc.)
-read a work of popular culture inspired by Jane Austen (sequels written by Jane Austen's distant relative, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, etc.)
-read other items of interest to group members, especially if relevant to feminism or written by female-identified authors (Wide Sargasso Sea, etc.)
We will also meet to watch film adaptations, and enjoy other events such as attending teas, holding supper and card nights, viewing Jane Austen-related theater and music events, etc. Some of these are shared via our Whatsapp group, which you will be invited to after you attend your first event. We look forward to seeing you soon!
Upcoming events (4)
See all- Belinda by Maria Edgeworth book discussionHoward County Library Central Branch, Columbia, MD
We will discuss Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda, a book Jane Austen enjoyed. In fact, she said to her niece "I have made up my mind to like no novels really but Miss Edgeworth's, yours, and my own," showing how much she admired Edgeworth's work.
In Maria Edgeworth's "Belinda," a young woman, Belinda Portman, is sent by her matchmaker aunt to stay with the fashionable Lady Delacour in London, hoping to find a suitable husband, but she instead learns about the complexities of society and develops her own judgment.
**Be sure to get a copy based on either the first or second editions (before 1810), as significant changes were made to the plot for the third edition due to controversy around interracial marriage in the story.
We will have light snacks, please feel free to bring snacks to share, and drinks in closed containers.
Not and official library system event.
