Book Buying
Feb. 5th, 2005 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe go to the bookshop to buy Jane Austen. The Complete Works.
And we see this hardback boxed set, with the texts printed on Bible paper edged in gold (quite unnecessary) costing no more than a clutch of decent paperbacks.
What's not to like?
Well- one thing really; they have the early 20th century illustrations by Hugh Thomson- which are very charming but wrong.
I'd rather not have my novels illustrated. I want to imagine things my own way. Only kids books should be illustrated.
And to illustrate Austen is a violation of her aesthetic. Her lightness and swiftness are bound up with her refusal of description. What does Mr Bingley look like? He has a black hat and a blue coat.
Hugh Thomson's pictures are all about bonnets and frocks. Austen could care less.
But I've seen the Austen films. My vision is already corrupted. I can't help but see her characters as Emma Thompson, Kate Winslett, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Pemberley is forever Lyme Park.
What further harm can Thomson do?
And hard covers, Bible paper, gold edges.....
We buy them.
We also buy a copy of Anne Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolfo (roughly contemporary with Austen.) I read it on the train coming back from town. Radcliffe is all description. Her heroine lives in the foothills of the Pyrenees and spends her time collecting botanical specimens and playing the lute in mountain glades. Sooner or later she's going to be abducted by brigands and it can't happen a page too soon.
And we see this hardback boxed set, with the texts printed on Bible paper edged in gold (quite unnecessary) costing no more than a clutch of decent paperbacks.
What's not to like?
Well- one thing really; they have the early 20th century illustrations by Hugh Thomson- which are very charming but wrong.
I'd rather not have my novels illustrated. I want to imagine things my own way. Only kids books should be illustrated.
And to illustrate Austen is a violation of her aesthetic. Her lightness and swiftness are bound up with her refusal of description. What does Mr Bingley look like? He has a black hat and a blue coat.
Hugh Thomson's pictures are all about bonnets and frocks. Austen could care less.
But I've seen the Austen films. My vision is already corrupted. I can't help but see her characters as Emma Thompson, Kate Winslett, Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Pemberley is forever Lyme Park.
What further harm can Thomson do?
And hard covers, Bible paper, gold edges.....
We buy them.
We also buy a copy of Anne Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolfo (roughly contemporary with Austen.) I read it on the train coming back from town. Radcliffe is all description. Her heroine lives in the foothills of the Pyrenees and spends her time collecting botanical specimens and playing the lute in mountain glades. Sooner or later she's going to be abducted by brigands and it can't happen a page too soon.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-05 02:47 pm (UTC)Who was that anemic blonde who played the second daughter in P&P?
Oh...you mean that wasn't REALLY Pemberly?
Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-05 03:18 pm (UTC)Lyme Park is within easy reach of South Manchester and when I was living there I visited it several times. The grounds (and maybe the house too) are open to the public.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-06 04:19 pm (UTC)I'm afraid by the time I get to your side of the ocean, I'll be too old to go walking in Lyme Park...
no subject
Date: 2005-02-07 01:07 am (UTC)And here we are. Here's a list of the principals
Colin Firth .... Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy
Jennifer Ehle .... Miss Elizabeth Bennet
David Bamber .... Mr. Collins
Crispin Bonham-Carter .... Mr. Charles Bingley
Anna Chancellor .... Miss Caroline Bingley
Susannah Harker .... Miss Jane Bennet
Barbara Leigh-Hunt .... Lady Catherine de Bourgh
Adrian Lukis .... Mr. George Wickham
Julia Sawalha .... Lydia Bennet
Alison Steadman .... Mrs. Bennet
Benjamin Whitrow .... Mr. Bennet
From the same site I discover that Lyme Park was only used for exterior shots. The Pemberley interiors were shot at Sudbury Hall.