Jane Austen's 235th Birthday in Wisconsin

JASNA-WI celebrated Jane Austen's 235th Birthday on Saturday, December 11, 2010.  We had a wonderful time at the North Hills Country Club where we looked over the avenues of trees along the snowy golf course, which looked for all the world like a wintry English landscape garden, Capability Brown-style.

l-r Judy Beine, Victoria, Diana Burns, Liz Cooper,
Kathy O'Brien, Coral Bishop, Kim Wilson

We ate the lovely individual Beef Wellingtons and oh-so-English Trifle courtesy of our members Susan Flaherty and her father -- many thanks for your continuing generosity. Right, members of the JASNA-WI executive committee.

Among the many wonderful things for sale at the luncheon were the offerings of Austen Authors,l-r, Jack Caldwell, Kathryn Nelson, Abigail Reynolds, Marilyn Brant, and C. Allyn Pierson, all of whom have written sequels and/or continuations of Austen novels. More about them here.

Here C. Allyn and Victoria pose in front of one of the many christmas trees -- and over V's shoulder is our pal, Pat Latkin of  Chicago, who brought along some of her collection of JA books for sale.  She always tempts us beyond belief with the rare finds she uncovers.

Also available was our wonderful Jane Austen Calendar, put together by Liz Philosophos Cooper and Kim Wilson, adorned for 2011 with Brock color illustrations, honoring the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Sense and Sensibility.

This shows a page, with almost every day filled in with an event in Jane austen's life or an incident in her writings.  It is great fun for all the JA fans on your Christmas list.  To order, contact http://www.jasnawi.org/

Presenters of the annual Joan Philosophos Lecture were Victoria and Kim Wilson. We presented our colorful power point talk on "About Those Abbeys...in Fact, Fiction and Landscape" first heard at the recent AGM in Portland, OR. For details, see our blog post of Sunday, November 21, 2010, for a brief summary. Below, a rather blurry view...sorry, but I am certain JA won't mind. We can all recognize her picture behind us!