To the reader: On this page you will find a miscellany of essays on Austen I have written over the years. I begin with my most recent work, filmographies, then provide a series of essays on the editions of Austen's novels, move to my current interest, the Austen films, and then present chapters and essays on the life of Austen and readings and literary criticism of the novels.

Filmographies

• The Austen movies: organized by type
• The Austen movies: organized by source

A series of reviews essays on recent editions of Austen's novels, with information on controversies over the texts, and film adaptations.

• "Ours is a competitive business, sir": the latest Oxford Sense and Sensibility
  
• A novel many novel-readers feel called upon to read: on the latest Oxford Pride & Prejudice
  
• The world as "take-in:" the latest Oxford Mansfield Park
  
• "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like:" the latest Oxford Emma
  
• A Journey through Austen's career: the latest Oxford Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon
  
• Seeking a social identity: the latest Oxford Persuasion
  

Abbreviated versions of these essays (just the analyses of the editions of Austen in the last quarter century) have appeared in the online Jane Austen Center Magazine:

• Sense and Sensibility
• Pride and Prejudice
• Mansfield Park
• Emma
• Persuasion
• Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon

There follow essays and reviews on a selection of the Austen movies. This is work towards my book project, The Austen Films

• Sense and Sensibility

  The 1st mini-series adaptation of Sense and Sensibility: 1971, an effective and moving stage comedy
  

  The Poetry of the Sense and Sensibility movies: comparing the 1981, 1995 S&S with the 2000 I have Found It
  

  Sense and Sensibilities alter the landscape of the Austen films
  

  Revealing Similarities and Differences: two S&S films (1981 & 1995)
  

  The Mini-series: the four Austen S&S films and Jewel in the Crown

• Pride and Prejudice

  A Lyrical Melodrama: the 1979 Pride and Prejudice
  

  A spectacular, extraordinary film: 1995 A&E/BBC Pride and Prejudice
  

  The 2005 Pride and Prejudice: "Bliss it is to spend your life as Mrs Darcy."

  Screwball and romantic comedy: free adaptations of Austen, Bridget Jones's Diary, You've Got Mail, free adaptations of P&P
  

  Becoming Jane: a dismaying mirror wherein the film's plot-design is based on Pride and Prejudice
  

  Dreaming the Austen Movies: Lost in Austen: a loving comic pastiche

• Mansfield Park

  In defense of Rozema's 1999 Mansfield Park: three reviews

  Mansfield Park 2007: Another Perspective
  

  Mansfield Park Madness: A defense of the 2007 ITV Mansfield Park
  

  A natural heroine: modern philosophical currents against artifice in the 2007 ITV Mansfield Park

• Emma

  A psychologized community portrayal: Sandy Welch's 2009 Emma

  Dreaming the Austen movies: the 1972 Emma
  

  The 1972 Emma: a parallel insult scene
  

  Sombre comedy: more on the older Emma and Persuasion films
  

  1996 McGrath Emma and 2008 Miss Austen Regrets: picturesque and poignant romance
  

  1996 A&E/Meridian Emma: "something odd going on with Mr Knightley"
  

  Two of many Emmas: more on film adaptations

• Northanger Abbey

  Sister-Novels, but not Sister-Films: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
  

  Andrew Davies's latest film adaptation: Northanger Abbey, 2007
  

  The Three Northanger films: 1987 and 2007 Northanger Abbey, 1993 Ruby in Paradise
  

  Ruby in Paradise: A Young Lady's Entrance into the World, another Austen film!
  

• Persuasion

  The 1971 Persuasion: On location
  

  Persuasion 2007 and the latest Austen films

  The Compleat Persuasion, 1971, 1995, 2007
  

  David Auburn's Lake House: a free adaptation of Persuasion

• Published reviews of other people's work on films and films which combine books:

  Jane Austen Goes to the Movies, Topic: A Journal of the Liberal Arts, ed. Linda Troost

  The acid test: Austen and Whit Stillman, mostly on Last Days of Disco, partly a free adaptation of Emma
  

  The Jane Austen Book Club: A Free Adaptation of All the Austen books!

Then two chapters of a book in which I was to focus on the place Bath took in her life and art. These are followed by a review of a scholarly book on Bath and a paper presenting the life of Jane Austen's Aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot where I argue that it's probably Jane's Aunt Jane stole the famous (to those who know about Austen's life and relatives) lace.

• Jane Austen and Bath: Biographical
  • Prologue: In Search of 18th Century Bath, A Visit
  • Chapter One: Riddled with Untruths. [The Present Impossibility of Biography].
  • A review of Peter Borsay's The Georgian Image of Bath. I include a select bibliography of major books on Bath.
  • "The Life and Crimes of Jane Leigh-Perrot"

Conference papers, essays and reviews of books centering on Austen's novels: Literary Criticism

• Conference papers:
  • The Gothic Northanger Abbey: A Re-Evaluation." Given at a panel at the EC/ASECS, Georgetown University, November 6-9, 2008. "Re-evaluating Austen." Chairperson: Elizabeth Lambert. Participants: Manuel Schonhorn, Elizabeth Lambert, Ellen Moody
  • Jane Austen Among French Women. Panel at the EC/ASECS October 2003 meeting at the University of Pittsburg at Greensboro: "English Literature in France." Margaret Koehler, Chair. Panelists: Walter Gershuny, Ellen Moody, Robert Frail.
• Essays online:
  • "Jane Austen in French", published in Ekleksographia Wave Two, October 2009.
  • "Jane Austen and Vampires" published in Jane Austen Center online magazine, March 15, 2009, originally written as Two Ends of a Spectrum: Vampire Harlequin Janes (& Twilight books) versus Agnes Grey and Mary Reilly: an argument that the contemporary anodyne romantic vampires and vampire material inserted into Austen's novels ("toothless") are versions of harlequin romance. I and others in the commentary consider the subgenres of gothic. Written February 2009.
  • Disquieting Patterns in Austen's Novel. Proposal for a panel or session of papers on Austen. I look at the quasi-incestuous patterns, hiddden tabooed loves, and bad Tuesdays in the novels. Written July 2009, blog written January 2009.
  • Female Gothic and Northanger Abbey: review of books & poetry. Written September 2008.
  • In defense of Edmund Bertram (first written 1998), published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine in 2009, with a brief commentary on this essay reconsidered 11 years on (placed on blog, 2009)
  • Jane Austen's Heroes (first written 1996 and placed on the Republic of Pemberley), published in the Jane Austen Centre Online Magazine in 2008, and Criteria for evaluating Jane Austen's Heroes, the same essay reconsidered 12 years on (placed on blog, 2008).
• Reviews:
  • A Review of A Critical Companion to Jane Austen: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work by William Baker. New York: Facts on File, Infobase Publishing, 2008. Appeared in The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer, NS, 22:2 (2008):43-46.
  • Reviews of John Wiltshire, Susan Fraiman, David Nokes, Austen websites & blogs: compendium, together with links to photos of Steventon, Winchester &c
  • A Review of In a Fast Coach with a Pretty Women: Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson by Gloria Sybil Gross. AMS Studies in the Eighteenth Century No. 40. New York: AMS Pr, 2002. Pp. 208. ISBN 0-404-63540-7. $62.50. For The East-Central Intelligencer: The Newsletter of the East-central/American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, N.S. 18:3 (Sept 2004): 30-32.
  • A Review of Reshaping the Sexes in Sense and Sensibility by Moreland Perkins. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 1998. Pp. xi + 208. $24.50. This is an expanded version of the review which appeared in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 99:1 (January 2000): 141-43.

Last (but never least), readings of the novels

• Sense and Sensibility: A Reading
• Mansfield Park: A Reading
• Northanger Abbey: A Reading