What did Jane Austen see in Henrietta Street?
Talk by Professor Jocelyn Harris
Sunday, March 31, 2019
1:30 to 4:30 PM
CUYAHOGA COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
MAYFIELD BRANCH
Large Meeting Room
Library opens for setup at 1:00 PM
During Austen’s lifetime, caricatures were widely produced and were displayed in printshop windows in London and the provinces, printed in newspapers, shared in portfolios and used to decorate all manner of accessories. The caricaturists offered biting satire to an eager audience, and they applied their harshest wit to the Royal family. What caricatures would Jane Austen have seen, and how did they influence her writing? |
| Dr. Jocelyn Harris |
Dr. Harris, professor emerita at the University of Otago, New Zealand, publishes extensively on eighteenth century literature. Her 2007 book, A Revolution Almost Beyond Expression: Jane Austen’s Persuasion, became a “must-read, must-have” addition to the home library of Austen fans and scholars. In her latest, Satire, Celebrity, and Politics in Jane Austen (Bucknell University Press, 2017), Dr. Harris provides examples of the resources Austen found in her private life to acquire intimate knowledge of popular and political culture and the behavior (and misbehavior) of celebrities of her time. Harris also shows how Austen’s celebrity-watching and political observation fed into the satire that weaves through her novels.
