The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England

For any serious Janeite, I would highly recommend having a copy of this cute little handbook. The information and details are a nice reference point to the period, and to Jane Austen's novels in particular. As set up, it is separated into four sections:

1. Jane Austen's World and Welcome to It
2. A

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Quick Succession of Busy Nothings; or, Everyday Activities
3. Making Love
4. The Best Company; or, Social Gatherings

Each section outlines things as they were in Jane Austen's time, but also chronicle the possible living situations of her most famous characters.

The book also contains information about how to be a lady, how to spend one's day, and what to wear. Some of the information was pretty interesting, such as how they wrote letters. I realized that they tried to utilize every spare space on a piece of paper, but I don't know that I understood how intricately they wrote over top of every line, in just about every direction.

There are lots of other details shared in this cute handbook that made it an easy read. I highly recommend this as a fun gift for any Jane Austen fan on your gift list. It is well organized, with a nice Table of Contents, Index, and list of terms defined in the back. The language is informative, without being stuffy and boring. And the pictures included in the book are well done and fit with the information of the book. On my edition the hardback cover is well made, and the size is smaller than even a paperback book. Honestly, I really would recommend this Regency England guidebook for anyone who reads and loves Jane Austen's time period.

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An excellent introduction to the Regency era social world, filled with advice on deportment, daily life, and tidbits on the books themselves.

A cute, fun, short read. Some interesting material to be gleaned. Nice addition to the Jane Austen collection - but probably not a "must buy" for most!

I am an unabashed Janeite. I’ve read all of her novels and most of her smaller/unfinished books. I love her writing; the social observations, the wonderful characters, the love stories, the relationships between sisters, everything.

So when Margaret Sullivan, (creator of the blog Austenblog.com),

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re-released her book The Jane Austen Handbook, I knew I needed to read it. This is a book that someone like me just soaks up. It’s wonderful to learn more about the time period Jane wrote about. It provides an added depth and context to her work because it gives a better understanding to how livings were made and kept and why women wanted to find husbands so badly.

The book offers information on the etiquette of the time. You learn about how to dress, where to vacation, how to pay a call, how to court, etc. If you’ve ever wondered what it meant to “take the waters” you’ll learn that to.

It’s the perfect companion book to Austen’s novels. I always wondered exactly what kind of card game whist was and what all was involved in becoming “accomplished.” The handbook has step-by-step instructions and illustrations on anything you could possible relate to Austen.

If you love Austen, or even that time period, definitely pick it up. If you couldn’t care less, this one’s probably not for you, but then the title tells you that from the get go.

**My copy was provided by Quirk Books

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(Received from publisher for review)
The information is broken up into manageable nuggets and filed under 4 categories: Jane Austen's World; Everyday Activities; Making Love; and Social Gatherings (full 'titles' shortened). These delightfully informative (not to mention entertaining) chapters are

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interspersed with Austen references, and stand-alone pages of more detailed particulars (like 'entailment' and 'professions').

In short, if you adore Jane Austen's world and characters, and would much rather be touring the Lake District or having balls, but aren't quite sure how to fit into that world without appearing painfully out of place? You should give the Jane Austen Handbook a read - it will clear things up considerably! (Including that delightful little tidbit of Mr. Darcy's 10,000 a year - what is he worth in current American money? Oh, just wait and see!) There's also a brief biography of Jane, synopsis of her novels and characters, a glossary (for those tricky words) and additional resources. A Janeite's reference-dream in one fun little package!

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Light and informative backdrop on clothing, transport, etiquette and other elements that are considered a given in Jane Austen's novels.

This is an adorable little guide of how to lead life in the Regency era. The tips were cute and informational. It just made me think of all the wonderful moments in Austen's books. I think if you're an Austen fan it's definitely worth reading, if not owning. What lady doesn't want to know how to

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catch and keep the man of her dreams according to Recency England's standards?

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I had hoped that this handbook would provide context for interpreting Jane Austen's novels. Instead, the novels themselves seem to be the reference point for describing the social life and customs of the Regency era. For example, the list of “Things to do in the country” includes “produce

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home theatricals” and “improve your estate”, both of which were themes in Mansfield Park. The appendices proved to be the most useful section for me, particularly the bibliographies and filmography. My wallet is a few dollars lighter as a result!

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From my Cannonball Read 6 review...

So I’ve never read anything written by Jane Austen. I’m not sure how that happened, but it did. I hadn’t even seen one of the many films / series based on her books (other than Clueless) until about two years ago, when I watched the Pride and Prejudice

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series starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. I still haven’t read any of her work, but I now feel a bit more prepared to do so.

The Jane Austen Handbook is a 200-page book that reads as a guide to living in Regency England. It assumes the reader is actually living in that time period (as opposed to reading about a history of it), and assumed the reader is in the same class as most of the main characters in Ms. Austen’s novels. It’s a clever convention, and for the most part I enjoyed it. I think it does a decent job of explaining the period without judging it, although of course as usual the margins of my version are filled with “ack” and “hell no,” especially when discussing what unmarried women were allowed to do.

This was a pretty quick read, but I’m glad I picked it up for a couple of reasons. First, I do plan to start reading Ms. Austen’s novels when I’m traveling this summer (ah, the beauty of the e-reader – I was able to load all of her works onto it in a matter of seconds), so it’s nice to have a bit of an understanding of the time period in which her works reside. And second, when I do inevitably get confused by a term or something a character did, I can refer back to this book and have a better sense of what I’m reading.

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