An Austencat feigns indifference about birthdays -- even Jane's!

Friday, December 16th (1775) is the birthday of our dear Jane, without whom the world would be a much poorer place.

We here at PURR AND PETULANCE will be celebrating Jane's birthday with Janeites and kitties around the world.  Lady Cat (below) would like to join us in wishing Jane "Happy Birthday."  (She looks a little ambivalent about the whole thing – you don't think she's confusing Jane with Eliz. B, do you?)  

                             Photo by Kathryn Hathaway

He may be Mr. Darcy, but he's in the wrong book.  Shouldn't this be MANSFIELD BARK?

I mean, what's up?  Darcy asks Elizabeth to dance – shouldn't she be thrilled?  I'm afraid this time, the inscrutable Mr. D. hisses back!

Does your kitty have some Mr. Darcy traits that deserve wider recognition?  Is he more like Colin Firth, or Laurence Olivier?  

Please submit your Mr. Darcy cat photos and tell us why you think he should be THE Mr. Darcy cat!  We'll post him on the home page of our website.  The contest is open until January 1, 2011. Let's get Mr. Darcy cat out of the shadows!

We have fun photographing the cats for austencats.com, but what on earth do they think of us?

A VAMPIRE IS COMING TO DINNER! 10 RULES TO FOLLOW is availabe for pre-ordering at .  The book will be out  August  2010. 

Read at your own risk! 

By Price Stern Sloan, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group. (Ilustrations copyright (c) by Pedro Rodriquez. Images may not be reproduced without the permission of Price Stern Sloan.)

"I am so far from objecting to dancing myself, that I shall hope to be
honoured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of
the evening; and I take this opportunity of soliciting yours, Miss
Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially."

Can you come up with another quote from P&P to caption this photo?  (Hint:  if you do a search for the word "letter" in the novel, you will come up with dozens of possibilities!)

Oh no!  P&P and cats!  But aren't they naturally decorous creatures, suggestive of 18th century civility?  Certainly it's better than P&P going to the dogs.  I mean, who could even imagine MANSFIELD BARK?  Yet PUSS AND PUSSABILITY has...well, pussabilities.

Twenty-five years ago I was driving around a wreck of a car with a bumper sticker that read "I'D RATHER BE READING JANE AUSTEN".  The way the other drivers looked at me, it was clear they thought I should be off the road and reading Jane, too. Now I have all of Jane Austen's novels on my ipod, so conceivably I could be driving AND reading Jane, but I prefer to listen at night (if I fall asleep I might even dream up new episodes.) I also have an unabridged reading of MIDDLEMARCH on my ipod -- 23 hours. I recommend it highly for George Eliot fans. BTW, isn't it sad that they assign SILAS MARNER in high school, only because it's shorter? I never really got to love George Eliot until I read MIDDLEMARCH.

Talented artist, TaraFly, has submitted an acrylic painting she did of her cat, Dominic, dressed as Mr. Darcy!  We think he is quite elegant.

My new picture book LITTLE GOBLINS TEN illustrated by New York Times Best-Selling illustrator,  Jane Manning,  will be out from Harper in 2011.  The book was inspired by the classic country rhyme, OVER IN THE MEADOW, which I loved as a little girl.

My new book, A VAMPIRE IS COMING TO DINNER! 10 RULES TO FOLLOW will be out in 2010, from Price Stern Sloan Books. It's a lift-the-flap book with a surprise pop-up ending (watch out for coffins). The illustrations will be done by Pedro Rodriquez. This will be a fun totally unscary vampire book for ages three and up.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND...WHAT?

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES is officially out.  Guardian Co. book blog ( says:

"JANE AUSTEN FLESHED OUT WITH ZOMBIES?

Aagh!  Help!  A U.S. publisher is releasing a new bone-crunching comedy version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE in which Elizabeth must face off the dubious social manners of the ravenous undead...and that cover is going to give me nightmares."

We only sunk our claws into P&P.  We politely refrained from sinking our teeth into it.

Jane Austen's letters are now available on , for downloading to your itunes or ipod, should you be inclined.  Unfortunately, the letters are abridged, but hopefully an unabridged version will be available soon.

I fell asleep listening to Jane's letters and woke up to The Life of Charles Dickens; the books are arranged alphabetically on my ipod so that when is one finished, the ipod jumps to the next book on the list. This can be fixed by making a playlist out of the Letters (or whatever you want to listen to) so they will loop continuously.  I would much rather wake up to the minutiae of Jane Austen's domestic life than my own interminable inner loop!

(time for Mr. Collins to confess violent passion to Elizabeth!)

photo by Deborah Guyol

RECYCLE THIS BOOK: 100 TOP CHILDREN'S BOOK AUTHORS TELL YOU HOW TO GO GREEN, edited by Dan Gutman, will be out in March from Random House. I contributed an essay about using paper instead of plastic bags for disposing of my cat, Mittens', litter. Easier said than done! But it was a lot of fun and Dan did a great job.

Soon you'll be able to upload your own P&P (or other Austen novels) kitty pics, and caption them yourselves.  You will also be able to view others' captions, or caption other photos on the site.  The possibilities are limitless for PURR AND PETULANCE, NORTHANGER TABBY and PURR-SUASION, as well as other Austen novels and her letters, too.

For those of you who like to listen to Austen novels on your itunes or ipod, an abridged version of her letters is now available on audible.com.  Hopefully, an unabridged version will follow soon.  Check out .

In the meantime, Austencats contributor Mary Ellen has suggested this caption:

She (Elizabeth) was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise.

That would be Bingley's sisters I presume.  

"Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?"

Photo by Deborah Guyol and Pamela Jane   

"You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it."

                                                      Photo by Deborah Guyol

Mittens Sporting his Venice Hat

I brought this hat back from Venice when we were living in Florence a few years ago.  I know – it's more of a Henry James than a Jane Austen thing.  Mittens has that world-weary look of the perpetual traveler.  Maybe it's Mr. Wickham on one of his post-marital sojourns while Lydia visits Pemberley.  Jane Austen mentions London and Bath but he could have taken a quick jaunt to Venice. He definitely looks like he may have had too much of a good thing.

"My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking"

Photo by Deborah Guyol

Charlotte (behind Mr. Collins) looks a bit bewildered here.  And we know that Charlotte was anything but bewildered.  She was, in fact, "an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way."  Perhaps this is Charlotte wondering if Lady Catherine will detect Mr. and Mrs. Collins' housemaid in negligence or discover that their joints of meat are too large for their family. 

One of my favorite websites,  wrote about austencats.com: 

“Pride and Prejudice has gone to the…cats

For all of you who hate LOLAustens because of the illliterate LOLcat-speak (but that’s what makes them funny), well, no one can complain that they can’t understand the captions on THESE kitty pictures. Children’s book author Pamela Jane has put together a website that combines cute kitty pictures with captions from Pride and Prejudice.

“We know our Gentle Readers are waiting for the Editrix to whip out the Cluebat on this one, but…it’s actually rather amusing, and done with an obvious tongue in cheek. If it had been earnest or unfunny, it wouldn’t have worked. But this kind of rolls in its absurdity as a cat does in catnip.”

"…Hilarious" writes Carol Moss JASNA Web Site Manager ()

 Caption Contest

Sion writes:

 Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connexions?  .....  whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?"

 Maria L submitted:

 "Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully."

 (Humm…Is that Anne, under the table?) 

And we have our first PURRSAUSION entry.

JaneGS writes: 

"our cousins Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret…”

Nobility, indeed!

Keep your photos and quotes coming!  I’ll hold the contest open for another month. 

My daughter, Annelise, celebrating winning the “Guess that Jane Austen character” contest at a meeting of JASNA in Portland, Oregon, several summers ago.

I raised Annelise on the BBC P&P – perfect for when she was home sick.  You get six fairly guilt-free hours out of it.  You can’t say that with any other TV program.

When she was two years old, I was wheeling her in her stroller at Macy’s and all at once she cried out, “Prejudice!”

Everyone turned and looked at me accusingly; what was I teaching my kid?

“Huh?” I said, leaning over the stroller. 

A big smile came over her face.

“Mr. Darcy!” she cried.

The kid had the right idea.  Too bad no one else at Macy’s appreciated it.

 “When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."

(Mrs. Bennet)

I’ve been struggling (in vain!) to coerce my cat, Mittens, to pose as  Mrs. Bennet but she is most uncooperative! 

 Mittens is not very bright, I’m afraid.  My friend and fellow austencats photographer, Debbie, says Mittens is just one notch (two on a good day) above a stuffed animal.  This does not look like a good day.  However,  she does look as though she has given over thinking of her own beauty.

I fell asleep listening to EMMA the other night on my ipod, and woke up listening to Hitler. Struggled to wake myself up and out of the nightmare but didn’t quite succeed. I realized in the morning that EMMA finished, and morphed into EXPLAINING HITLER (the books are arranged alphabetically). Last month MIDDLEMARCH leapt into MOSCOW 1941. The history books are great for walking but not for sleeping. The trouble is, books can switch in the middle of the night. The way around this, my 14-year old daughter explained, is to make a playlist of the book you want to listen to during the night so it just keeps circling. Who would have guessed?

What books you listen to at night are important. For me, only Jane Austen and George Eliot’s MIDDLEMARCH pass the test because I know and love them intimately and trust them completely. Sometimes SENSE AND SENSIBILITY is hard to take at night though, because Marianne’s grief and panic in London are so vivid.

The reader's voice is also important. Often readers squeak when they read Mrs. Bennet’s lines. I realize Mrs. Bennet probably did squeak a bit, but the squeaking wakes me up. One of my favorite readers sounds just like my late stepmother, whom I miss terribly. The intonation and voice pitch are eerily similar, and whenever I’m listening to this reader, I dream about Pauline. Prunella Scales' reading of Miss Bates is breathlessly brilliant. This is probably how Miss Bates was meant to sound.

Jane in the morning, Jane at night! She never falters and never fails.

Pamela Jane's new picture book, LIttle Goblins Ten  illustrated by Jane Manning, will be coming out from HarperCollins in 2011. Little Goblins Ten was inspired by the classic country rhyme, Over in the Meadow, which Pamela loved as a child. 

style="font-family: 'book antiqua', palatino;">Also, one of Pamela's first published book, Noelle of the Nutcracker (Houghton Mifflin) has recently been optioned for a film by an independent film maker who fell in love with the book as a little girl.