Margaret C. Sullivan's Blog, page 2

All the Pretty Emmas

“Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma’s being pretty.”

“Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect beauty than Emma altogether— face and figure?”

“I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial old friend.” – Emma, Volume I, Chapter V (5)

I recently received a copy of the new 200th Anniversary Pengui...

Will Jane Austen’s Real Inspiration Please Stand Up?

Castle Ashby

When I saw this article in the Telegraph linked on Twitter, I rolled my eyes a bit and prepared myself for silliness. We’ve had so much of this sort of thing: the Real Mr. Darcy, the Real Pemberley, etc., and it’s becoming tiresome, because so often it’s a bunch of hooey.

All too often these things come from attention-seeking types and distressingly often from academics, whom one would expect to know better. But perhaps I’m expecting too much from academics. They don’t write fic...

Messing About in Boats

I had a great time this week at the Tall Ships Philadelphia and Camden festival. I went to the Parade of Sail on Thursday and back the next day to go aboard some of the ships. It was hot and sometimes rainy and occasionally not optimally organized, but my lucky ship karma came through in a couple of instances, making it an overall positive experience.

The Marquis de Lafayette is one of my historical boyfriends.

I would have been interested inany kind of tall ships festival, but this introver...

Reading These Old Shades

Illusions: shattered.

Friday Night Dance Party!

We’re going to dance and have some FUN! It’s Friday!

Welcome to the Grand (Re)Opening of This Delightful Habit of Journaling!

Believe it or not, I started this blog two years ago. I meant it to replace AustenBlog, because I wanted more freedom to blog about everything that interested me, not just Jane Austen, though I can’t imagine any blog I write not being heavily influenced by my love for Jane Austen’s work. However, I found myself unable to kill AustenBlog. I stood above it with my knife, ready to stab it through the heart, and couldn’t do the deed. If this were Shakespeare, I would come to an ugly end, but fort...

All of Heyer: Simon the Coldheart

Published 1925

“Almost from the first her novels stood apart from the usual offerings among historical fiction.” – Jennifer Kloester

I liked Simon the Coldheartwell enough, but find myself with not much to say about it. Reading it between Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies* was, in retrospect, not the greatest idea. I was too eager to get back to Mantel to give Simon the attention he deserved; and he does deserve it. To be honest, I had a hard time putting it down for first half of the book. T...

The Holy Grail

I wrote this two years ago and never published it for some reason…it’s been hanging around in the drafts on this blog, which shows how long I have been dithering about with getting this blog off the ground! But it’s a funny story so I thought I would share. –MCS

John Scalzi has a post on his blog telling publishers to not take his innocuous comments about the “Big Idea” posts on his blog and make them book blurbs. The “Big Idea” posts are written by various authors to publicize their books, a...

Uptown Funk You Up

In case anyone was wondering where I got the blog tagline, it’s from my current jam. Smoother than a fresh jar of Skippy!

If you don’t like it, don’t worry–I’m going to be changing up the taglines occasionally.

Around the Square

On nice days, I like to take a lunchtime walk around Rittenhouse Square. The groundskeepers have been hard at work the past few weeks getting the square ready for spring. I couldn’t resist whipping out my mobile phone and taking a few photos. (Here is where I mention I am not a very good photographer.)