My Jane Austen Experience

After reading the introductory post on Jane Austen Week, I feel compelled to share my tale. I remember reading my first Jane Austen novel back in primary school when I was 12 years old. My mother, a secondary Science teacher, took home an abridged version of Pride and Prejudice from her school library. I immediately began reading it since it was the start of school holidays and it was a perfect time to read a new genre after devouring the mystery series of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Enid Blyton's St Clare's and Malory Towers and Sweet Valley High series.

Moreover it was my wish to read any classics that my mother had read during her schooling years. When she was a young student studying in missionary school, she was taught English language by native English teachers. She learned the works of famous classical English literary figures such as Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Brontë and the likes. However during my time, the education syllabus have changed so much that I did not get the opportunity to study their novels and poems except for a brief spell when it was compulsory.

As I recall, I found Pride and Prejudice a sweet love story that I vow to get my hands on the complete unabridged novel. A few years later, my best friend lent me her omnibus edition of three Jane Austen novels which comprises of the Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Persuasion. Much as I'd like to admit that I read the other two oeuvres, I could not get past the first couple of pages. Both do not have a lively tone set by the aforementioned novel. After my parents bought a desktop computer, I discovered the complete text is available online at The Republic of Pemberley and without a thought on printing costs, I quickly print it out and bind it like my other school project. This was my very first Jane Austen book that I own before purchasing the Penguin Classics edition. Whenever I feel down, I turned to her fictional world to find the joys that was lacking in my life. It remains one of my favourite novel alongside Persuasion.

On the other hand, my first experience in watching Jane Austen adaptation is through Ang Lee's beautifully filmed 1995 Sense & Sensibility movie which was aired on television in 1999. It brought me to purchase the Oxford World Classics of Sense and Sensibility but not a complete cover-to-cover reading. I depend more on the visual medium to know the plot and only read some chapters if I want to know the details.

Over the years, my obsession with Jane Austen has come and gone as quickly as the changing of seasons when other more interesting subjects intrude my life. I had already watched the excellent 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice mini-series and equally wonderful 2005 film but nothing captivated so much as the ITV's The Jane Austen Season presenting Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion in 2007. Truly a new phase of my life has begun. I started buying and reading Austen-inspired novels such as the very first published Jane Austen sequel Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton.

Currently I don't remember how many of this type of novels are in my collection but I know I wouldn't try and stop my obsessive nature. It has become easier for me to read and order any Austenesque para-literature since I'm now working in a bookstore. This lead me to create my very own blog to share my love and inspire other people to give Jane Austen's novel a try. Indeed I even met an array of new friends, writers of Austen-inspired genre and Janeites who are as obsessed with Jane Austen as I do. I hope you may be able to learn something from my story.