Jane Austen Novel

Jane Austen Fans Plan Box Hill Picnic

If Box Hill is as real to you as Floods Hill, and the summer reading dilemma isn’t which six novels to read, but in which order, you might just be a Janeite. And, if so, there’s lots of company in New Jersey and New York. Locally, Austen’s books remain popular at the library and bookstores; at least three South Orange and Maplewood-based book groups have Austen on the summer agenda. 

Good news for those readers: the Jane Austen Society of North America has 65 regional groups across the United States and Canada. Local Austen fans belong or attend events at two, the Central New Jersey and the Metropolitan New York societies.

The New Jersey group meets about six times each year, according to Meredith Barnes, Regional Coordinator for the Central NJ chapter.  “Some of our meetings are about the different writings of Jane Austen, other meetings focus on other aspects of her world,” explains Barnes. “We celebrate Jane Austen's Birthday in December, and we try to have a ‘field trip’ out to a historic home or museum with a topical exhibit,” adds Barnes.

 “In addition we have a newsletter and a website, which is updated frequently with fun information about JA’s life and times, our events and news, as well as the events and news of our national affiliate and our sister regions in NY and PA.”

 A signature event of the Austen year is the annual Box Hill Picnic, which will be held at the Battle of Monmouth grounds on August 13.

As a refresher, Barnes explains that the Box Hill picnic is an important episode in Emma . In the novel, the characters go to Donwell Abbey, the estate of Mr. Knightley to pick strawberries. The next day they gather together to have a picnic.”

Picnicking became very popular in the nineteenth century; nonetheless, the excursion in Emma is not a success. Away from their accustomed drawing and dining rooms, tension grows among the guests until main character Emma is publicly rude to the elderly Miss Bates. Mr. Knightley later scolds her, and Emma considers her behavior with regret.

“Our version is slightly different,” explains Barnes.  “At our picnic meeting, we usually share something from the novel that we enjoy or will start a discussion. We eat our lunches and have dessert. It is a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Some chapters have actually gone strawberry picking while others have a more formal tea to celebrate the occasion.

A Weekend with Mr. Darcy Blog Tour with Author Victoria Connelly ...

, Is set in Hampshire at a Jane Austen conference and I knew I wanted a grand Georgian manor house to have the starring role.  I’d pictured Newby Hall in North Yorkshire as my ideal house.  It had starred as Mansfield Park in the recent TV adaptation, but Yorkshire was a bit too far away for a research trip and so started an Internet search and discovered a gorgeous Georgian manor called Ardington House in the depths of the Oxfordshire countryside.  It was the perfect Purley Hall for my book with is sweep of driveway, its great cedar tree, and its pretty gardens leading down to the river.

Visiting locations for a book is a pleasure and a privilege.  Not only is it nice to get away from the desk once in a while but it’s vital if you want to make a place come alive and help readers really visualize it.

So, I went back to Chawton because I knew I was going to have a couple of chapters set there.  I also visited the nearby hamlet of Steventon and sat in the little church where Jane Austen would once have sat and where my own heroine, Robyn, sits, contemplating heroes.

I also visited Winchester.  I wanted to end the book at Jane Austen’s resting place and managed to visit it on the very day when the scene is set – Jane Austen’s birthday on the 16th December.  The Christmas market was in full swing and there were ice-skaters in front of the cathedral and, inside, there was a giant Christmas tree covered in simple white lights.  I sat next to Jane Austen’s grave and quietly thought of the scene I wanted to set there.  It was a magical moment.

The second book in my Austen addicts trilogy is called Dreaming of Mr. Darcy in the UK) and is set in Lyme Regis.  We were lucky enough to stay in Lyme for two separate weeks whilst I was writing the book – choosing an apartment in the heart of the town with the most incredible view of the Cobb.  I wanted to write as much of the book as possible in situ and spent a freezing afternoon on the beach at Charmouth where my heroine and hero, Kay and Adam, go fossil hunting.  My hands were so cold that I could barely hold my pen and yet I wrote a good amount for the scene I had in mind.  I also walked the length and breadth of Lyme Regis, really getting to know the place which is just as well because I’d written a scene in which my heroine looks out of her bed and breakfast on Marine Parade and the hero spots her from the Cobb and waves.  I quickly realized that he’d never ever see her from that distance and so revised my idea for the scene.