Miss Austen Regrets was on TV last night. As always the settings of country mansions, parkland etc were beautiful and Olivia Williams as JA was good but . . . I found it difficult to follow the 'plot', such as it was, and was confused by all the young men Jane flirted with. At 40 years old she was well over middle age by the standards of those days and my, didn't she hit the bottle. I understand that her sister burnt most of her letters and I'm sure Jane would have never started so many sentences with "Oh my God!" Very modern. btw the actress, Phyllida Law, who played JA's mother is 'in real life' the mother of Emma Thompsom.

Sorry im chiming in a little late here (I just discovered this great forum!). I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago. I was in agonies the entire time. I love history and always hate it when the movies make it so inaccurate! Its a pet peeve of mine when people alter history. People who know nothing about Jane Austin before seeing this movie will have the wrong idea of her and her life. Its situations like these that lead to false and noxious misconceptions of people and circumstances. Why did they even have to bring the good name and character of Jane Austin into this? As someone else said, it is her good name that sells tickets. I mean, how would you like it if someone took the story of your life and entirely 'redid' it to make it more interesting, even if it was grossly untrue? I also dislike how many authors are practically ripping off the Jane Austin's novels and plots and distorting them. But I must say that I think the movie would have actually been pretty good had they simply changed all the names of the characters so it had nothing to do with Jane or the Austins. CMK

Persuasion is my favorite, too. I love the theme of second chances in a life that has turned out to be disappointing. It has a bittersweet quality that has always appealed to me. Having said that, I really do like them all. Mansfield Park is fascinating to me. Some of the moral issues that are being weighed in the book seem trivial to modern sensibilities, others are timeless; but I like its exploration of what it is that makes a good person, and how easily the world overlooks these true qualities. Northanger Abbey is the lightest novel she wrote. If you grew up reading Victoria Holt and similar writers as I did, you will laugh at this wonderful spoof of the gothic novel, popular in Austen's day as well as the 1960's and 70's. Sense and Sensibility is a story of two sisters who embody the extremes of a debate going on in Austen's own time. Marianne (Sensibility) stands for the Romantic movement, all emotion and aesthetic experience and the sublime experience of nature. Elinor (Sense) expresses the values of the Enlightenment, self-discipline, prudence, knowledge, and moral virtue. Each one has something the others lack, and in the story, they both learn this. I love this book, too. Emma you already know, a story of just how wrong an intelligent, overly confident young woman can be. And Pride and Prejudice you are reading now. I'm thinking that pretty soon it will be time for me to re-read Austen yet again. Rosefolly

TOO funny bwilliams! Yesterday I was searching the internet for a Crocosmia (a plant) and I came across a similar quiz! I took it and was 88% Elizabeth Bennet and 84% Elinor. I googles more quizes about Austin characters and took a few more. I was dubbed Lizzy again at another, Catherine Morland at another and the last one I somehow got Charlotte Lucas! How it is none of these quizes had Fanny Price as a result is really beyond me. I took the quiz you had a link for and I also turned out to be Elinor Dashwood. Lol, not sure these are very accurate if I get such varried results (Im at least glad I didnt get Emma!). CMK