Frequently Asked Questions
A: She was an English novelist who wrote the six novels: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger_Abbey. All of her novels have been made into movies more than once since the 1970's. Jane Austen is credited by some with perfecting the novel form particularly with regard to how the narrator functions. "In Pride and Prejudice for example, the story is told from the point of view of Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine; but the identification is always qualified by the other role of the narrator acting as dispassionate analyst, and as a result readers do not lose their critical awareness of the novel as a whole. The same strategy in regards to the point of view, is employed with supreme brilliance in Emma ...." (from The Rise of the Novel by Ian Watt, 1957.)
A: JASNA is an organization of approximately 4000 members in 65 regional chapters across North America who enjoy reading and sharing Austen's novels. The Annual General Meeting has grown from 100 attendees in 1979 to quickly-sold-out 600 in 2009. Click here for membership information and here to find a JASNA Region near you.
According to Pemberley.com (see Q&A below), there are two things that separate JASNA from many other literary organizations: "First, it is an organization for people from all walks of life. Academics and lay people exchange ideas on equal ground. Second, it is fun. Attend one of our meetings, and you won't forget that Jane Austen was a comic writer."
A: Our group has been meeting in Buckhead since 1996. We started at Borders, and we then moved to Barnes & Noble in Buckhead in 2005. There is no charge for membership.
Q: Why is Jane Austen so popular? A: You could fill books with answers to this one. In fact several people already have. Here's the latest one which was published in November 2009:
Truth Universally Acknowledged - a collection of essays by 34 great writers on why they love Jane Austen. The writers include Virginia Woolf, Anna Quindlen, Harold Bloom, and Somerset Maugham.
Q: Are there any other websites devoted to Jane Austen and her work?
A: Scores. Maybe hundreds. www.pemberley.com is possibly the most venerable and comprehensive.
Q: Is there a listing of all the movies based on Jane Austen's novels? A: Here's an example of how useful pemberley.com is: Jane Austen Filmography.