Mr. Collins and Mardi Gras
(And Chicago book signing tomorrow!)
Friends, I only have a few minutes to check in before a whirlwind day in Chicago. And mea culpa for not sending out an Austen Substack post this week! We were on a family vacation to New Orleans to take the kids to Mardi Gras parades.
And then one day later I left for a work trip to Chicago where I’ve been enjoying my wonderful Word on Fire colleagues and SNOW—always exciting for this Florida girl.
Speaking of Chicago, tomorrow is…
Marcia and Shannon are longtime online friends who I can’t wait to meet in person tomorrow! We’ll be chatting about Lent, how good books help us to grow in holiness, and of course, Miss Austen. And we’ll have books for purchase that we’ll be happy to sign for you!
A Year of Jane
I won’t have a chance to post my thoughts on Mr. Collins as promised until I get back home this weekend. BUT in the meantime, enjoy this delightful piece about why we should envy Mr. Collins from Plough (an excerpt of Joy Clarkson’s book Aggressively Happy.)
And I highly recommend this episode of The Art of Manliness on Jane Austen for Dudes. Very fun!
That’s all for now, folks. (And I hope to see you tomorrow morning, Chicago friends!)
I live the Ploughing article! Although I don’t despise Mr. Collins as much as the average P&P reader, I’d never thought of Mr. Collins in any positive manner before, and the dual points of 1) Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy sharing the same quirks to very different reception, and 2) no one else in Austen’s books experiencing much contentment, it makes for an interesting reframing of the world Miss Austen lived in and wrote from.