On Monday, July 27th at 7:30 pm the Library will present Jane Austen and the Craft of Mystery.
This program was previously presented for the Jane Austen Society of North America’s New York Chapter in March and we are delighted to offer a repeat performance.
Emma has been known to show up on “top mysteries” lists from time to time and is described as a traditional mystery with no murder.
Jane K. Cleland will lay out the elements of a good mystery for us and then Margaret J. Ehrhart will discuss Jane Austen’s mastery of clues, red herrings, and suspense techniques, and how and why the mystery in Emma succeeds.
Cleland is the author of the best-selling and award-winning Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery series, which includes the recently released Killer Keepsakes.
Ehrhart is the author Sweet Man is Gone, a blues mystery, which was released last July. There is a sequel, Got No Friend Anyhow, in the works.
Stephanie Barron, who writes a series of historical mysteries in which Jane Austen is an amateur sleuth, sees a clear connection between Austen’s early 19th century novels and today’s mystery writing.
“Novel-writing, in Austen’s day, was regarded as a frivolity, for the simple reason that it depicted life as it was actually lived – and because its primary readers were women. Mystery novels fill a similar gap in the twenty-first century: in stories of detection, we study conflict and its resolution; we reimpose order on a chaotic world. Had she lived, Jane would be writing detective novels today.”
Of her development of Austen as a character in her own books, Barron adds “With her lively mind and acerbic tongue, Jane Austen is a sleuth to the manner born.”
Hope you will join the Janeites and fellow mystery fans for this event. This Jane is really looking forward to it! Check out our What Would Jane Do? table display in the Great Hall to see the amazing variety of books by and about Miss Austen.
