Tag Archives: Jane Austen

Chatsworth House Interiors

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We went on a tour of Chatsworth before going into the parkland and even although it was quite early in the day it was packed with people. About half of them seemed to be Scots! Although there’s quite a lot to see, it’s obvious that only a fraction of the house is open to the public. I would love to know what the main staircase looks like as that’s usually the grandest part of stately homes.

Karen of Books and Chocolate was wondering if Chatsworth is what Jane Austen based Pemberley on in Pride and Prejudice. I read somewhere that Deborah Devonshire (the dowager duchess) believed that she recognised Chatsworth in Jane’s descriptions, and I suppose she should know. Jane does mention that Lizzie visits Chatsworth amongst other great houses in the Derbyshire area, the county does seem to have a plethora of them. But its the fact that Darcy’s sister is given the name Georgiana and that was the name of the 5th Duke of Devonshire’s wife who lived at Chatsworth in Jane Austen’s time which makes me think that she did really base Pemberley on Chatsworth. The house was used for parts of the 2005 P&P film, not a favourite of mine.

As you can imagine it’s just about impossible to get a photo without people in it but I took the one below of a stairway. I love the stairs themselves but I’m not so keen on the paintings, it’s all very heavy and dark looking but it fits in with the age of the house I suppose.

Stairway

The ceiling in the photo below is of the room which was the 6th Duke’s dining room and it’s much brighter and airier with the crystal chandeliers and white and gold paint.

aCeiling and chandelier dining room

And this is the dining table, loaded with silver and looking wonderful. I’m so glad that I don’t have to clean all that silver though!

Dining table

I could have quite happily settled down in the library which is below, I think it would probably be one of the cosiest rooms in Chatsworth.

aLibrary

I might be blogging about the garden and parkland again tomorrow, that really was my favourite bit.

Flashback Challenge

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I’ve been reading about all these book challenges that are going on and thought that it was about time that I signed up for one myself. The Flashback Challenge seems like a great excuse to re-read ‘old friends’ and I’m really enthusiastic about it, so I’m planning to read 12 books again, one for each month of the year – and here they are.

Flashback Challenge books

As I’ve never participated in a book challenge before, I’m just presuming that the idea is you write a review in your blog. Anyway, that’s what I’ll be doing with these books, although not particularly in this order.

1. The Enchanted April – by Elizabeth von Arnim.
2. Lark Rise – Flora Thompson.
3. And Quiet Flows the Don- Mikhail Sholokhov.
4. The Fortunes of War – Olivia Manning.
5. Strong Poison – Dorothy L. Sayers.
6. The Railway Children – E. Nesbit.
7. The Golden Age – Gore Vidal
8. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee.
9. Scenes of Clerical Life – George Eliot
10. Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie.
11. Kidnapped – R.L. Stevenson.
12. Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier.

I’m looking forward to it.

Jane Austen – her death

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I had thought that it was fairly definite that Jane Austen had died of Addisons disease but this article in today’s Guardian has come up with another theory.

Whatever the cause, I just think that we were really lucky that she didn’t get married as she would probably have died much younger than she did. The mortality rate for women in childbirth or its aftermath must have been enormous.

It’s quite a long time since I read Jane Austen’s letters, but I seem to remember that at one point three of her friends died in childbirth in the same week. Enough to put anyone off.