This beautifully illustrated book explores the rich complexity of Regency clothing through the lens of the collected writings of Jane Austen.

Discover Jane Austen's Regency era through fashion! How did a Regency bride and groom dress for their wedding? Why did everyone wear hats? Cut out the fourteen colorful costumes, for both women and men, then dress up the dolls to explore the fashions of Jane Austen's day. You'll soon be an expert on ball gowns, pantaloons, and petticoats!

The broader Regency period 1795 to 1820, stands alone as an incredible moment in fashion history, unlike anything that went before it. For the first time England became a fashion influence, especially for menswear, and became the toast of Paris, as court dress became secondary to the season-by-season flux of fashion as we know it today. Sarah Jane Downing explores the fashion revolution and the innovation that inspired a flood of fashions taking influence from far afield. It was an era of contradiction immortalised by Jane Austen, who adeptly used the new-found diversity of fashion to enliven her characters: Wickham's military splendour; Mr Darcy's understated elegance; and Miss Tilney's romantic fixation with white muslin.

Four dolls from Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility include Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy and Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars plus a wardrobe of 24 Regency-era costumes.

"Ted Scheinman spent his childhood eating Yorkshire pudding, singing in an Anglican choir, and watching Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy. As the son of a devoted Jane Austen scholar, this seemed normal. Despite his attempts to leave his mother's world behind, he found himself in grad school organizing the first ever University of North Carolina Jane Austen Summer Camp, a weekend-long event that falls somewhere between an academic conference and superfan extravaganza. In Camp Austen, Scheinman tells the story of his indoctrination into this enthusiastic world, delivering a hilarious and poignant survey of one of the most enduring and passionate literary coteries in history. Combining clandestine journalism with frank memoir, and academic savvy with insider knowledge, Camp Austen is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Austen that can be read in a single sitting. Brimming with stockings, culinary etiquette, and scandalous dance partners, this is summer camp as you've never seen it before--back cover.

Which important Austen characters never speak? Is there any sex in Austen? What do the characters call one another, and why? What are the right and wrong ways to propose marriage? In What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan shows that we can best appreciate Austen's brilliance by looking at the intriguing quirks and intricacies of her fiction. Asking and answering some very specific questions about what goes on in her novels, he reveals the inner workings of their greatness.? ?In twenty short chapters, each of which explores a question prompted by Austens novels, Mullan illuminates the themes that matter most in her beloved fiction. Readers will discover when Austen's characters had their meals and what shops they went to; how vicars got good livings; and how wealth was inherited. What Matters in Jane Austen? illuminates the rituals and conventions of her fictional world in order to reveal her technical virtuosity and daring as a novelist. It uses telling passages from Austen's letters and details from her own life to explain episodes in her novels: readers will find out, for example, what novels she read, how much money she had to live on, and what she saw at the theater.? ? Written with flair and based on a lifetime's study, What Matters in Jane Austen? will allow readers to appreciate Jane Austen's work in greater depth than ever before.

The distinctive style of the Regency period is a source of endless fascination for fashion academics and historians, living historians, re-enactors and costume designers for stage and screen. Author and fashion historian Cassidy Percoco has delved into little-known museum hoards to create a stunning collection of 26 garments, many with clear provenance tied to a specific location, which have never before been published and never – or very rarely – displayed. Most of the garments have an aspect in their construction that has not been previously documented, from a style of skirt trim to the method of gown closure. This practical guide begins with a general history of the early 19th-century women's dress. This is followed by 26 patterns of gowns, spencers, chemises, and corsets, each with an illustration of the finished piece and description of its construction. This must-have guide is an essential reference for anyone interested in the fashions or the history of the period, or for anyone wishing to recreate their own beautiful Regency clothing.

Bring Jane Austen's famous novel to life with 8 dolls and 48 period costumes for church, afternoon teas, weekend visits, neighborhood balls, and a wedding.

"A tribute to a time when style -- and maybe even life -- felt more straightforward, and however arbitrary, there were definitive answers." -- Sadie Stein, Paris Review As a glance down any street in America quickly reveals, American women have forgotten how to dress. We lack the fashion know-how we need to dress professionally and beautifully. In The Lost Art of Dress, historian and dressmaker Linda Przybyszewski reveals that this wasn't always true. In the first half of the twentieth century, a remarkable group of women -- the so-called Dress Doctors -- taught American women that knowledge, not money, was key to a beautiful wardrobe. They empowered women to design, make, and choose clothing for both the workplace and the home. Armed with the Dress Doctors' simple design principles -- harmony, proportion, balance, rhythm, emphasis -- modern American women from all classes learned to dress for all occasions in ways that made them confident, engaged members of society. A captivating and beautifully illustrated look at the world of the Dress Doctors, The Lost Art of Dress introduces a new audience to their timeless rules of fashion and beauty -- rules which, with a little help, we can certainly learn again.

DIV Why are words so important to so many Jews? Novelist Amos Oz and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, compose the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every subsequent generation. Framing the discussion within such topics as continuity, women, timelessness, and individualism, Oz and Oz-Salzberger deftly engage Jewish personalities across the ages, from the unnamed, possibly female author of the Song of Songs through obscure Talmudists to contemporary writers. They suggest that Jewish continuity, even Jewish uniqueness, depends not on central places, monuments, heroic personalities, or rituals but rather on written words and an ongoing debate between the generations. Full of learning, lyricism, and humor, Jews and Words offers an extraordinary tour of the words at the heart of Jewish culture and extends a hand to the reader, any reader, to join the conversation. /div