Camp Austen
My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A raucous tour through the world of Mr. Darcy imitations, tailored gowns, and tipsy ballroom dancing
The son of a devoted Jane Austen scholar, Ted Scheinman spent his childhood summers eating Yorkshire pudding, singing in an Anglican choir, and watching Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy. Determined to leave his mother’s world behind, he nonetheless found himself in grad school organizing the first ever UNC-Chapel Hill Jane Austen Summer Camp, a weekend-long event that sits somewhere between an academic conference and superfan extravaganza.
While the long tradition of Austen devotees includes the likes of Henry James and E. M. Forster, it is at the conferences and reenactments where Janeism truly lives. In Camp Austen, Scheinman tells the story of his indoctrination into this enthusiastic world and his struggle to shake his mother’s influence while navigating hasty theatrical adaptations, undaunted scholars in cravats, and unseemly petticoat fittings.
In a haze of morning crumpets and restrictive tights, Scheinman delivers a hilarious and poignant survey of one of the most enduring and passionate literary coteries in history. Combining clandestine journalism with frank memoir, academic savvy with insider knowledge, Camp Austen is perhaps the most comprehensive study of Austen that can also be read in a single sitting. Brimming with stockings, culinary etiquette, and scandalous dance partners, this is summer camp like you’ve never seen it before.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this lively debut, Scheinman expertly captures the most memorable moments from the year and a half that he spent "in the world of Jane Austen fandom." The son of an Austen scholar, Scheinman "half willingly and half accidentally" found work at a four-day conference called Jane Austen Summer Camp, where he learned the rules of a worldwide "secret society" of Jane Austen fans known simply as Janeites whose enthusiasm for novels such Pride and Prejudice is "passionate to the point of obsession." He describes meetings of the Jane Austen Society of North America, where "hundreds of superfans congregate to dispute interpretations, share recipes... and argue with the finest scholars in the world." Constantly taking notes "like an embedded reporter," Scheinman observed the "thrilling and disarming" fellowship shared by scholars and laypeople and realized that Austen is "the rare sort of author who makes possible this unaccustomed exchange between academics and civilians." This is a loving and often humorous tribute to the Janeites of the world.
