The Jane Austen scholar video also has claims Jane Austen collected tarantulas, purchased the largest mulberry garden in "western Britain" for breeding silkworms, and sponsored an assassination attempt on George Washington, despite the fact she was 14 when he died, and a baby during the war.
The phantasms have a certain Trumpiness to them.
Attn @sinsleyh.bsky.social
OMG!
Sounds like it comes from the same zone of bullshit as that American woman who said that there was no evidence that the Roman Empire existed.
Nonsense, I’ve seen some really good films at the Roman Empire back in the day
I don't want to know what Daphne Du Maurier got up to in her spare time then...
This video sounds *amazing*. Can you post a link?
I don't think it's a video. I think Jane Austen did a podcast about this.
Oh yeah, the one where she had special guests George Eliot and Virginia Woolf
She had Charlotte Brontë on there too, but they hated each other. That was one of the most popular episodes.
I remember that one. They had a dance off that ended in a nasty hat pin fight.
Yep - that's the one.
Almost as brutal as *that* episode of In Our Time about the Industrial Revolution
Oh man. I saw this post out of context and was really excited about her tarantula collection until I read to the end.
😄
Quite ridiculous. Austen was only 41 when she died in 1817. From wounds received at the Battle of Waterloo 2 years earlier.
Western Britain? So not THE largest in Britain then. If only she stuck to silk business and dallied in assassination and writing fiction
Oh no, Sir Walter Scott and Emily Bronte were also keen keepers of arachnids and had vast mulberry forests in Scotland and Yorkshire respectively.
Can't wait for the Netflix series.
Gosh, it actually makes her sound exciting... not the utter boredom-fest I encountered at school.
She was hiding in plain sight: "If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad". —Northanger Abbey
“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love. But for revenge I prefer the venom of a tarantula.” — Northanger Abbey
Pride With Extreme Prejudice!
paging @maureenjohnsonbooks.com
*pulls up chair*
Tbf I've seen kids spend their pocket money on worse
I just remembered that I once read an #alternatehistory short story where, in a Britain that had been occupied by the French following a successful cross-Channel invasion, Jane Austen conspired with Davy Crockett (visiting from America) to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon.
I quite like the thought of Jane Austen secretly running a network of international assassins on behalf of the Crown.
New Netflix series just landed
Aged 14, no less!
James Bond Junior
Id read the hell out of this. If Aphra Behn could be an Authoress and Spy why not 😄
Specialising in tarantula based assassinations.
A steam punk version of that James Bond scene.
She was clearly an early founder of The Kingsman organisation. That’s why Colin Firth, who is only pretending to be an actor, is in both The Kingsman films and the definitive BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Surely.
With a signature monogrammed silk handkerchief left at every scene
Sounds like the basis of the next BBC 'alternative history' drama series after William the Bastard and Hastings.
I should really stress none of that is true, but would make a good YA novel.
Oh, it would. I'm imagining it as a graphic novel.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_a... It’s a crowded field
Jane Austen: Schoolgirl Assassin - already on it.😉
I was thinking Jane Austen vs Zombie George Washington
Don't spoil my sequel! 🤫🤣
Dark academia vibes.
What they apparently teach Russian school children about Jane Austen.
Is this an actual (genAI) image from the Russian propaganda video? Cheers,
AI gen
Thanks. So it was part of the propaganda video? I’m very interested in how much genAI is used by nation-state propagandists these days. (I’d also like to know if any of them are using their own curated algorithms and datasets.)
Jane Australia
She had trained attack spiders?
No social media back then, so she had some free time to fill.
Gods forbid a girl have hobbies
