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Author Talks in the Garden: Jan Merriman

5 December @ 10:30 am - 11:30 am

Free
Description
Meet local author Jan Merriman at Warilla Library for our first ever Author Talks in the Garden!

Meet local author Jan Merriman at Warilla Library for our first ever Author Talks in the Garden!

Jan Merriman grew up in Wollongong, and after living in Sydney, the U.K. and the Southern Highlands, now lives in Tullimbar. Jan is a retired teacher and university lecturer. She is a graduate of Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, majoring in English Literature and Linguistics, and long devoted to Jane Austen.

She has pursued her interest through further study and research into many aspects of Jane Austen’s work: presenting papers to Jane Austen groups and conferences, running Jane Austen workshops, publishing journal articles and coordinating the Southern Highlands Jane Austen Group.

Jane Austen’s aunt Philadelphia was orphaned and poor when she was forced to seek for herself those objects of eighteenth-century womanhood: social esteem and financial independence. The story of her aunt had so impressed the young Jane that she created a character, Cecilia Wynne, in her short fiction, Catharine or the Bower, based on her aunt. Cecilia’s experience as an orphaned ‘girl of genius and feeling’ being ‘sent in quest of a husband to Bengal’, exactly mirrored that of her recently deceased aunt.

Such a connection between author and aunt sparked an interest in an otherwise neglected member of the Austen clan. How did this aunt who had provided inspiration for the young Jane manage to make her way in the world? How did the course of her life reflect the lives of other women of her times? What worlds did she move in? What people did she meet? Who was the real father of her only child, her daughter Eliza? Little was known about Philadelphia, yet Eliza, was said to be a central figure in Jane Austen’s life.

The conventional trajectory of Philadelphia’s life was changed when, after completing a millinery apprenticeship in London, she took the chance of a journey to India and an arranged marriage. There she became part of the colourful world of the Honourable East India Company and encountered many of its most notable people. Her life was transformed.

This first in-depth story of the life of Jane Austen’s aunt Philadelphia Hancock is the product of seven years of research and a fascination with the untold stories of the lives of eighteenth-century women. Jane Austen’s Remarkable Aunt Philadelphia Hancock is published by Pen & Sword UK.

Books available to purchase at the event!

Details

Date:
5 December
Time:
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Cost:
Free
Event Category:
Website:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/author-talks-in-the-garden-jan-merriman-tickets-1033122817157

Venue

Warilla Library
8 Woolworths Ave
Warilla, NSW 2528 Australia

Other

Age
Adult

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QBD

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Shellharbour City Libraries partners with Frasers Property Australia to deliver Toddler Tales, a weekly childhood reading program, at The Waterfront Shell Cove. The libraries have also partnered with Frasers Property Australia to deliver a term of Tech Savvy Seniors at Shell Cove.

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