Registration Open for Janet Todd Event on Sept. 12

by | Aug 20, 2021 | News

Registration is now open for our free Zoom event with Austen scholar and novelist Janet Todd, OBE, on Sunday, Sept. 12 at 11 a.m. Pacific time.

The topic will be Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden (also the title of Todd’s new book). Todd will be interviewed by JASNA Southwest Regional Coordinator Susie Wampler, followed by an audience Q&A.

Todd is a novelist, biographer and internationally renowned Jane Austen scholar. She is a former president of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. Now a full-time writer and literary critic, she has published several books: Jane Austen’s Sanditon, Don’t You Know There’s a War On?, Radiation Diaries, Aphra Behn: A Secret Life and A Man of Genius.

She is an Emerita Professor at the University of Aberdeen and an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. Born in Wales, she grew up in Britain, Bermuda and Ceylon/Sri Lanka and has worked at universities in Ghana, Puerto Rico, India, the U.S. (Douglass College, Rutgers, Florida), Scotland (Glasgow, Aberdeen) and England (Cambridge, UEA).

She lives in Cambridge, England, and Venice, Italy.

Todd’s new novel, Jane Austen and Shelley in the Garden, will be released on Sept. 7, 2021. Here is an overview of the book from the publisher:

Jane Austen is such a presence in Fran’s life that she seems to share her cottage and garden, filling her days with wry observations and pointed judgements. Austen’s constant commentary guides and chides her but, after years of teaching, reading and gardening, Fran is ready for a change.
An encounter with an old English friend, and with an American writer, leads to new friendships. The three women bond through a love of books and a quest for the idealist poet Shelley at two pivotal moments of his life: in Wales and Venice. His otherworldly longing and yearning for a utopian way of life cause the women to question their own choices.