10 Things I Like About You, Jane Austen

 *Tote bearing the visage of Jane from Dear Lillie on Etsy

Since I did a Chick Flicks post solely devoted to Jane Austen this week, it got me thinking... why do I have such a life-long love of the Jane? 

So, dear Jane, here are 10 things I like about you:

1. You side with the underdog.  If you were here today, your heroines would not be jet-setting starlets Housewives of NYC.  No, they'd be lower-middle class girls desperately hoping for scholarships to get to college and going to the prom in a thrift store dress they cut into pieces and re-made.

2. You mock the snobbish.  After all, if we can laugh at those we don't like (and those who have it  much better than us but don't seem to deserve it) don't we all feel better?

*A modern take on Lizzy and Darcy from Nan Lawson on Etsy

3. And much like Elizabeth Bennett, you do so like to laugh.  But your laughs are witty and intelligent and cutting, making us all feel a bit smarter, like we're the insiders as we laugh along.

4. You give us hope in happy endings.  No existentialist infuriating The Romantics endings for you.  No bittersweet sorrows.  Just pure closure with a pink bow on top and a slice of wedding cake on the side.

 *Adorable "I am Mr. Darcy" t-shirt via Brookish on Etsy

5. You give men a lot to live up to.  After all, you've created a character women swoon over at the very mention of his name - Mr. Darcy.  Which has now been forever commemorated in product on Etsy.  (And if the t-shirt isn't enough, women can now dress their husbands in authentic Mr. Darcy get up.)

6.You created heroines we wanted to be (some of them at least).  Loveable, but always flawed. Feisty. Smart.  A little bit pretty. Strong. Sometimes headed for trouble with their imaginations or meddling. And infinitely more self-controlled than the modern woman.

 *Soap inspired by Mansfield Park created by Latherati Soaps on Etsy (she makes perfumes inspired by books - I have to meet this person!)

7. Picking up one of your books, or popping in a movie, we step into fantasy. In the world of your stories we step back to a fictional world that gives us a break from our own.  A world of letter writing, ballroom dances, strange social rules and gender rules, a world that had rules when ours seems to have none.  At times we find comfort in this, even though in real life we'd find it stifling.

8.While your notions of romance may be, well... fantastical (and we love you for that), you capture the relationships between women so well.  Friends, sisters, rivals - the comraderie, the secrets, the competition, the misunderstandings.

 *A minimalist portrait of Miss Austen from Kirby on Etsy

9. You are an inspiration, Miss Austen.  The thought of you sitting at your little desk, secretly scribbling your novels in obscurity, never knowing what a tremendous impact you would still have hundreds of years later.

10. Although you have a most definite ouevre of writing, each of your stories is unique (unlike many who have knocked you off over the years).  You are witty.  And quippy.  And infinitely quotable.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!  - Jane Austen