Meeting: April 2019

Promo alert! Jane Austen and the Reformation:
Remembering the Sacred Landscape
by Roger Moore

In the spirit of this year's AGM theme --"200 Years of Northanger Abbey" -- our meeting on April 14 spotlighted several Gothic novels mentioned by Austen in Northanger Abbey, including author biographies and publication history. 

Dr. Roger Moore (himself a 2019 AGM plenary speaker) was the host with the most for exceptionally opinionated discussions of Ann Radcliffe's The Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho, Matthew Lewis's The Monk, Eliza Parson's The Castle of Wolfenbach, and Eleanor Sleath's The Orphan of the Rhine.

We also heard about Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), generally held to be the first Gothic novel, and considered later writers who featured the Gothic elements of mystery, horror, terror, death and the fantastic.

Rose petal sandwiches

Sweets and savories

Holly Yates, Andrea Hearn, Shellaine Kiser
(photo bomb by The Countess of Bristol)

Phil Staples, Dede Clements

Tea-ing up

Vanderbilt English Department stars
Andrea Hearn and Roger Moore

Phil Staples, Cherith Boardman, Ann Cox, Roger Moore

Phil Staples's bespoke chapeau

Debbie Carroll and her "novel" skirt

On the couch with Jo Ann Staples,
Mildred Tilley, Marie Miesel