The idea for Dining with Jane Austen began with two handwritten cookbooks held within the Austen family circle. Paging through the period ?receipts? revealed instant connections with the food references in the author?s letters and novels. Now Haricot Mutton, Orange Wine, Bath Buns, White Soup, and many other foods familiar to Jane Austen can be recreated using the author?s own family recipes. Dining with Jane Austen follows the sequence of the author?s life and letters, telling her story thorough the foods on her plate. This is the first work to feature recreations of the author?s family recipes on family china in family houses where Jane Austen lived and dined.Proceeds from the sale of this book benefit Jane Austen?s House Museum and Chawton House Library in Hampshire.

What was the significance of the pyramid of fruit which confronted Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley? Or of the cold beef eaten by Willoughby on his journey of repentance to see Marianne? Why is it so appropriate that the scene of Emma's disgrace should be a picnic, and how do the different styles of housekeeping in Mansfield Park engage with the social issues of the day? While Jane Austen does not luxuriate in cataloguing meals in the way of Victorian novelists, food in fact plays a vital part in her novels. Her plots, being domestic, are deeply imbued with the rituals of giving and sharing meals. The attitudes of her characters to eating, to housekeeping and to hospitality are important indicators of their moral worth. In a practice both economical and poetic, Jane Austen sometimes uses specific foodstuffs to symbolise certain qualities at heightened moments in the text. This culminates in the artistic triumph of Emma, in which repeated references to food not only contribute to the solidity of her imagined world, but provide an extended metaphor for the interdependence of a community. In this original, lively and well-researched book, Maggie Lane not only offers a fresh perspective on the novels, but illuminates a fascinating period of food history, as England stood on the brink of urbanisation, middle-class luxury, and change in the role of women. Ranging over topics from greed and gender to mealtimes and manners, and drawing on the novels, letters and Austen family papers, she also discusses Jane Austen's own ambivalent attitude to the provision and enjoyment of food.

'A delightful collection of Austen-inspired dishes' – Bee Wilson, Stella Magazine 'It's a great idea - a book that you can read as well as cook from, and one that, uniquely, sends you straight back to the novels themselves' – Telegraph Online 'In this charming bit of historical reconstruction, Pen Vogler takes authentic recipes from Austen's time and updates them for today. You'll find everything you need to recreate Netherfield Ball in your front room.' – Kathryn Hughes, The best books on food, The Guardian Enter Jane Austen's world through the kitchens and dining rooms of her characters, and her own family. Food is an important theme in Jane Austen's novels - it is used as a commodity for showing off, as a way of showing kindliness among neighbours, as part of the dynamics of family life, and - of course - for comic effect. Dinner with Mr Darcy takes authentic recipes from the period, inspired by the food that features in Austen's novels and letters, and adapts them for contemporary cooks. The text is interwoven throughout with quotes from the novels, and feature spreads cover some of the key themes of food and eating in Austen's time, including table arrangements, kitchens and gardens, changing mealtimes, and servants and service. Whether you are hoping to beguile a single gentleman in possession of a substantial fortune, or you just want to have your own version of the picnic on Box Hill in Emma, you will find fully updated recipes using easily available ingredients to help you recreate the dishes and dining experiences of Jane Austen's characters and their contemporaries.

Jane Austen wrote her novels in the midst of a large and sociable family. Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, friends and acquaintances were always coming and going, and eating and drinking. Fortunately one of Jane's dearest friends, Martha Lloyd, lived with the family for many years and recorded in her Household Book over 100 recipes enjoyed by the Austens. This family fare, tested and modernized for today's cooks, is reproduced here, together with some of the more sophisticated dishes which Jane and her characters would have enjoyed at balls, picnics and supper parties.

This is the first facsimile publication of 'Martha Lloyd's Household Book', the manuscript cookbook of Jane Austen's closest friend. Martha's notebook is reproduced to scale in a colour facsimile section with complete transcription and detailed annotation. Introductory chapters discuss its place among other household books of the long eighteenth century. Martha Lloyd befriended a young Jane Austen and later lived with Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother at the cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane wrote or revised her novels. Martha later married into the Austen family. Her collection features recipes and remedies handwritten during a period of over thirty years and includes the only surviving recipes from Mrs Austen and Captain Francis Austen, Jane's mother and brother. There are many connections between Martha's book and Jane Austen's writing, including white soup from 'Pride and Prejudice' and the author's favourites - toasted cheese and mead. The family, culinary and literary connections detailed in the introductory chapters of this work give a fascinating perspective on the time and manner in which both women lived, thanks to this extraordinary artefact passed down through the Austen family.

"This beautiful collection of more than 50 recipes inspired by the novels of Jane Austen brings readers a sumptuous array of dishes that capture all the spirit and verve of Austen's world and the Regency era, adapted and reimagined for the modern day"--

"Caroline's early life was filled with the delights of living in a sixteenth-century English manor, the good cheer of family gatherings and centuries-old Christmas traditions in the Great Hall of Chawton House, the beauty of a country life, and the joys of helping her Granny bake cakes and serve Jane Austen devotees in the Chawton House tea room. But when she was seventeen, Caroline and her family were forced to leave the home her family had lived in for centuries. Heartbroken, but determined to leave all things Austen behind her, Caroline eventually carved out a highly successful career in business" -- Back cover.