“How about ‘friends of Jane Austen’? I’ve always thought of her that way. I read her when I’m sick, or feeling sorry for myself. I read her when I’m trying to understand people, or the way the world is. Jane Austen is like a friend. I think that I can truly say that I am a friend of Jane’s.” Miss Uunila, as quoted in The Talk of the Town, “Homage,” The New Yorker, November 5, 1979.
I’m interested in collecting people’s stories about how they found their way to JASNA, beginning with those, like Libby Blank, who joined after reading the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town piece (November 5, 1979) about JASNA’s inaugural annual general meeting (AGM). Libby said that “one of the nice things about the early days was that you saw a lot of people and got to know them.”
JASNA’s first Annual General Meeting (AGM) took place on October 5, 1979 in New York City’s Gramercy Park Hotel. The founding President of JASNA, J. David (Jack) Grey, introduced himself and the two other founders, Joan Austen-Leigh and Henry G. Burke, to the attendees. About 100 people attended the meeting.
I joined JASNA via Libby Blank, a friend from a Shakespeare discussion group, who encouraged me to join JASNA. Here is her story.
Libby joined JASNA in 1980 after reading The Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker. Libby’s professional background is in planning, specifically the planning of water utility infrastructure and operations. Libby bought a small set of leather-bound Jane Austen novels in boxes on her first trip to Europe, but didn’t start reading Jane Austen until later. Post-college, she knew only one person (a male work colleague, a fellow planner) who read Jane Austen.
Reading the “Homage” piece in the New Yorker prompted Libby to figure out how to join JASNA. She first wrote to Jack Grey via the junior high school in East Harlem where he was the assistant principal, but the letter was returned unopened. Next, Libby wrote to the New Yorker and they got his OK to send it to his home address. Success!
Libby had a “great pleasure not only from reading Jane Austen but from the Jane Austen Society.” Libby’s first AGM was the 1983 Emma AGM in Philadelphia. Only later did Emma become Libby’s favorite novel. While there she met the three founders and many other people. Libby found that JASNA’s founders were “very nice and accessible.”
In 1986 and 1990, Jack Grey led tours to Jane Austen sites in England. On her trips to England on Jack Grey’s tour, Libby made two life-long friends, Florence Spencer from New Jersey and Muriel Manual from Morgan City, Louisiana. Libby said that “[w]e met for many years after that at the AGM and a second time each year in a different city” (Chicago, Washington, D.C., etc.).
All friends of Jane Austen have their own origin story to tell and I’m interested in hearing those stories.