On Tuesday, I was having a chat with David Richter about his upcoming ASECS paper “Postmodern Pastiche: Jane Austen in New York and A Cock and Bull Story,” about films based so loosely on eighteenth-century texts that one would need to have fairly intimate familiarity with those texts to understand what they’re doing in the film. Jane Austen in New York is especially difficult for viewers, as it depicts a theater company putting on a rarely-seen theatrical adaption by Austen of Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison, a book so out of print that even bad, stained, and incomplete copies of it go for $75 to $2000 online.
This reminded me that Grandison is on my orals list, but I have never actually held a copy of it in my hands.
The only remedy for this problem seems to be saving 50-page PDFs of it from ECCO, which is how I’ve gotten to read many of Johnson’s more rarely reproduced texts. However, I am not above begging.
Does anyone here know of anyone who would part with a Grandison? I am willing to pay something reasonable for it. Email me at carrieshanafelt at gmail if you have a lead for me.
Also, if you get the chance to see Richter’s presentation (Session X), I’d love to hear how it goes!
