Judging A Book

According to the BBC, publishing executives at Wordsworth Editions consider Jane Austen too ugly - "she was not much of a looker" - to adorn the cover of a memoir about herself. I quite agree. The portrait of Austen reproduced below, apparently painted by her sister, depicts Austen as a porridge-faced spinster who obviously spent far too much time squinting at parchment and laboring over her needlework, although, judging by the style, it might just as well be a caricature of some miserable Roman kitchen slave scribbled over an unfinished fresco in Pompeii.

And to speak frankly, I don't enjoy Austen's novels either. There is far too much winsome sighing and not enough savage breast heaving, if you ask me. Strawberry Shortcake's bum being formally pinched by Anthony Trollope: "If I may beg your pardon, Miss Shortcake, but the pert protuberance and firm roundedness of your posterior has, perhaps with your unconscious consent, suggested to the most raffish components of my masculine emotions, hereforto hidden behind by a veneer of gentlemanly conduct and virtue, that, with your blushing permission, perhaps a slight amount of virile pressure may be applied, however briefly, to its fleshy exterior by at least two of the fingers belonging to my right hand."

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[Mrs. Peperium]

Spring has arrived in Boston and Mr. Fez has donned his prigged muslin....