Unearth your best bonnets, puff up your sleeves, straighten your waistcoats and raise a glass of your finest claret: Tuesday is officially Jane Austen Day in Oregon.
Gov. Tina Kotek signed a proclamation to that effect last month, in honor of the acclaimed British writer’s 250th birthday.
“Austen’s work continues to inspire scholars, readers, filmmakers and writers around the world, including in the state of Oregon,” the proclamation reads. “Her sharp observations of society, strong and complex female protagonists and masterful storytelling have made lasting contributions to literature, culture and feminist thought.”
Enthusiasts around the world have already taken part in a yearlong celebration of one of English literature’s greats, who penned “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility” and other beloved novels.
On Tuesday — to mark 250 years since she was born on Dec. 16, 1775 — Jane Austen’s House, in the southern English village of Chawton, hosted talks, tours and performances for dozens of visitors, with celebrations concluding with an online party for fans from all over the world. Fans, who call themselves “Janeites,” have marked the anniversary year with Regency balls and festivals staged in the U.K., U.S. and beyond.
It is, of course, a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen fans want to flock together for celebrations, much as Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood did in the pages of the author’s most beloved novels.
One Portland church will commemorate the special day with an already at-capacity concert of salon music from the era, including songs Austen likely performed in her own home.
“She in fact loved to perform, to play and sing at her own home for her friends,” said Emma Cowell, music director at Ascension Episcopal Parish in Southwest Portland. “It seemed like a perfect time to do a concert of music from her own collection and from her era, to reproduce what it would feel like to experience an evening … in Jane Austen’s circle.”
Cowell, a “Janeite” herself, selected some works from a collection of Jane Austen’s music books and handwritten music manuscripts. Among the pieces she and fellow soprano and piano player Jocelyn Claire Thomas will perform on Tuesday is a variation of a Welsh rendition of “Deck the Halls,” that Cowell says becomes “more and more bonkers” as the song progresses. The rhythms change, unexpected notes get added and when “you think it can’t get any faster or more complicated, it keeps doing it,” Cowell said.
Cowell imagines that Austen would invite her friends to listen to a nice Christmas carol and then launch into the wacky tune.
“That makes me so happy, just to relate to a historical figure who clearly had such a fun sense of humor and liked to sort of play games with her friends like that,” she said.
Arnie Perlstein, a board member of the Oregon and Southwest Washington chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, wasn’t aware of other Jane Austen events in the Portland area on Tuesday. But the small local group, which has about 50 members, recently hosted a celebration commemorating the chapter’s founding in the ‘80s.
Perlstein hopes to recruit more young people, including people from diverse racial backgrounds and LGBTQ+ communities, to join the group. Behind the romance of her books, Perlstein argues, Austen included a “strong social criticism.”
“If she were alive today,” Perlstein said, “she would be here in Portland.”