Victoria Connelly » Chawton

In Austen Country

Victoria — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 10:41:08 +0000

Saturday was a very special day for me because I had two talks in Hampshire – the county of Jane Austen! The first was at the West Meon Festival. West Meon is a gorgeous village in the heart of rural Hampshire and the church was decorated with bunting and there was coffee and cake for everyone.

I have never given a talk in a church before and I have to say that I was a little anxious that I might have to speak from the pulpit! Fortunately, this wasn’t the case and I was given a magnificent seat on a small stage in front of a beautiful altar.

Then it was on to Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton. I was so honoured to be speaking about my Jane Austen trilogy at the very home of my idol. The room was packed and there were dozens of questions for me to answer at the end and the biggest queue for a book signing I’ve ever had! I have to say that Austen fans are the loveliest people ever!

Now it’s back to the desk where I’m cooking up a lovely surprise for my readers. Keep in touch to find out what it is later this week …

2011 – bring it on!

Victoria — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 19:18:14 +0000

Happy New Year, everyone!

I’m so looking forward to 2011. It’s a very special year for Jane Austen fans as it’s 200 years since her first publication – Sense and Sensibility – and I’ll be doing my bit to celebrate this. In June, I’ll be speaking at the Worcester Literary Festival and, in July, I’ll be giving a talk at Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton.

I’ll also be kept busy with publications. The Perfect Hero comes out at the end of April in the UK. It’s my second novel about Jane Austen addicts and is set in Lyme Regis. This will also be the first year that I’ll be published in the US with A Weekend with Mr Darcy coming out in July and Dreaming of Mr Darcy (the US title for The Perfect Hero) coming out in October. Very exciting!

And, on the home front, we should be rescuing our ex-battery chickens soon. They should be arriving any day now …

Oh, and a house move is on the horizon too. At long last, we are swapping the London suburbs for a more rural setting: beautiful Wiltshire!

Signing at Chawton

Victoria — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:50:45 +0000

A trip to Chawton Cottage is always special and yesterday’s visit was extra special because I’d been invited to sign copies of A Weekend with Mr Darcy which is being stocked in the lovely shop there.

The Jane Austen House Museum features in a couple of chapters in my book and I’ve had many happy trips to the village whilst researching my story. Here I am in the beautiful garden with my book.

After a visit to an art exhibition and a very late lunch with family, we went on to Cobham Heath where Molly had a well-deserved walk. The light was glorious on the green and golden bracken and we spotted loads of toadstools including the wonderful fly agaric which I always call the Disney Toadstool! Aren’t they amazing?

Snow in Chawton

Victoria — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:08:45 +0000

The 16th December marks the birthday of Jane Austen and we took a trip to her cottage in Chawton which was serving mince pies and drinks in celebration. An extra delight was that we had our first snow and it fell thick and fast, covering the garden and the cottages in the village. It was a scene straight from a Christmas card.

We also had the pleasure of chatting to the Jane Austen museum’s writer in residence, Rebecca Smith. Rebecca is the great, great, great, great, great niece of Jane and it’s lovely to think of a direct descendent writing in the cottage today. Read her lovely blog here.

Chawton House looked especially beautiful and the churchyard at St Nicholas – where Jane’s mother and sister are buried – was silent and snowy.

Then it was on to Winchester where the final chapter of my novel is set. The cathedral was wonderfully quiet and I sat by Jane Austen’s grave in the north aisle, making some notes for my book.

Happy Birthday, Jane! You’re one of the best Christmas presents ever given to the world!

Home and away

Victoria — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:50:24 +0000

I really will have to think about moving to Chawton one of these days as I’m there so often. My latest trip was to hear a lecture about Jane Austen’s manuscripts and it was fascinating stuff. Did you know that our beloved author didn’t know how to use apostrophes properly? She would send her hand-written manuscripts to the publisher with all sorts of crossings out and errors and they turned everything into the perfect prose that we know and love today. But I think the highlight of the talk for me was actually being within touching distance of six first-edition copies of her books!

Monday brought a trip to the Isle of Wight to deliver more of hubby’s paintings to Island Fine Arts. We were anxious about the crossing as there was some heavy rain around but it was fairly smooth, thank goodness, and the sun even came out for us in the afternoon and we drove up to Culver Down where Roy painted and Molly and I went walking.

Back at home now and my first website competition has come to a close. Katie Fforde chose the winner out of over three hundred entries and the signed copy of Molly’s Millions and the goody bag are winging their way to Chaitali in Illinois, USA.

If you’d like to know more about Katie Fforde, have a look at the Writer Top Tens page where you can also read all about Carole Matthews too! More top tens coming soon …

Where’s a hero when you need one?

Victoria — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 17:02:31 +0000

On a day stolen from summer, we visited the pretty Hampshire village of Chawton – home of Jane Austen. I’d visited her cottage before but, now that I’m writing my book about Jane Austen addicts, I wanted to see it again. It’s such a lovely place and I adored seeing the pretty topaz crosses worn by Jane and her sister, Cassandra. And the gift shop is an Austen addicts’ dream with books galore and the brooding image of Darcy everywhere!

I’d also booked for a tour of Chawton House Library - the place referred to as the ‘Great House’ in the letters of Jane Austen, and owned by her brother, Edward. There are some fabulous portraits and wooden pannelling, and the library is a delight featuring many rare books by women writers published between 1600 to 1830.

Whilst walking in the grounds, I managed to take a tumble – Marianne Dashwood style – and badly twisted my ankle. But, despite the fact that I was in Austen-land, there were no handsome men on horseback to rescue me and I had to do my best to hobble my way back to where my husband was painting .

If you’d like to see his lovely paintings of Chawton, visit his blog here: