Everybody's been curious about the book that Emma borrows from Mudie's in episode 4. Much speculation has been voiced about whether or not it was an actual book. I am happy to report that I have finally identified it, after much thought and investigation. The book (seen here, with the title cover in a characteristically Japanese right-side position) is "Rosaline Woodbridge; or, The Midnight Visit, a Romantic Tale" (1827), by Hannah Maria Jones. It's the terribly romantic story of a young girl, the daughter of a gamekeeper, who falls in love with a nobleman. I won't bore you with the details, but there's a lame deus ex machina near the end, where the girl is revealed to be actually a misplaced noble child... and therefore eligible to marry the nobleman. Geh, what a weak ending...Anyway, I am convinced this is the one.I've found a synopsis here: http://www2.shu.ac.uk/corvey/cw3/ContribPage.cfm?Contrib=441
Agreed. The long title and the author's name match perfectly. You are THE MAN!
>>786We HAVE to see about inserting that into the final version of the subbed anime. Oh, and remember to spell it: "Hannah Maria Jones", not "Hannah Marie Jones".
Oh, but that would be CENSORSHIP!(Not bitter.)
Is futaba aware of this yet?
I was thinking about that "Vol. 1" - it seemed sort of odd to me. So I decided to look it up. Now I can tell you not only the book, but the edition. You see, "Rosaline Woodbridge" was originally published in 1827, by George Virtue in London. This first edition was in one volume of 721 pages. However, another edition was issued, later the same year, published by Mathew Iley in London. This edition was in three volumes. Undoubtedly, this (or a later republication of the same version) is the book that Emma borrows (or rather, borrows the first volume of).For a full listing of the romantic novels of Hannah Maria Jones, see this URL:http://www.british-fiction.cf.ac.uk/authorTitles.asp?author=428
Why is the book in three volumes? That puzzled me, until I read this:http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/mudie.html
This book is ridiculously hard to find! Thanks to Freak of Nature for posting a synopsis.
>>784You might be interested to know that that "lame deus ex machina near the end" was horribly, depressingly common in victorian writing. Almost every other book published at the time included some variant of it. Jane Austen makes fun of it (and just about every other victorian convention of writing) in her Northanger Abbey, a really fun read if you can get into writing of that time period.
- wakaba 3.0.8 + futaba + futallaby -