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More British book cover madness

What is going on across the Atlantic? Thanks to Zen of Writing, I find that Jane Austen is ‘too ugly’ for book covers (BBC News).

Basically, they took the only authenticated Jane portrait, by her sister Cassandra, and ran it through Photoshop to make her look more attractive:

Before: watercolor sketch of Jane Austen (1810) by Cassandra Austen, held by the National Portrait Gallery, London. After: new Jane Austen portrait (2007), from Wordsworth publishing.

Yikes.

I’ve been trying to tell myself that, in a decade when Kiera Knightly is Lizzy (whither hast thou gone, Jennifer Ehle?), the worthy end of increasing Jane’s readership justifies the means. But in this case, the book in question isn’t actually by Jane - it’s a memoir about her, by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh.

It’s just so bleeping sad that you have to prettify a female author, even a long-dead master of her genre, to make her interesting as a person to consumers. On the other hand, who am I kidding? Reprints of P&P and Emma almost always feature a generic, rosy-cheeked maiden on the cover. And this isn’t the first time that Jane’s portrait has been redacted - the most popular depiction of Jane Austen, the 1870 engraving by Lizars, is an obvious “improvement” over the watercolor portrait. (Lizars’ version was commissioned for the Victorian edition of the memoir by Austen-Leigh).

See this article for an overview of various Austen portraits.

This is the memoir in question by James Edward Austen-Leigh (online via Gutenberg), so for heaven’s sake, read it there and don’t buy the sexy Jane edition.

2 comments April 5th, 2007

The Newtonian elephant, and other creative errata

Scribd - They didn’t study

Some more great stuff I’ve been meaning to post - these classics will resonate with anyone who has ever taught a science course. Especially the teacher’s comment that reads “I wish I could give you credit for this.” I’ve written that so many times!

Via lots of places.

2 comments April 5th, 2007

Is the term paper dead?

Cut-and-Paste Is a Skill, Too (washingtonpost.com)

According to Jason Johnson, maybe we shouldn’t try to fight plagiarism any more:

Research papers — of varying lengths, written without the instructor’s direct supervision — are an academic staple. They’ve been a successful way for teachers and professors to evaluate students because they allow the students to create something that tangibly displays their skills and knowledge without using any class time. But despite all its attractive qualities, the paper is an extremely weak link in academic assessment, largely for the same reasons that it has been successful — the work is done outside the classroom.

The comments on this article are pretty funny. Cognitive Daily has a good response.

I’d post the most memorable plagiarized paper I ever got from a student - note: one needs some grasp of grammar, noun/verb agreement, and sentence structure before one can cut-and-paste convincingly - but some student would probably copy it and hand it in, thus torturing a future colleague.

Add comment April 5th, 2007