The Regency’s favorite travelling clergyman has reached the Bay Area! Join us in the Terrace Room at Margaret-Jacks Hall on Stanford Campus (or online) for a talk on what was, by some measures, the most popular poem of Austen’s day, The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque (1812). JASNA NorCal member Ben Wiebracht and three of his students, Rathan Muruganantham, Madeline Ayer, and Mayuko Karakawa, co-winners of the 2024 JASNA New Voices Award, will share key insights from their semester-long project on Doctor Syntax. Their work culminated in a new critical edition of the poem that was featured at the 2024 AGM in Cleveland. Topics will include:

• The colorful life of William Combe (author of Doctor Syntax), who wrote the poem from debtor’s prison
• The Picturesque–both in Doctor Syntax and in Austen’s work
• Thomas Rowlandson’s celebrated Doctor Syntax aquatints, which were published alongside the poem. Ben will be bringing some rare early editions of the poem as well as several standalone original aquatints for attendees to examine and enjoy.

After Q&A and a break, during which light refreshments will be served, Ben will preview his next student-teacher collaboration – a critical edition of the poem The Wrongs of Africa (1787), by the often-overlooked abolitionist William Roscoe. After a brief overview of Roscoe’s life and career, as well as the state of the abolitionist movement in the late 1780s, attendees will be invited to join in a reading and open discussion of several passages from the poem–including one that Jane Austen herself is known to have read.

Join us for a lively discussion of The Friendly Jane Austen: A Well-Mannered Introduction to a Lady of Sense and Sensibility by Natalie Tyler.