Jane Austen’s The History of England inspired Quills! Elizabethan Edition I & II, which encompasses the challenges and insights of William Shakespeare’s heroines, drawing upon period research from Anna Murphy Jameson’s poetic analysis of the bard’s female characters.
Jane Austen’s work became steadily popular during the late Victorian Era, alongside the bard’s. Queen Victoria herself enjoyed reading from Austen’s Northanger Abbey to Prince Albert. Queen Victoria also had the bard’s theatricals performed at Windsor Castle from 1848-61 and collected watercolors of painted scenes from his plays. She is an added heroine in the game, being a ‘Royal Patron of the Arts’ and ancestor of historic figures in the bard’s dramatic plays.
Queen Victoria of England, 1845, Alexander Melville; Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, circa 1592, Anonymous; Eleanor of Aquitaine; from Wikimedia Commons.
For 2-4 players, suggested ages 13+
Cooperative, social, playful and dramatically fun!
Imagine a time when people collected butterflies, wrote with feather quill pens by candlelight and wore brocade fashions. Gather Hannah’s windblown notes and pages from William Shakespeare’s plays written and performed during the Elizabethan era to help complete a manuscript in the Queen’s honour.
Players explore the origins, challenges, and insights of 14 Featured Heroines from Shakespeare’s comedic, dramatic, and historic theatricals:
Heroines Set I:
Beatrice, Viola, Imogen, Helena, Desdemona, Isabella, and Queen Victoria
Heroines Set II:
Queen Elinor, Joan d’Arc, Portia, Rosalind, Cordelia, Hermione and Queen Elizabeth I
*Queen Catherine of Aragon and other Heroines appear in Special Message cards in the game.
Whether playing with 2, 3, or 4 players, the Quills! gameplay encourages aspects of roleplaying in dramatically reading the Butterfly Story Cards and Special Messages aloud together; and also a playful mood of cosplay, with the unique materials in which the game was made that can be used as theatrical props.
Each bespoke game is made to order, uniquely crafted by hand and signed as a playable work of art. No special assembly required.
>>Available @ Marigold Games
Related:
Quills! Regency Edition
Catherine of Aragon, Queen of England appears in one of the special messages in the Quills! Elizabethan Edition I: Heroines of Shakespeare Game Set. She is Henry VIII’s first wife, the mother of Queen Mary I of England, and the daughter of Isabella I, Queen of Castile. She is a featured historic character in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII.
It was her mother, Queen Isabella who commissioned Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America, whose first colony was named after Queen Elizabeth I–Virginia for the ‘Virgin Queen’. Uniting with French history, the Statue of Liberty was a gift to the U.S. from France, and reminds of Joan of Arc, carrying the enduring torch of freedom for women and men alike.
Queen Catherine was beloved by the English people, and shares a birthday with Jane Austen on December 16. She was recently depicted as a brave warrior Queen and influential co-ruler with Henry VIII in the dramatic Spanish Princess mini-series. She was the first known woman ambassador in Europe who later became a regent and was instrumental in defeating Scotland. In this light, she blazed trails for her successors including her daughter Mary I, Elizabeth I and later, Queen Victoria–making women monarchs more accessible, inspiring and culturally acceptable in society.
Her sister-in-law, Queen Margaret of Scotland was also a regent at the same time, and was the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots. Jane Austen was sympathetic to Mary, Queen of Scots in her satire, The History of England, which inspired the Quills! Elizabethan Edition I Game Set.
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Catherine of Aragon, Joannes Corvus, 18th century oil on canvas, from Wikimedia Commons.
It is not the fashion to see the lady the
epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome than to see
the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine
needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no
epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes,
and good plays prove the better by the help of good
epilogues. What a case am I in then that am neither
a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in
the behalf of a good play!
I am not furnished like a
beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My
way is to conjure you, and I’ll begin with the
women. I charge you, O women, for the love you
bear to men, to like as much of this play as please
you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear
to women—as I perceive by your simpering, none
of you hates them—that between you and the
women the play may please. If I were a woman, I
would kiss as many of you as had beards that
pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths
that I defied not. And I am sure as many as have
good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths will for
my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
She exits.
Rosalind in As You Like It : Prologue
>Featured in Quills! Elizabethan Edition I: Heroines of William Shakespeare
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Heroines of Shakespeare Montage:
Juliet, Desdemona, Constance, Hermia with Helena, Isabella, Elinor, Rosalind, Portia, Perdita, Imogen, Cordelia, and Miranda.
All historic images from Wiki Commons, featuring Sir John Everett Millais, Edward John Poytner, Norman Price, Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys and John William Waterhouse.
Enheduanna, an ancient Sumerian woman was the first known author of poetry and hymns, while Murasaki Shikibu, a Japanese woman, penned the world’s first romantic novel, The Tale of Genji.
During the High Middle Ages, Eleanor of Aquitaine was an early patron of the literary arts whose unrecorded writings included personal correspondence and political negotiations. Queen Elizabeth I was no stranger to the quill pen. The scholarly queen translated works by Boethius, Horace, and Cicero into the English language to help popularize it, and also wrote her own letters, original speeches, prayers and poems. Queen Victoria was an avid diarist throughout her life, penning 122 volumes preserved in the Royal Archives.
“To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?”
–William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act III, Scene II
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The Elizabethan Era: The Golden Age
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) grew up during a remarkable era in Western history that beheld reigning women monarchs and regents for five decades, which seemed to have piqued Jane Austen’s interest in her juvenilia ('The History of England', Volume the Second). This dynamic milieu included Mary I of England, Elizabeth I of England, their cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, plus her mother, Mary of Guise.
All were preceded by Isabella I of Castile, whose support of Christopher Columbus’ 1492 voyage resulted in the discovery of the New World. The first English colony was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh and named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, who was also called the Virgin Queen, Good Queen Bess, and Gloriana.
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was a major theatre patron, and Shakespeare’s plays put British history and culture on the map, while popularizing the English language.
William Shakespeare is also included in Prairie Prose.
In 1850, Shakespearean scholar, Mary Cowden Clarke wrote The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines that imagined the childhood of 15 characters, including Portia and Desdemona, which is an early example of fan fiction. Works by Jameson, Cowden Clarke and other scholars of the era helped Victorians pave the way for the modern woman who could think, imagine and dare to dream with an ink filled tip of a quill pen in her hand.
Originating during the Victorian Era, ‘Afternoon Tea’ became a favourite daily habit at the British Royal Court since the reign of the young Queen Victoria. As tea became more affordable to the middle class, women would gather in tea rooms to socialize and catalyze political change. During the Regency Era, Jane Austen was also a fan of tea, which figured prominently in her novels and correspondence.
Presented at the JASNA 2017 AGM in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death, who wrote about Queen Elizabeth I with mention of William Shakespeare in her juvenilia ('The History of England', Volume the Second). Austen also referenced Shakespeare’s plays in her novels, including Sense & Sensibility, Mansfield Park and Emma.
The Quills! Series was also mentioned in the Jane Austen Special Issue, Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2019).
>>Available @ Marigold Games
Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, circa 1592, Anonymous from Wikimedia Commons. All other photos by Janine Fron, ©2018. With special thanks to Natasha Lehrer Lewis.
Joan of Arc (1412-1431) appears in the Quills!: Elizabethan Edition I cooperative game set for being an historical character in William Shakespeare's dramatic play, Henry VI, 1592.
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Fearless, spiritual warrior and liberator:
A young peasant girl who left her family to follow a spiritual impulse that ultimately united France and liberated England through her courageous, selfless acts and fortitude.
Disguised herself as a soldier to recruit faithful followers who believed in her mission. Cleared of charges against her after the Hundred Years War ended; canonized a saint in 1909.
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Joan of Arc, Painted between 1450 and 1500, historiated initial from Archives Nationales, Paris, AE || 2490, from Wikimedia Commons.