Pocket Posh Jane Austen: 100 Puzzles & Quizzes [ POCKET POSH JANE AUSTEN:… (edition 2011)

As the title indicates, this is a compact book full of short brain workouts such as crosswords, trivia questions, anagrams, and so forth. For a fun twist, all the trivia questions are related to Jane Austen and her novels. The other puzzles either use clues related to Austen and the Regency era or their solutions reveal a title of one of Jane’s works. Some puzzles are remarkably easy like the “Pick the Partner” challenge that asks readers to pair off these couples correctly: Lucy Steele, Colonel Brandon, Catherine Morland, Fanny Price, Henry Tilney, Edmund Bertram, Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Knightley, Marianne Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse, Edward Dashwood, Louisa Musgrove, Captain Benwick, and Mr. Darcy. That’s a pretty unchallenging feat for Janeites!

But some of the trivia questions (and puzzles) got a little trickier, with more obscure facts requested, such as “Where is Eleanor Tilney’s favorite walk?” or “What changes do the Crofts make to Kellynch Hall?” (The answers, respectively, being: “The path through a thick grove of old Scotch firs” and “They repair the laundry door and remove the full-length mirrors from the master bedroom.”)

One striking trivia point was Q: “How many sisters does Mr. Bingley have?”; A: Five. The answer seems to come from this passage of Pride and Prejudice: “Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, &c. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a large number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing that, instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly room, it consisted of only five altogether; Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the oldest, and another young man. “ I had always assumed that the five sisters and a cousin were part of the misinformation circulated by rumors in the style of the old childhood game of “telephone” (some element of which appeared to exist long before telephones were invented!), and that Mr. Bingley in fact only had the two sisters, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Caroline Bingley. The author of the Pocket Posh© puzzles apparently had a different interpretation of this passage and took the five sisters as literal, even if we never saw the other three materialize throughout the novel.

At any rate, this handy pocket-size book is just the thing for Austen fans to use when catching a spare moment to idle away with a fun puzzle or two! ( )

If you love Jane Austen and like most puzzles, this is for you. It makes waiting times slip by and it will take me into the autumn to finish all the puzzles. Once you see it, you'll want to buy it. ( )