Lover’s Vows promises a literary Valentine treat

Jane Austen Book Club presents staged reading of controversial 18th-century play

By Heather Elia

(Hamilton, NY) The Jane Austen Book Club will host a staged reading of the 1798 Elizabeth Inchbald play “Lover’s Vows,” on Saturday Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. at the Colgate Bookstore, 3 Utica St. The parts will be read by members of the Jane Austen Book Club and the Syracuse Region of the Jane Austen Society of North America, and local volunteers. The reading is open to the public and all are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided.

Volunteers are still needed to read several of the roles; please call 315-228-6944 if interested.

Best known for having been featured in the Jane Austen novel Mansfield Park, “Lover’s Vows” was adapted by British playwright Elizabeth Inchbald from the German play Das Kind von Liebe (“Child of Love”) by August von Kotzebue. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the play’s references to profligate behavior, an illegitimate child, and female forwardness, “Lover’s Vows” was an immediate success when it premiered in Covent Garden in 1798. However, the play had its critics, who objected to what they felt was the drama’s moral ambiguity.

In Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park, members of the Bertram family (around whom the book is centered) are convinced by their friends to choose “Lover’s Vows” to perform as a home theatrical. Their preparations are interrupted, and their plans ultimately foiled, by the return of their disapproving patriarch, Sir Thomas Bertram, to the family home.

For more information about the Jane Austen Book Club or Austen-related titles, please contact the Colgate Bookstore at (315) 228-7480.

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Lover’s Vows promises a literary Valentine treat

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