Jane Austen fans head to Philly

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Devotees of author Jane Austen are descending on Philadelphia for the 31st annual general meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

The British scribe penned the novels "Pride & Prejudice," "Sense and Sensibility," "Emma," "Persuasion," "Mansfield Park" and "Northanger Abbey" before she died a spinster in 1817.

The Philadelphia Inquirer said about 600 of her contemporary fans -- known as Janeites -- are expected to attend "Jane Austen's Brothers and Sisters in the City of Brotherly Love," a convention that started Thursday and is to run through Monday at the Society Hill Sheraton.

The Inquirer said some of Austen's letters are in the collection of the Historical Society of Philadelphia, while the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Pennsylvania Hospital house Benjamin West paintings she admired. The publisher that printed the first U.S. edition of an Austen novel, "Emma," was also located in Philly, although it has since closed.

"The natives shouldn't be too freaked out by ladies and gentlemen wandering around in period costume," Maggie Sullivan, a JASNA member and author of the austenblog.com, told the Inquirer. "They might just assume they are Mummers having an early practice session."

"Philadelphia is particularly Austen-friendly because much of the old city is of an age with Austen, who was born in 1775," said member Kelly Fineman.