LEGO 40766 Tribute to Jane Austen's Books revealed!
Posted by CapnRex101,
40766 Tribute to Jane Austen's Books has been added to LEGO.com/nz, continuing the series of sets paying homage to famous authors and other historical figures.
The 361-piece set's availability has yet to be confirmed, but it will probably be a gift-with-purchase later this month.
View more images after the break...
Jane Austen is certainly a worthy addition to this collection and I think the model looks excellent, although I take issue with using scenes from film adaptations of her books for paintings on the wall. After all, at least one of the presented scenes, Mr. Darcy's rain-soaked proposal to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, is specific to a film and does not happen as shown here in the novel. There were plenty of options for scenes that are far more similar between books and films.
What do you think of this vignette? Let us know in the comments.
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37 comments on this article
I really want this but I can't spend presumably around £130 just for it rn. I guess I'll look on the secondary market. I have been able to get a few GWPs at reasonable prices, so it should be fine, but we are reaching the point where these feel less like incentives and more like arbitrarily difficult to get sets.
Not entirely sure they've got the costume right, but then you can only do so much with Lego. As a fan of Jane I shall pick this up when it goes live 19th-27th June, threshold £150.
Would love to see a larger book nook set at some point.
Yeah, this is a must-have for me. I *love* these little tribute sets, and Jane Austen’s sense of humour is wonderful - I think of her almost as a Regency Terry Pratchett, they have a similarly caustic and incisive approach to observing and demolishing their society, although Austen is by gender and time period more limited in her targets.
I don’t think I’m in a position to do a Lego order right now so ebay haunting it is…
(OMG, a Terry Pratchett tribute set would be *amazing*.)
ETA: I do wish they’d incorporated her little lap desk somehow.
@Hiratha said:
"Yeah, this is a must-have for me. I *love* these little tribute sets, and Jane Austen’s sense of humour is wonderful - I think of her almost as a Regency Terry Pratchett, they have a similarly caustic and incisive approach to observing and demolishing their society, although Austen is by gender and time period more limited in her targets.
I don’t think I’m in a position to do a Lego order right now so ebay haunting it is…
(OMG, a Terry Pratchett tribute set would be *amazing*.)
ETA: I do wish they’d incorporated her little lap desk somehow."
Yes, Discworld would be great! I really love the one from JKBrickworks.
Where's the broken heart?
What?! Too soon?
I'm not particularly interested in Jane Austen, but it's a nice vignette. It's a shame Lego only does things like this as a GWP.
I wonder how this set looks from behind. Not great if there’s no shots of it, I’m guessing.
At least it gives my Lego Clara Oswald someone to rebound with…
....where are the zombies?
;-P
@Mister_Jonny said:
"I wonder how this set looks from behind. Not great if there’s no shots of it, I’m guessing.
At least it gives my Lego Clara Oswald someone to rebound with…"
I imagine it has been designed to display it from the front.
NPU of the spoon as piano pedals
@CCC said:
" @Mister_Jonny said:
"I wonder how this set looks from behind. Not great if there’s no shots of it, I’m guessing.
At least it gives my Lego Clara Oswald someone to rebound with…"
I imagine it has been designed to display it from the front."
It's designed to look like an open book, but there's clearly a functional window through one half of the cover. If that wasn't the case, simply having two layers, for cover and pages, would have made it fairly easy to at least produce a generic bound book cover pattern. Losing ~1/4 of one side of the cover to a window kinda changes things. There's really not much you can do to make that make sense in a book cover.
@Murdoch17:
The woman in the white dress could be on the verge of turning (skin's still yellow, so hasn't happened yet), and there's a shadowy figure in the back of the oval painting.
A nice little set.
Strange that the minifigure is flesh coloured, yet in the stickers they are all yellow.
@MegaBlocks said:
"A nice little set.
Strange that the minifigure is flesh coloured, yet in the stickers they are all yellow."
Maybe it is because she was a real person and those in the paintings (stickers) are fictional characters? That's my guess.
@MegaBlocks said:
"Strange that the minifigure is flesh coloured, yet in the stickers they are all yellow."
Huh. You're right. As external IP, they really should be fleshies, even if it's all in the public domain. I'm guessing they may have made them yellow because the books may not have specified skin color, and they're not supposed to be based on specific film adaptations (even if one apparently is).
@LuvsLEGO_Cool_J said:
" @MegaBlocks said:
"A nice little set.
Strange that the minifigure is flesh coloured, yet in the stickers they are all yellow."
Maybe it is because she was a real person and those in the paintings (stickers) are fictional characters? That's my guess.
"
I was thinking the same thing. Really specific, but at least it's consistent.
Cute set! Could a PRIDE AND PREJUDICE book nook set be far behind?
Aw man, now I definitely need to get something big whenever this drops.
Is the Jane Austen tile printed?
@PurpleDave said:
" @CCC said:
" @Mister_Jonny said:
"I wonder how this set looks from behind. Not great if there’s no shots of it, I’m guessing.
At least it gives my Lego Clara Oswald someone to rebound with…"
I imagine it has been designed to display it from the front."
It's designed to look like an open book, but there's clearly a functional window through one half of the cover. If that wasn't the case, simply having two layers, for cover and pages, would have made it fairly easy to at least produce a generic bound book cover pattern. Losing ~1/4 of one side of the cover to a window kinda changes things. There's really not much you can do to make that make sense in a book cover.
@Murdoch17:
The woman in the white dress could be on the verge of turning (skin's still yellow, so hasn't happened yet), and there's a shadowy figure in the back of the oval painting."
From what I've heard, supposedly the back is just a tan/nougat wall of bricks, with an arch for the window, so it's finished off at least, if not very detailed.
I love this. As I live in Hampshire, Jane's my local hero. Presumably, the little table next to the minifigure, with the quill on top, represents her famous writing table, where she wrote some of her most famous works, and which is also shown on our current £10 note.
The real table is on display in Jane's house, in Chawton, Hampshire.
Don’t know why they didn’t give her a blue dress since that is what she has in the portrait
I was looking forward to this one but there are a few too many compromises on the design. I'd rather it was a proper set with a book that opens and closes.
Missing a Mark Twain minifigure to go with it. And possibly a torch.
Maybe there should be a Twain one of these at some point... could be steamboat-themed, which could look interesting.
Well this is unexpected…
This is how I keep my wife supporting my ever-increasingly-expensive hobby.
Off topic but BLDP Series 8 apparently just got revealed! I’m going to have to rethink my wish list.
This is lovely! I like that these author vignettes have been maintaining the "open book" structure but varying the orientation to keep things fresh.
Well those curtains are great Jane but perhaps not bother with stickers in future if you can’t get them central?
And that’s the problem- they are really difficult!
A very charming GWP. Only quandary is which Lego Exclusive to go for off the wish list... 10337 or 21358
(Ah choice made. Countach £30 off in Argos!)
@BLProductions said:
"Missing a Mark Twain minifigure to go with it. And possibly a torch."
I don’t understand this, was there some link between them?
This is a nice set. Worth buying something on the exclusive list for? I’m not sure, and you really have to be if you’re spending this kind of threshold. Also good spot on the stickers showing screen versions, tut tut!
This looks cool. I really like it. It's very charming, and Jane Austin is awesome.
I've never read Jane Austin, but I love this set. I wish it wasn't a GWP... ??
I thought I was done placing orders large enough to qualify for GWPs, but this just gives me more incentive to get 21357 and 21358.
@Mister_Jonny said:
"At least it gives my Lego Clara Oswald someone to rebound with…"
I just watched that episode earlier. "Amazing writer, brilliant comic observer, and, strictly among ourselves, a phenomenal kisser."
This is very strange because someone is selling this at vinted for more than a week... it wasnt even on brickset database...
I never buy enough to hit GWP thresholds, but I like this. Many nods to frequent elements in her works, such as balls, fireplaces, letters (is that the map/atlas from Sense and Sensibility), singing around the piano. (There's something to be said about being able to make one's own music instead of relying on prerecorded tracks like most of us do today. And yes, I know most people in her novels were at least upper-middle class, so leisure time for music wasn't something everybody had, but I digress...)
As someone who recently submitted two Jane Austen themed entries to LEGO Ideas, I am definately going to get hold of this! So amazing!!
@CC said:
"Is the Jane Austen tile printed?"
I just built it, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it is. The pictures and music are stickers, however.