Two UCF English majors—Faith Dickens and Hillary Casavant—have taken top prizes in the annual Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) essay contest. Faith Dickens won first prize in the undergraduate division for her essay entitled “Whims of the Wealthy: Marriage and Desire for Sense and Sensibility’s Miss Grey.” Hillary Casavant took second prize for the “Romance and Riches: The Necessity of Wealth in Sense and Sensibility.”
Dickens and Casavant competed against undergraduates from across North America. Both avid Austen enthusiasts, Dickens and Casavant submitted essays written in ENL4230 (British Authors: Jane Austen) taken in Spring 2011, with encouragement and mentoring by their professor, Kathleen M. Oliver, Ph.D. To read Dickens’s essay, go to Jane Austen Society of North America website.