“When I am gone…,” Jill Pitkeathley’s Cassandra Austen muses on the letters written to her by her sister Jane. “When I am gone, perhaps before, they will want them, they will pour over them, examine them in detail and discuss them without limit.” Who would Cassandra’s they have been? She may immediately have thought of family, but how apt that they can be broadened to include, yes, this very reader. For ‘pour over’ and ‘examine’ is exactly what Austen-lovers do with her extant letters. James Edward Austen-Leigh utilized letters in his early biography; Lord Brabourne published (though not entirely verbatim) the letters in his possession; the son and grandson of Austen-Leigh included them in their family biography; Deirdre Le Faye brought out editions of both that biography and the letters themselves. Romanticists invent romances; writers cite Austen’s few references regarding writing and publishing; historians pluck from them pictures of England and London during the reign of George III and the Prince Regent. We all mine Austen’s letters for what they can tell us about what we most want to know, be it her life, her art, her world.
Category: Book reviews
Chicago Beckons … and a Mini Round-up
…if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad…
–Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
Off to the AGM in Chicago…will post on the many adventures upon my return…!
But before I depart, here are a few items worth sharing:
*JASNA has posted online the book reviews in its Summer News issue; there are reviews for the following books (this is great resource for book reviews: scroll down for other issues)
- Cambridge Edition of Sense and Sensibility
- The Letters of Mrs Lefroy: Jane Austen’s Beloved Friend [by our very own Janeite Kelly!]
- The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen and Mrs. Elton in America
- Governess: The Lives and Times of the Real Jane Eyres
- Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues
*Want to go back in time? here is an article with some sobering insights on real life in the past we so hanker for: “Back in the Good Old Days”at WalesOnline.
*JASNA is looking for someone to draw a map of Bath in Austen’s time for their online collection of maps… for more information see the Central New Jersey JASNA Chapter blog.
*On the Janeites discussion group, there was a post with the following quizzes, all Austen-related:
http://www.ylcf.org/you/personality-janeausten.htm
http://www.visitbath.co.uk/lovebath/quirky-romance/jane-austen-quiz
http://www.quizilla.com/quizzes/3788704/which-male-jane-austen-
character-will-you-marry
http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/FkX0U4/What-Jane-Austen-woman-are-you-most-
like?view_quiz=1
http://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/literature/authors_a-c/jane_austen.html
*See this travel blog that treks in search of Darcy, with many pictures of Chatsworth and other sites relating to P&P.
*The Independent reports of the “re-invention” of High Tea and Afternoon Tea in London and environs as a way to fill up at less the cost….and in grand style!
Old Friends and New Fancies (a review)
A guest-post from Nancy Charkes, a JASNA-Vermont member who is also active in her ‘winter’ JASNA region of Eastern Pennsylvania:
Like Marianne, I believe that first attachments are forever, and cannot be superseded. So, once I fell in love with Jane Austen, no sequel, pastiche, or derivative, could interest me. Not for me the middle age of the Darcy marriage, or Jane Austen as Miss Marple, or a 21st-century chick waking up in the Regency period. The language was wrong, the irony was lacking, the bite was dulled. But along came Col. Brandon, or rather, Sybil Brinton. Truth be told, she came along nearly 100 years ago, but only recently did I discover her book in a contemporary reprint. Old Friends and New Fancies: an Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen was written in 1913 and republished in 2007 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Old Friends bring together many of the main characters of all six novels as a social network of friends and acquaintances. From Bath to London to the great country estates in Derbyshire, people we know quite well are linked in a busy social life that is full of budding attachments, misunderstandings, and eventual reconciliations. The language is right, although lacking the subtle irony of Jane Austen. The voice is that of the observer, the storyteller.
Kitty Bennet, visiting her sisters Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Bingley, sets her cap for William Price, who is home on shore leave, and visiting in the country. William, however, is attracted to Georgiana Darcy, who, out of friendship to Kitty, rejects Capt. Price’s addresses in spite of her own warm feelings towards him.
Col. Fitzwilliam, having been introduced to Mary Crawford in Bath, falls in love with her. His evident interest is, of course, subject to the arrogant meddling of Lady Catherine, with an almost fatal outcome. Besides, gossip reports that Miss Crawford is the constant companion of Sir Walter Elliot and his haughty daughter Elizabeth, and is almost sure to be soon the second Lady Elliot.
Along the way, Mrs. Jennings stirs the pot; there are balls at Pemberley and Desborough; reference is made to Darcy, Bingley, and Ferrars offspring. There are hunting mishaps, heroes, and a cameo of Emma Knightley. Elizabeth Darcy manages with good sense and astute understanding; Jane Bingley is calm, facilitating with kindness, and there are just the right number of weddings at the end.
[submitted by Nancy Charkes]
And yet another item in my mailbox….
…but this time in my REAL mailbox! I am thrilled to find in the mail today a book I ordered, titled Brilliant Women: 18th-Century Bluestockings, a book published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from March 13 – June 15, 2008. Unhappily not in London to see this exhibit, I find that this book must suffice…and a quick skim through its pages proves it will not disappoint. Written by Elizabeth Eger and Lucy Peltz, these are the chapters:
- The Bluestocking Circle: friendship, patronage and learning
- Living Muses: constructing and celebrating the professional woman in literature and the arts
- ‘A Revolution in Female Manners’: women, politics, and reputation in the late 18th-century
- The Bluestocking Legacy
and all accompanied by the fabulous portraits of the women of the circle and paintings of their time: Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah More, Catharine Macauley, Madame de Stael, Elizabeth Monatgu, Elizabeth Vesey, Frances Boscawen, Anna Seward, Elizabeth Carter, Maria Edgeworth, Mary Shelley, Fanny Burney, and many more.
Dear Jane shows up in the last chapter, with the portrait by Cassandra displayed (this likeness is housed in the National Portrait Gallery), and a short paragraph on Austen’s novel writing and her references to it in Northanger Abbey (though the writers make the oft-published mistake of calling NA her “earliest” work), and the importance of Austen writing in the wake of the changing times wrought by the Bluestockings.
So this book heads to the top of my already toppling TBR pile… this needs a close reading and time to savor the lovely illustrations!
Further reading: see my previous post on the “Bluestockings” where there are several links to more information.
Book Review: Pemberley Shades
Kathleen Glancy in her “Persuasions” article “What Happened Next? The Many Husbands of Georgiana Darcy”(Vol. 11, 1989, pp. 110-116) states that D.A. [Dorothy Alice] Bonavia-Hunt’s Pemberley Shades is the best written of all the sequels she has read, and though “lacking in the irony department….it is a brave try, and an amusing story.” [spoiler alert!…Ms. Glancy in this article tells the full story, so read this after you have read the book!]
Published originally in 1949 by Allan Wingate in the U.K. and by Dutton in the U.S., Pemberley Shades is finally available again (it was reprinted in 1977 and again in 2007, but quickly out of print, and only available from antiquarian booksellers and sure to finish off your annual book budget…there is one online for $650.), so this Sourcebooks 2008 reprint is welcome indeed!
There is little known about the author, and even if perhaps she ever wrote anything else under another name; but what is known is that she was born in London, the daughter of a clergyman, was educated by a governess and in private schools, and lived with her brother, the Vicar of Stagsden, Bedfordshire, during the time she wrote her Austen Pride & Prejudice sequel. She obviously was knowledgeable about Austen and the Georgian period, and comes very close to Austen’s style.
The title “Pemberley Shades” refers to Lady Catherine’s angry retort to Elizabeth “Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?” (ch. 56, P&P) Austen’s use of the word “shades” has generated many theories and some research into the word does little to clarify. Austen was likely being intentionally ambiguous- with a literal reference to the woods and forests of Pemberley, with the darkness and shadows, as well as the figurative meaning of the ancestral lineage and social standing of the Darcy family (i.e referring to the ghosts of ancestors.) But there is so much darkness in this book, so many secrets and the sense of “not telling all” and characters living in shadow, the “lightly gothic” atmosphere pervading the story…the author chose the perfect term to headline her tale, in the same ambiguous way as Austen.
So the title itself leads into this gothic realm and the reader is on alert from page one, although it all SEEMS so peaceful and harmonious. We re-enter the lives of Darcy and Elizabeth a few years after the end of P&P: they have a two-year old heir to the estate named Richard (an inside joke perhaps?!). The action begins with the death of the elderly Rector of Pemberely, leaving his two maiden sisters in the Parsonage and Darcy in search of a successor. Passing over Mr. Collins, who, on the outs with Lady C, has written an officious (though humorous of course!) letter of application, Darcy heads to London to engage the services of Lord Egbury’s brother Stephen Acworth, who has been highly recommended.
Acworth’s arrival at Pemberley sets the plot in motion: his first meeting with Elizabeth who “at the moment of first beholding him [it] was her instant conviction of having seen him before”… we meet characters we know and those new to this story: The Robinson sisters, who seem more like the sisters in Gaskell’s Cranford, set themselves at odds with the Darcys by supporting Acworth; Jane and Mr. Bingley the milquetoasts that Mr. Bennet so predicted; Mr. Bennet is wonderfully drawn here with his insights and many witticisms [“every woman requires a dose of neglect now and then to keep her from being above herself”]; Anne de Bourgh finally getting a moment to shine no longer under her mother’s watch [“Anne was not so much proud and disagreeable as stupid” says Elizabeth]; Lady C exactly the same; Acworth, an odd peculiar lost soul; and a host of servants and maids getting some prime time of their own, a nice touch.
But the story really centers on Georgiana Darcy and her three suitors, all new characters: Mr. Mortimer, Major Wakeford, and the vicar-in-waiting Acworth. Miss Darcy is a shadowy figure, aloof and secretive, with “something on her mind” as Elizabeth keeps saying; and the resolution of her courting dilemma propels the tale. There is no point in telling more….it is a bit of a mystery and so I shall not divulge a thing! But we can ask Who is Acworth and what are his motives in coming to Pemberley? and why does Elizabeth feel so uncomfortable in his presence? and why is Georgiana so secretive and preferring to be alone with her music? It is a good story, and this reader was much impressed with the author’s use of language. But of course there is no duplicating Austen, and so there are disappointments: the story feels a tad far-fetched; Darcy and Elizabeth are a wonderfully harmonious couple, all that lovers of P&P could hope for, but I found them both a little too perfect and more than a little condescending to all those around them; and Acworth is quite the disturbing character, something not quite right with him (I cannot say more!…); and there is this underlying sadness that pervades the whole novel…but it is certainly compelling enough and has wit enough to definitely be added to your Austen sequel collection, and you shall enjoy the read immensely!
Further reading: see also Laurel Ann’s review at Austenprose.
Some reading thoughts…. Austen, etc.
Here are a few of the books lately graduated from my bedside table along with a other few random thoughts for YOUR bedside table ~
First on my list, and as soon as I get the book, will find me engrossed in the latest Keats’ biography, Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography, by Stanley Plumly [Norton, 2008] Click here for the NYTimes review, and run to your local bookstore to pick up a copy….
I was in Rome last year and the one thing on the top of my “to-do” list was a visit to the Protestant Cemetery where Keats’s grave was covered in fresh flowers (a daily occurrence) by a still-mourning public… I was quite overcome (to the embarrassment of my husband!)…and not to mention the meandering walk to Shelley’s grave site through this haunting enclave in the center of the City, and then this followed by a lengthy visit to the Keats-Shelley House [right next to the Spanish Steps] where Keats died on February 23, 1821. Plumly’s book is a loving tribute to Keats’s poetry and his immortality…
…but now back to Austen….
Laurel Ann at Austenprose had recommended these two books, and I quickly added them to my pile and just as quickly finished them off!
Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman [Putnam’s 2006] (see the Austenprose review): I have been reading several sequels lately in prep for the Chicago AGM, and I find that of late I am confusing the stories! All these Austen characters who have taken on lives of their own now have these MULTIPLE lives with varying outcomes and I suppose I am left with the ability to choose which “ending” I prefer for any of them…I think perhaps this is why one takes up a pen to write ones own adventure for a given character! So it was with all these sequels swimming in my head, as well as Laurel Ann’s glowing review that sent me to the library shelves to find Polly Shulman’s Enthusiasm, a book for young adults with the aura of Pride & Prejudice. This has to be one of the most refreshing reads I have encountered in a long time! I don’t want to spoil the story for you, but will quote the jacket blurb:
…equal parts romance and comedy as a series of misinterpreted messages and super-awkward incidents, not to mention some rather mystifying poetry tacked to a tree and a valiant foray onto the stage, makes Julie wonder whether she is cut out for Enthusiasm – or True Love – at all…
With characters the likes of Ashleigh, the Enthusiast (whose latest “enthusiasm” is P&P), Ned the Noodle, Amy (the semi-wicked stepmother dubbed “IA”, a.k.a. “Irresistible Accountant”) and the to-die-for Charles Grandison Parr (love the name!), this lovely tribute to P&P sent this reader back to all those wonderful and awful moments as a teenage girl that for some reason we never forget! And I think what most surprised and pleased me was to find this library book much used! I recommend highly that you find your way to this book as soon as possible….
Mr. Darcy’s Diary by Maya Slater [Phoenix, 2007] (see the Austenprose review): Gentle Reader, here is the tale all told from Darcy’s point of view, thanks to the diary he so meticulously kept, and we learn of his love and concern for his sister (and what really happened with Wickham), his escapades with Byron (!), his periodic “tumbling” of the maid, his growing obsession wih Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and his endless fencing and fisticuffs to overcome his mood swings. Darcy is so human in this book…Ms. Slater is at turns witty and wise in portraying him in all his glory…. I liked this book more than any other of the sequels I have read so far…this is the Darcy who stays with me the most….the Darcy I had imagined off the pages of P&P.
I skimmed again through The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James in order to answer my co-blogger’s rather scathing review…(see the two reviews on this blog: Kelly’s and mine and then contribute to the fray if you will!)…. this book seems to have generated a wide range of opinion…
Carolly Erickson’s Our Tempestuous Day [Morrow 1986] is a rapid trek through Regency England. Erickson, the author of biographies of Elizabeth 1, Anne Boleyn, Bloody Mary, Henry VIII, Empress Josephine and many others…., Erickson here tells the tale of the times not as a linear chronological history, but rather a series of vignettes of events, people, and places, that after you are done you have a much better understanding of the times that Jane Austen was living and writing in… and really a whole new list of books to read! [I will review this book more fully in another post…]
Charlotte & Leopold: the true story of the original people’s princess, by James Chambers, a biography of the daughter of King George IV and Caroline, and their Regency times ….here is the blurb from Amazon:
The tragic story of the doomed romance between Charlotte, heir to the English throne, and Leopold, uncle of Queen Victoria and first King of the Belgians. A story that Jane Austen famously declined to tell, declaring: “I could no more write a romance than an epic poem.”
Charlotte was the only legitimate royal child of her generation, and her death in childbirth resulted in a public outpouring of grief the like of which was not to be seen again until the death of Diana, over 150 years later. Charlotte’s death was followed by an unseemly scramble to produce a substitute heir. Queen Victoria was the product.
James Chambers masterfully demonstrates how the personal and the political inevitably collide in scheming post-Napoleonic Europe, offering a vivid and sympathetic portrait of a couple whose lives are in many ways not their own. From the day she was born, Charlotte won the hearts of her subjects and yet, behind the scenes, she was used, abused, and victimized by rivalries-between her parents; between her father (the Prince Regent, later King George IV) and (Mad) King George III; between her tutors, governesses, and other members of her discordant household; and ultimately between the Whig opposition and the Tory government.
Set in one of the most glamorous eras of British history, against the background of a famously dysfunctional royal family, Charlotte & Leopold: The True Story of The Original People’s Princess is an accessible, moving, funny, and entertaining royal biography with alluring contemporary resonance.
A new book out in March by Peter Graham, titled Jane Austen and Charles Darwin: naturalists and novelists (click for the table of contents), and a tad pricey at $99. reads “3 or 4 families in a country village” : this phrase by which Jane Austen identifies the most congenial subject matter for novels as she chose to write them can also serve to characterize the environment that proved ideal for Charles Darwin’s naturalist observations.”
Lady Anne at Jane Austen Today has nicely reviewed the new book Jane Eyre’s Daughter, by Elizabeth Newark.
As for the Austen sequels, head over to Austenprose for a review of several being published this September: Pemberley Shades, by Dorothy Bonavia-Hunt [I have just finished this book and will post a review this week; see Laurel Ann’s review hot off the press today!]; Netherfield Park Revisited by Rebecca Ann Collins (Book 3 of the “Pemberley Chronicles”); The Darcys and the Bingleys by Marsha Altman [see Ms. Altman’s post here; I will be reviewing this book shortly], and Impulse and Initiative, a Pride & Prejudice Variation by Abigail Reynolds.
Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life, by Nancy Moser is given a lengthy review at the BC Blog Critics magazine site.
Ms. Place interviews Diana Birchall on her new book Mrs. Elton in America.
A short blurb on a fantasy fiction book which should excite Austen and Bronte fans:The Magicians and Mrs. Quent,” by Galen Beckett. (Bantam Spectra; $23)
Fans of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters will be in a familiar landscape reading “The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.”
This fantasy debut uses those authors’ famous works as a template. Does the place name Heathcrest Hall ring any chimes?Ivy Lockwell is the eldest of three sisters. It is Ivy who is caught in polite society between holding the family together, after the reclusion of the sisters’ father in his library, and her chafing against the stricture of not being able to use magic (or magick, to use the genre spelling). She is female, after all, and magic also is seen as the cause of her father’s reclusiveness. Of the novel’s three parts, the second, “Heathcrest,” limns relationships nicely from Ivy’s point of view. She applies for governess to Mr. Quent and thinks her troubles eased when hired. If only she had not uncovered an ancient tome about magic still afoot in the world, she would not have met its willful protectors. [quoted from Macon.com]
But also see this glowing review from Rick Kleffel on NPR, and click here for an excerpt from the book:
Though this may look like the sort of book you’d find nestled in a shelf of paperback potboilers at a beach rental, don’t judge The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by its cover. Galen Beckett’s debut cleverly mixes fantasy and literary in a novel that imagines the social strictures that hemmed in Austen’s and Bronte’s heroines are the result of magical intervention. The novel’s supernatural elements and imaginary (but familiar-seeming) setting allow Beckett to examine class and economic conflicts from the outside, without resorting to polemics. The result is a work that mixes the rich pleasures of a Victorian epic with elements of the fantastic, an imaginative eye and a dry sense of humor.
Kleffel rates this as one of his “nine first books that make a lasting impression,” with a heroine who had a peculiar habit of reading while walking]…now there’s a heroine I can identify with!
And on that happy note, I should get back to my reading…hope this gives you a few ideas…
ESSENTIAL AUSTEN: A Chronology of Jane Austen and Her Family (a review)
Writers necessarily edit as they write; to make paragraphs and resultant chapters coherent, some information has to be gone into in depth, while other information reluctantly or automatically must be jettisoned. Too much information, unskillfully crafted, will leave readers in the dust. A skillful author, however, molds the story with the facts at hand, picking and choosing what to include, and how to phrase or emphasize those inclusions. This is particularly true of biography.
Take, for instance, the prize-winning A MIDWIFE’S TALE, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. While confronted with an entire decades-long diary (spanning 1785-1812), Dr Ulrich carefully chose certain illustrative sections in which to pinpoint aspects of Martha Ballard’s life. Reader’s interested in the minutiae of that life, as described by its protagonist, must unearth a copy of the published diary or go to the copy online.
The minutiae of life is exactly what Deirdre Le Faye gives readers in her superb and invaluable A CHRONOLOGY OF JANE AUSTEN AND HER FAMILY. This is certainly not the type of book one takes to bed, but it is nevertheless an engrossing read. Within its pages are the lives of not only Jane Austen, but also her forebears, immediate family, cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews – a three-hundred-year span from 1700 to 2000. This result of Le Faye’s digging through archives, private collections and published works provides Austen fans the bones with which to build biographies all our own. Through it, you can uncover the additions and deductions of Austen bank accounts; follow the rise and fall of Henry Austen’s partnership with Tilson; chart the Hampshire weather utilizing the notations in neighbor Eliza Chute’s diaries; and find the private thoughts of girls like Fanny Austen Knight.
Some random samples:
In 1796 [p. 187]
September 2, Friday
Rowling: HTA leaves to return to Great Yarmouth. He will write soon to Steventon.
Hampshire: A ball is held in the Steventon district, possibly today (or possibly it is the next assembly ball at Basingstoke, on 8 September, Thursday), at which CEA is present. Other dancers include a large party from the Terry family of Dummer, Mr John Lovett, Mr Tincton, Mr John Harwood, Mary Lloyd, Mary Harrison and James Austen.
[Letters 4, 5]
September 3, Saturday
Rowling: EAK, Elizabeth, JA and FWA, dine at Goodnestone and have an impromptu dance afterwards. Others present are Lady Bridges and her children Edward, Harriet, Louisa and George, as well as Fanny and Lewis Waltham, the Misses Anne and Mary Finch. The invalid Marianne Bridges does not appear. The Rowling four walk home afterwards.
[Letters 5]
In 1802 [p. 267]
January 18, Monday
Dummer: ‘Miss Terry, Anne & I rode & called at Worting, Manydown, Oakley Hall, & Deane.’
[Powlett journal 119A00/1]
January 21, Thursday
London: Army agents Cox & Greenwood debit Major Thomas Austen’s account: ‘Cash paid freight of a Hogshead of rum from Jamaica, £2.8s.11d.’
[Cox & Greenwood ledger, fo. 33]
January 24, Sunday
London: Army agents Cox & Greenwood credit Major Thomas Austen’s account: ‘By 31 days Pay to 24 January 1802, £21.16s.7d.’
[Cox & Greenwood ledger fos. 33, 212]
The Vyne: ‘Misling small rain most of the day. Church. Mr. Austin to dinner.’
[Chute pb 23M93/70/1/9]
In 1809 [p. 369]
mid-June
Alton: MLA goes to stay with Mary Gibson in Rose Cottage for about a month, while Mary G is expecting her second child.
[CMCA Rems 19]
June 14, Wednesday
Canterbury: ‘Aunt Louisa came & dressed here & dined with [three words illegible] where we met G.M. Bridges, Uncle B. & Mr. Champneys. Papa & Aunt J. with G.M. [Austen] & Aunt C. from Godmersham dined with Mrs Knight & called here in the morning. Mr. & Mrs. E. Cage & Annetta called. Aunt Louisa slept here. Little George Moore not very well went to stay at Goodnestone Farm for change of air.’
[FCKpb U.951/F.24/6]
June 15, Thursday
Canterbury: ‘Uncle & Aunt M. dined at Dr. Walsby’s & Aunt L. & I with Mrs. Knight where we met G.M. Bridges again & Aunt L. went back with her. Walked about the town in the morning. Fine & hottish.’
[FCKpb U.951/F.24/6]
The abbreviations utilized (fully explained at the front of the book) are, most of them, the typical used for personages and already well known: CEA = Cassandra Elizabeth Austen [Jane’s sister]; EAK = Edward Austen Knight [Jane’s brother]; CMCA = Caroline Mary Craven Austen [Jane’s niece, younger daughter of James]. Pb = pocket book. Entries are arranged with the geographic (town, estate, etc) in italics; and the source is clearly marked on the side margin [they appear below entries only in this review].
The sources for these listings are astounding: letters, diaries (pocket books), accounts books, taxation records, published memoirs and biographies, privately-held papers.
The one minus: while readers will be grateful for the extensive Personal Names index (which runs from pages 757-776, three columns per page), you do end up searching for references because, rather than indexed by page number, everyone is indexed by year. For instance:
Knatchbull, Joan: 1796
Knatchbull, Mary Dorothea, see Knight
Knatchbull, Wadham: 1813
Knatchbull, Wyndham: 1784, 1805, 1808, 1810-14 [page 768]
This obviously works best for people who occur multiple times within a given year; it does give a quick indication of which ‘periods someone appears in; and must have provided the publisher with a space-savings.
The structure of the book includes a substantial bibliography (712-724); thirty-two family trees (725-756); a frontispiece map and several illustrations. This is truly a publication of Le Faye’s DECADES of research into the Austen family; readers will feel as if they are sitting down with the scholar and picking her brain. In her preface, she says: ‘I hope that this uniquely detailed chronology will be of the greatest use to all future biographers, literary critics and historians, providing as it does accurate documented facts gathered from a wide variety of sources.’ We all owe her a debt of gratitude (to Cambridge University Press as well; although the steep $168 price tag does seem more geared towards library rather than individual purchase) for sharing the results of her researches with us all. It represents Le Faye’s gift to serious scholars, making this an Essential Austen volume.
* * *
ESSENTIAL AUSTEN is a series we will continue, which will introduce or earmark those books (and other items?) essential to an Austen collection.
Hot off the Presses: Cassandra and Jane
It was with great expectation that I awaited the arrival of a reviewer’s copy of Jill Pitkeathley’s CASSANDRA & JANE: A Jane Austen Novel (Harper-Collins, 2008; published in the UK by Copperfield Books in 2004). As Deb can attest, I have a great regard for Jane’s sister Cassandra – a woman literally kept in the shadows by time and her sister’s posthumous fame. It was with delight that I handled and read a couple letters penned by Cassandra – then an aging aunt – sent to James-Edward Austen and kept within the Austen-Leigh archive at the Hampshire Record Office.
The publishers have promised a sample chapter; but I’ve yet to see anything up on their website. A link will be posted when one is received, since we all love sample chapters!
I’m in the midst of writing two reviews for JASNA News (on Carrie Bebris’ newest Mr. & Mrs. Darcy mystery, The Matters at Mansfield and Jane Odiwe’s Lydia Bennet’s Story, which now comes in a US edition – both due in stores soon), have been reading the first novels in ELIZABETH PETERS’ Amelia Peabody series (am on book two, having bought a used boxed set of the first four novels), and recently received from a friend the first of the six Lymond Chronicles, The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett (originally published in 1961), which she heartily recommends. But Cassandra & Jane heads to the top of the list now that it’s finally here – so I hope to post a review soon.
“The Darcys and the Bingleys”… a visit from Marsha Altman!
Sourcebooks Inc. has several new Austen-related books coming out this month, but one by debut author Marsha Altman, gives us new insights into the Darcy – Bingley relationship: The Darcys & the Bingleys, a Tale of Two Gentlemen’s Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters. I have just started to read it and hope to do a full review by weeks end, but am delighted to find already in the first few chapters that Ms. Altman has perfectly presented the Darcy I most love [the young proud man bound to his family duties, but oh so endearingly socially inadequate, unable to “perform before strangers”….], as well as giving Mr. Bingley a voice of his own…
So today we offer you a post from the author as well as a CONTEST for a free giveaway of the book, courtesy of Sourcebooks. Ms. Altman has been most generous in sending us her thoughts on writing this sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, and I append her post forthwith… and we invite your questions and comments over the next week with Ms. Altman answering your queries! On September 10, we will randomly draw a name from those commenting and the happy winner will receive a copy of this latest addition to the Austen legacy. So PLEASE JOIN IN AND COMMENT!… and thank you Ms. Altman for joining us here this week! [ and for more information on the author and her book, go to the Marsha Altman.com website ]
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My name is Marsha Altman and I’m the author of the Pride and Prejudice sequel, The Darcys and the Bingleys.
We’re currently enjoying a wave of Austen sequels, continuations, paraliterature, or whatever fancy term you want to give fan fiction. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise – Jane Austen is very much in vogue right now, and these floods generally follow a major adaptation by a year or two. The 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries gave way to a lot of sequels, mostly self-published around 1997-98. With the 2005 movie, it’s not surprising that we’re in 2008 and talking about sequels again. Because publishing is sometimes based on speed and convenience, much of the current stock is composed of formerly self-published books, purchased and republished by a larger company. However, with new technologies and the internet, anyone can be an author and the potentials are therefore limitless.
That doesn’t explain away the compulsive need to read and produce this spin-off literature, just proves the timing of production. The answer to the question of “What is all this nonsense?” in response to a torrent of fan fiction about the work of one of the greatest English novelists is simple: We can’t leave it behind. The book ends, the movie credits roll, the miniseries comes out with the definitive DVD edition and companion book, and we’re not ready to let go yet. Austen’s characters are too compelling. We want to stay with them a little longer, whatever the diminished literary quality. It’s the only way to explain how Emma Tennant’s Pemberley, a book I have never met a fan of, has stayed in print for 15 years – about 12 years beyond the shelf life of good books.
Every sequel – and for brevity, let’s call them all sequels, as no one has written a prequel, just many books from Darcy’s POV – faces the same existential challenge: How to keep Austen on her well-deserved pedestal but take the characters down without having appeared to. The result is haphazard. Loyalists merely rewrite the story from Darcy’s perspective (or occasionally someone else’s), without adding any unexpected color that might offend purists, and lifting a lot of dialogue from Pride and Prejudice. There are sequels – actual continuations – that attempt to copy Austen’s style. Dorothy Hunt’s Pemberley Shades was probably the best attempt at that, but generally these things can fall flat because our task is different. Austen wrote contemporary fiction; we’re writing historical fiction while attempting to imitate the style of the Regency period. She wrote what she knew; we’re writing what we think she may have known. And let’s face it. None of us are Jane Austen, and no one’s claiming to be. We’re just using her public domain characters because we love them.
Then there are authors who let themselves go and tell the story they want to tell, staying relatively within the lines when it suits them and moving into fantasy when it does not. Darcy has a scandalous past, Darcy and Elizabeth solve crimes, Elizabeth has magic powers, Darcy and Elizabeth have the best sex life in the history of mankind and the author isn’t short in the details. Purists rant and rave, but that’s usually because they’ve bought the book and read it, which meant, well, they bought the book. Linda Berdoll is reviled by many, but she’s the best-selling author of all time in this genre and she knows it. She wrote the story she wanted to write and she’s not ashamed of it.
When I started writing Jane Austen fanfic (and I’m not going to distinguish between published work and fanfic, because much of the work on shelves was originally fan fiction), I had a story I wanted to tell. When I first read Pride and Prejudice in high school, I thought Mr. Bingley was shortchanged. If you read the story without knowing the plot ahead of time, you think for the first hundred pages or so that the story is about the Bennet sisters trying to marry off Jane to Mr. Bingley, and things go so well you wonder why there seem to be another 300 pages left. Darcy is a sucker-punch protagonist, the one you don’t see coming until Hunsford. That doesn’t mean I don’t think Darcy isn’t the ultimate romantic hero, but Bingley has been pretty ignored in sequels and even Darcy stories, which logically should contain a lot of Bingley. Precisely, there’s often no discussion – or just a throwaway line – to how they met, and as their friendship is so crucial to Darcy’s introduction to Elizabeth, I felt there was material there I wanted to play around with. That is how “A Bit of Advice” – the first of the two stories in my book – came about. Darcy and Bingley can be as much dramatic foils as Elizabeth and Darcy, just without the romance.
The story was put up online and some people seemed to like it, so I rode that wave of confidence and decided to set up the ultimate challenge – making Miss Bingley a sympathetic character without making her pathetic or unrealistic. With so much ink devoted to different scenarios with Georgiana, Kitty Bennet, and Elizabeth’s life at Pemberley after their marriage, I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done yet except in a few obscure fanfics. Whether I did it successfully or not is up to the reader to decide.
What are you looking for in a sequel? What stories do you feel are left untold?
New from Sourcebooks! The Darcy’s & the Bingleys
The latest sequel from Sourcebooks by Marsha Altman is titled The Darcy’s & the Bingleys: a Tale of Two Gentlemen’s Marriages to Two Most Devoted Sisters (Sourcebooks September 2008)
Three days before their double wedding, Charles Bingley is desperate to have a word with his dear friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, seeking advice of a most delicate nature. Bingley is shocked when Darcy gives him a copy of The Kama Sutra—but it does tell him everything he needs to know.
Eventually, of course, Jane finds this remarkable volume and in utmost secrecy shows it to her dear sister Elizabeth, who goes searching for a copy in the Pemberley library…
By turns hilarious and sweet, The Darcys & the Bingleys follows the two couples and the cast of characters surrounding them. Miss Caroline Bingley, it turns out, has such good reasons for being the way she is that the reader can’t help but hold her in charity. Delightfully, she makes a most eligible match, and in spite of Darcy’s abhorrence of being asked for advice, he and Bingley have a most enduring and adventure-prone friendship.
(quoted from Sourcebooks)
Please join us on Tuesday September 2nd to view a guest post from the author Marsha Altman on the recent appeal and abundance of Austen sequels! We will also be giving away a copy of her book, courtesy of Sourcebooks, to the winner of a random drawing…so please visit and post a comment or ask a question of the author to enter the drawing!
Jane Austen in Vermont 