Austenesque
We heard from Kate, who reviewed Seducing Mr. Darcy on her blog and thought our readers might be interested to read it. We agree, and are happy to post a link. The plot sounds AWFULLY familiar…
Flip has to straighten out the book. Not only will she have ruined it for every reader in the world, but even worse the book will alter and alter until she, her fears, her actions, and every emotion she has will be public knowledge. Unfortunately the only person who might be able to help is a visiting Austen scholar, Magnus Knightley, a Brit who’s so much a dry interpretationalist of Austen that he can’t fathom why anyone reads it if not for the social satire. He reluctantly joins Flip for the mind-altering massage and astoundingly finds himself as Colonel Fitzwilliam, counselling a Mr Darcy who has been scorned and rejected by Lizzie the mere night before they should be marrying in the novel. And to make matters worse, Flip’s ex-husband and new teenaged girlfriend show up on the scene, co-starring as Wickham and Lydia. Will Magnus get the stick out of his ass and fall in love with Flip? Will ex-husband get his comeuppance? But most importantly: can the most beloved novel of English fiction be set to rights?
What is this recent passion to rip it apart in the first place, we have to ask? Is it some weird passive-aggressive reaction to P&P overload?
Review: There’s a lot of sex in this book.
Heh.
A special note for strict interpretationalist Janeites: If you can’t bear adaptations or retellings, if you’re dead against ITV’s “Lost in Austen,” if you have no desire to see a mostly-naked Darcy (unless he’s Colin Firth, I understand), stay away.
*steps up on soapbox*
One does not have to be a strict interpretationist to be critical of these ancillary sort of projects. Do any other author’s fans go through such angst when popular culture occasionally co-opts their favorite? We’re with Karen Joy Fowler on this one: “Surely no one else’s fans have been scolded so often for so long over the wrong-headed ways they love her.”
However, we are of the opinion that these extraneous items should not be accepted just as they are, like Bridget Jones running through London in her knickers. Each should be judged and criticized on its individual merits. Every Janeite is not going to agree on the quality of a particular book or film or action figure, and some may wish to have nothing to do with them at all, but there is no reason to condemn them on general principles; but at the same time, we are impatient with the idea that “it’s not really Jane Austen so if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Just because one doesn’t like a particular book, that does not mean one must dislike them all, and just because we are critical of certain projects doesn’t mean we are toffee-nosed snobs who can’t abide any of it. We just like quality. Perhaps our notions of quality are different from other Janeites’. 
The Austen diaspora is in a weird place when it comes to these ancillary items, and it is reflected in the either-or attitude. The Brontëans don’t hold their noses when they read Wide Sargasso Sea and the Shakespeare folks don’t freak out over A Thousand Acres or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (at least we don’t think they do; feel free to disabuse us of our mistaken notions). But the Austen fandom hasn’t really had a Wide Sargasso Sea or A Thousand Acres or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. The closest thing we’ve had, believe it or not, is The Jane Austen Book Club, which is probably the most literary piece of Austen paraliterature out there. Other fandoms have fan fiction, but you don’t find it for sale in Barnes & Noble. Quite frankly, we are presented with a lot of crap, and there is a tendency in some quarters to fall into a rather easy place of “if some of it is crap, it must all be crap.” And there is a tendency in some quarters to fall into another easy place of “I liked this movie with pretty people in nice costumes so I am going to like this other movie with pretty people in nice costumes, even if the plot has been manipulated so much that it no longer makes sense and it’s so cheaply done that one can see the metaphorical zipper on the back of the monster’s costume.”
We do support the creative folks who make these things–that’s why we started this blog! But we don’t think we’re doing ourselves or our fellow Janeites a favor by supporting projects uncritically. If we keep watching and reading and buying, The Powers That Be know we’ll take anything, and they don’t have to try very hard or spend much money or offer us the very top quality items. If, perhaps, we are critical of the lesser-quality items, if we maybe vote with our feet and our voices, we’ll get something better. Perhaps. Would it hurt to try?
(And this is not to pick on Kate–we really enjoyed the review!)
Comments are closed.
I have no idea if this post made any sense whatsoever. It’s a subject that’s been on my mind as a result of some discussions I’ve had with friends lately, and the review triggered some Deep Thoughts about it.
I think your comments make good sense, Mags. I have read quite a lot of the published fanfic (as opposed to the web-based stuff) and much of it is awful. Yet the gems shine through.
Awful, how? Well, here are some of the ways in which fans fall short in their fanfic:
1. Poor use of language: either a poor attempt at late 18th century style and word usage or poor use of modern English language as she is spoke today.
2. Minimal or no historical research: obviously, this applies only to the fanfic that sets itself somewhen in The Past–but which past? 1790? 1810? 1830? While naive readers think that these years are all pretty much alike–the girls wear pretty long dresses and the guys wear boots–these decades differ as much as the 1960s from the 1950s or the 1980s.
3. Poor copyediting. This criticism applies to a few publishing–ahem!–houses or production facilities that do not appear to support their authors. This lack of copyediting can show in obviously mis-spelled words, inconsistent descriptions, and poor punctuation. Yeah, it sounds school-marmy, but God is in the details.
4. Poor plot or plotless: some fanfic, especially that inspired directly by the movies. “This book is not for dried-up-old-prune Austenites,” bleats the author in an unoriginal preface, “it is for those of us who exited a movie theater CHANGED FOR LIFE.” It is frequently these books that feature a great deal of sex, apparently equating mating activity with plot and character development.
5. Mary Sue-ism. ‘Nuff said.
6. One dimensional characters who neither grow nor change, but whose names happen to be Lizzie and Darcy.
Ah, but what makes *good* Austen fanfic? This is a little harder to categorize. Obviously, the opposite of all the criticisms, above, gently mixed together with a soupcon of originality, permeated throughout with a deep understanding of Austen’s wit, social satire and characterization. Among the books that I like (and could quickly locate on my shelves) are Kate Fenton’s Vanity & Vexation (a modern, gender-reversed take on P&P); the very funny & cool, Lost in Austen; Create your own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster; and, perhaps less ground-breaking but still sweet, More Letters from Pemberley, by Jane Dawkins. There’s more, too, but that’s enough for now.
That’s OK, dearie. As soon as I saw you step up on your soapbox I knew you were on a roll!
Yeah, really have to wonder why, with ALL the people writing JA-inspired stuff, that so far no JA “Thousand Acres” has bubbled up out of the ooze?
Wow! Who writes this stuff? It sounds like your typical, silly, paperback romance novel, except someone decided to say something about “Jane Austen” in it, in order to attract a bigger market. Please, all true Austen fans, show them that it won’t work. We’re not that stupid!
*makes a note to re-read after my first cup o coffee*
You go girl! Well said. I think your comments are particularly apt when it comes to the film/television projects resulting from the Austen marketing mania. Quantity is definitely no guarantee of quality in that arena.
I liked Kate’s review a lot, especially the idea of divorcing Jane Austen. The idea of a massage getting you lost in your favorite novel is just whack. If I’m to suspend disbelief, there had better be a stronger reason than that a lazy writer wants me to.
In Connie Willis’ time-travel novels, nothing the travellers do can affect the course of history. History will heal itself of any anomalies caused by them. It might make a more interesting story if such were the case in P&P-Invasion stories. I’d kind of like to see how the characters themselves fixed up the messes caused by 21st century denizens stumbling about their landscapes.
D’ohhhhhh! That first sentence should continue……from the goings-on in this novel.
The curse of hitting ‘submit’ without proof-reading.
Speaking as a Brontean, I am frequently angered by the poor versions of Jane Eyre that are trotted out every couple of years, with bad casting, terribly wrongheaded interpretations of the characters, and the story completely misunderstood. As far as I am concerned, they have only gotten it right once, and people swooning over all the handsome Rochesters (he is not supposed to be handsome!) doesn’t help matters.
What I want in a book, any book, is intelligence, wit, entertainment or information (or all the better – both), and a sense of place. Miss Austen accomplishes that in spades. Her novels set a very high bar, so if someone uses her characters, settings, etc. they need to be aware that they will be (unconsciously or not) compared to Austen. It’s a risk you take.
Hear hear! I heartily concure.
I’ve been a Janeite since I was in my teens and somehow I never realized we don’t have our own equivalent of A Thousand Acres, etc, that other fandoms have. Then, again, I don’t feel we need them either. (Although I shall be checking out some of Alison’s suggestions.)
S (#9): Out of curiosity, which Jane Eyre adaptation do you think they got right?
1973 Sorcha Cusack and Michael Jayston
You know, I didn’t even consider movies when I made that comment about the Brontës and Shakespeare. Both groups have had something to contend with there, definitely; even the “creative” reworkings.
Hello, AustenBlog! Boy, I just thought someone might be interested in a little tangental review – I’m quite pleased that it’s become a great discussion. This is why I took up reviewing: for the potential for discussion.
I think that anyone “reusing” classic material, be it Austen, Bronte, Shakespeare, or name-your-favorite, runs the risk of criticism from those who love the original. It’s inevitable. To me, at least, the line that I try to draw is 1. intent and 2. audience. In the case of Seducing Mr Darcy, the book is a piece of genre fiction – a romance novel – and the audience are readers of that genre. There are certain standards and conventions in any genre book (regardless of genre) that generally have to be followed for publication, and in the romance world one of the conventions is sex, simply put – whether it’s masses of sex or a little nooky nooky depends on the author and the subgenre. Seducing Mr Darcy followed that convention since that was its intent. I think that I can be a little more lenient with a novel like this (which is not trying to be great literature) than I can be with an Ian McEwan novel (just for example), and that leniency, for me, has everything to do with the intent of the novel in question.
That said, I also call crap “crap” when it’s crap. I read a great many books and have been known to throw a few words together myself as needed; books that are crafted poorly or written poorly don’t get my praise. Trust me, I’ve read a lot of crap in my life. Seducing Mr Darcy really isn’t a bad read. It wasn’t to my taste and I suspect it wouldn’t be to the taste of many people, but it was a clever and sassy read, and well-written. It was not true to an Austen spirit, but (as I mentioned) if one can divorce themselves from that fact, it’s an entertaining novel. (I would also like to point out, very briefly since this isn’t the platform for this discussion, that not all romance novels are drivel and/or silly. I suspect a few readers of this site read romance too!)
Overall unfortunately I can’t say much about Austen-specific fanfic, published or not, since I’ve now only read a total of three: the one you all now know about, The Family Fortune (which I thought was excellent, Austen retelling and all), and one P&P-from-Darcy’s-POV that was so boring and unfortunate that I can’t even remember its title. All I can see is “seek out quality,” which I think is what Mags is also recommending: there’s good stuff and bad stuff in all genres, all formats, and just because it says “Darcy” on it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good.
It is curious, though, as it’s been pointed out, that Austen hasn’t spurned on a Thousand Acres or Wide Sargasso Sea. Does anyone have any thoughts about that? It seems like novels so beloved would spur a few good writers into trying their hand at it – is it intimidation? Fear of failure? Worries of not doing it justice?
I find the whole idea of divorcing oneself from Austen in order to enjoy a book or an adaptation ridiculous!
Isn’t an author calling their piece of work something like “Seducing Mr. Darcy” or “Lost in Austen” exactly because they want to link it to Austen and tempt her fans this way? Yet if I refer to it by drawing comparisons between their work and the original I hear, but it’s not Austen, you shouldn’t be comparing it. It’s not to be taken seriously. Then call it something else, for goodness’ sake! If I watch Leonardo DiCaprio in “Romeo + Juliet” set in the modern Los Angeles area I still compare it to Shakespeare. I’ve seen “Hamlet” with a woman playing the main role, and I still thought it was an adaptation of Shakespeare. The director wasn’t afraid of my making this comparison, and it was a very good adaptation too. No one says that Shakespeare purists are fun spoilers for seeing the various spin offs of his works this way.
I’m really not bought by authors’ repeating that they’re great Austen fans. One could hardly expect them to advertise their work as their cynical attempt at cashing in on Austen’s popularity and the idiocy of her readers, who must be all like Amanda Price anyway. Yet when I get acquainted with their work all I can see is exactly that.
If they want to show Austen in a new perspective, as they claim, they shouldn’t be treating her writings as chick lit, which it’s not. Austen should be treated seriously, just as other writers are. It doesn’t mean that her works shouldn’t be funny. They’re hilarious! Shakespeare can be hilarious too. But there’s a great difference between Austen’s wit and “Dumb and Dumber”. And no, a Mary Sue getting her claws into Darcy isn’t a new perspective to me.
I have no problem with Austen fanfiction or adaptations, but they should at least try to be as intelligent and clever as the originals are, and really highlight a new perspective, and not just keep proving that everybody can ruin even a great novel.
Kate — again, I really apologize for picking on your very good review. I don’t even mean to pick on Seducing Mr. Darcy. Agree that it is meant to be genre romance with all the expectations thereof (and while genre romance is not my particular cup of tea, I know that millions of other people enjoy it and I would not wish to suspend any pleasure of theirs) and it shouldn’t be reviewed on the same level as a literary novel. I can’t even say “but they’re just trying to make a buck off Jane” because I have been accused of doing the same thing with my book–which I assure you is not the case. The muse works in odd ways. I don’t think you have to defend your review in any way. And I liked The Family Fortune well enough–didn’t love it but it was better than a lot of other Austen paraliterature I’ve read.
As Sylwia said above, when Austen fans pick up something associated with Jane Austen–using her characters, plots, etc.–we have certain expectations as well, and they are not always fulfilled. That doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with it. It just means that some of these projects work better than others, just like some romance novels work better than others. Maybe Austen paraliterature is a genre into itself at this point. It gets interesting when things cross over–say to genre romance, or teen movies, or stage plays. Can the expectations of both genres be maintained? I haven’t read Seducing Mr. Darcy, so probably shouldn’t say, but if readers are finding him not in character with Austen’s Darcy, then perhaps it would have made a better book all around if the author had worked harder on that point. That’s also my point about a lot of the films–they were okay but not great, but with a little more work COULD have been great, and made a lot more Janeites happy.
And in the romance genre, some enormously popular authors’ books are looked down upon by the cognoscenti (like the author, I won’t name names, who had the plagiarism scandal a few months ago). So like the Austen paraliterature genre, there are lower-quality projects that are still very popular.
I’d like to think this genre can produce a Wide Sargasso Sea etc., given time. We’ll see. I still think it’s helpful if Janeites do more to support the quality projects, because then we’ll get more of them.
There was a book (I was thinking What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew but I don’t think that’s right) that had a quiz at the beginning to determine what kind of Janeite you are.
I think that reactions to projects from movies to novel retellings to creative reinterpretations along the lines of Wide Sargasso Sea depend on what kind of Janeite you are.
There are people who read JA for the romance. I personally think they’re missing out on a lot, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re not true Janeites. They are the people who tend to enjoy straightforward movie adaptations, adore Colin Firth and/or Matthew McFadyen, read P&P fanfic, and probably wouldn’t particularly appreciate a creative alternate POV like Wide Sargasso Sea (which I have never read, so I’m just guessing). And I can understand where they’re coming from, too, because hey, I love romance too. I just think there’s a lot more to JA than romance.
I probably wouldn’t enjoy Seducing Mr. Darcy, though.
I read Seducing Mr. Darcy and thought it was just dreadful. I should have gone with my first instinct and put it down when I read that the authoress had been inspired by Linda Berdoll’s
crapwork.I thought it was, as has been said about Berdoll’s own work, “a big old mess.” Bleagh.
Another review of the book:
http://www.storyforu.com/cs/romance_sells/spring_2008_authors/gwyn_cready_seducing_mr_darcy
A quote from the review:
” …. Mr. Darcy just isn’t Flip Allison’s style. She prefers hot, sexy novels to the mannerly longing of Jane Austen’s. That is, until she pays a visit to Madame K, who promises a therapeutic massage with an opportunity to “Imagine Yourself in Your Favorite Book.” Somehow, Flip lands in Regency England—and dangerously close to the handsome Mr. Darcy. So close, in fact, that she discovers a side of him even Jane Austen couldn’t have imagined.
Unfortunately, her liaison with Darcy spells disaster for Austen’s characters, not to mention millions of Pride and Prejudice fans. Flip must enlist the help of Magnus Knightley, a decidedly Darcy-like Austen scholar, to undo the damage…..”
If Flip’s doing is damage, because of transforming “Pride and Prejudice” love story into porno story, then what is the book telling about and expecting the audience to believe in such “transformations” supposed to be if not the same damage, an elegant way to convey porno ideas?
Mags – no worries, I still don’t feel picked on! I’m wondering what you and others might feel are some of the better Austen paraliterature? I’ve only read The Family Fortune, but I tend to avoid them since I’ve not had a good experience overall (outside of The Family Fortune.) Perhaps I can better speak on the subject if I’m a little better versed.
I agree that with many “Austenesque” books one shouldn’t have to separate Austen from the fiction in question in order to enjoy the novel. That’s entirely the reason I haven’t read much “Austenesque” – having read a novel that took itself very seriously as being P&P from Darcy’s point of view, but was not written in the same style or spirit as Austen. I couldn’t enjoy it since the book tried to be a “retelling” of Austen but failed in matching her voice, style, or spirit. I wouldn’t try to divorce myself from Austen to try to enjoy a book that touts itself as a retelling. With Seducing Mr Darcy in mind, however, I’d be hard-pressed to tell anyone that its intention was to match Austen’s voice, style, or spirit; it’s not a retelling but rather much more a creation of the author, Gwen Cready. I don’t think anyone could look at its cover and imagine that it was trying to match Austen. So I again default to intent and audience, and separate Austen from Cready. I understand that this is not an appealing method for everyone.
I also believe that there are many different ways of being a fan of anything, from Austen to Star Trek to New Kids On The Block. People will be a fan of something for many different reasons, and those reasons become apparent in their, shall we say, tangible fandom. I myself used to write a ton of Star Trek fanfic which I was a kid. To me, being a fan of Star Trek was about placing myself somehow in that world, and letting my imagination take over. I know this isn’t a great parallel, and many readers will probably be screeching in agony that I’m comparing Star Trek fanfic to Austenesque fanfic, but I can imagine that mentality is from which a lot of the Austenesque fanfic arises. I don’t think anyone has to like it, and I don’t expect anyone to like anything that’s a substandard writing, but I also don’t think it’s wrong for it to exist.
I’m not familiar with Berdoll’s work, and I’m not sure if I’d like it gauging by your reaction!
One of the tenets I try to hold to as a reviewer is a separation of my taste from objective opinions: Seducing Mr Darcy was not to my taste, and probably nothing I’d read if I weren’t reviewing it, but judging it in terms of plot, character, writing style, etc., it held up all right. Not brilliant and not perfect, by any stretch, but not crap when compared to the wider oeuvre.
And lastly I’d like to briefly (since this is not the forum for this discussion) point out that genre romance novels are not porno – are a long way from, in fact, and much in the same way that Janeites may become angry when Austen’s works are used in a way that deemed inappropriate, very, very many readers of romance novels become angry when the genre as a whole is dismissed as porno.
Okey dokey. I posted early and rather soap-boxily on this thread (#2) but I just realized that the author of Seducing Mr Darcy is a fellow Pittsburgher (she just got picked up in some of our local magazines) and so I went out & got it & read it and here’s the verdict:
It’s not bad at all. In fact, it was quite entertaining.
Now, some won’t like the genre sex scenes, but the whole notion–massage not withstanding–of going back & interacting with favorite characters & then having to straighten out the mess, was quite intriguing. Creary–whom I’ve not heard of before and she doesn’t attend our local JASNA meetings (but you’re very welcome to, if you’re reading this!) is a knowledgeable Austen interpreter. Unlike many authors inspired by The Wet Shirt, she is quite aware that Austen’s work is not pure chicklit, but a serious study of economics, manners & mores. So that makes the Purist in me happy.
What really made me hoot, however, are all the Pittsburgh references. All of the geography in this book is, I can assure you, quite correct. And how refreshing to have a heroine who works here at the Nation’s Aviary (I can vividly see the Victoria pigeon that is featured in the tail, um, tale; I see ‘em every time I visit) and who is obsessed with the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker! But I nearly fell off my chair laughing when the sassy, sex-deprived heroine looks up at that tall, firm, 42-story architectural protrusion (with its fluffy-foliaged trees at its base and the two wide boulevards on either side of it representing two firm, well-muscled thighs) known formally as the Cathedral of Learning (the 2nd highest academic building in the world) at the University of Pittsburgh but informally and locally as the Tower of Power (or, in local dialect, the Tawhr of Pawhr) and begins fantasizing about it…..snurk.
I didn’t like Berdoll’s work because I thought it represented an inaccurate picture of both the period and its characters. But Seducing manages to mess with the characters’ heads (and libidos) in a modern fashion that is funny rather than off-beat.
I followed this discussion with great interest, as it is something I have wondered about too. Why is so much Jane Austen fanfic so godawful? And why haven’t we seen something on the order of “Wide Sargasso Sea” or “A Thousand Acres” for Austen? The stuff that gets published is, I think, often heartfelt homage to whatever Jane Austen means to the writer, not merely a marketing ploy; it’s just not particularly well thought out, not well researched (as Allison T. correctly points out) and not well written. Not to mention falling short of Jane Austen in wit and irony,as nearly everything in this sad world of ours does.
WSS and ATA, on the other hand, strike me as books written in response, not in homage, and in an attempt to answer fascinating questions that were clearly really important to their writers, namely: What was the deal with that poor crazy first Mrs. Rochester? And: What would “King Lear” be like if it were taking place in the 1980s in Iowa?
WSS’s notion of telling a story we think we already know through someone else’s eyes is pure genius done well, and intriguing even when done badly, as in “The Wind Done Gone.” I personally think this idea has a lot of potential in the world of Jane Austen. Imagine “Pride and Prejudice” from the point of view of the homely, annoying Mary Bennet, for instance, or the autobiography of Miss Bates?
I also submit that the Patrick O’Brian seafaring tales can be read as one long but fascinating answer to the question: What was it like for Wentworth when he went off to sea to make his fortune? Somtimes you find the spirit of Jane Austen in unexpected places.
My favourite Pride and Prejudice fanfiction so far tells the story from Mr. Hurst’s POV. It’s hilarious!
There are thousands fanfictions out there and some are good, or at least not bad, so it’s possible to write it, show a new perspective etc. They’re not masterpieces, but not as bad as some of the commercial projects. The majority of them aren’t retellings at all. There are time travels, sci-fi stories, crossovers, slash, stories placed in different periods, sequels, prequels, fantasy, alternative universes, and so on. I’m really bored with seeing things advertised as ingenuous twists. Wake up, people. You’re 10,001st at best!
It’s not the same, however, as borrowing the characters only to make one’s money. The mere idea that an author thinks that s/he might write so great a heroine as to have her mess with Darcy and P&P plot is, in my opinion, against the grain of the book. I never imagined that Darcy was a virgin, and yet Austen had him behave the way he did, including never being seriously attracted to any woman before Elizabeth. The idea that the same heroine might be necessary for straightening things up between Lizzy and Darcy is even worse. Austen avoided helpers and advisors. And keeping telling me that I simply must love their heroine because she’s fulfilling my secret desires is plain offensive and patronizing. So to me it’s crap as an Austen spin off, and I don’t even go as far as historical accuracy. That’s never correct anyway!
Whether it might be a good book on its own is not the point, because by borrowing the characters and plot it ceases to be a work on its own. The authoress of Seducing Darcy certainly doesn’t think so either, since she promotes the book on Austen lists. Somehow other romances are never promoted there. If I ever read it that would be only because of its references to Austen. If I am to read a book for its own merits there are thousands of far greater novels on my list that would be given priority.
There are good commercial retellings. Clueless is a very good one, so it’s possible to do. And Bride and Prejudice was light and hilarious.
I’d like to add that it’s not the sex as such that turns me off. If well done I read sex scenes between Lizzy and Darcy with pleasure. But the whole idea of sex between a Mary Sue and Darcy is exhibitionistic to me. I don’t identify with her, only I feel that I am to watch her when she is at it. Why would I want to be a tool in fulfilling someone else’s sexual fantasies? It’s, well, rather creepy.
BTW I don’t mean to pick on Kate’s review either. It’s just the late accumulation of bad Austen spin offs that leaves me so displeased. It seems it’s getting worse and worse.
Oh boy! I’ll put in my two cents worth! Crap = Berdoll’s everything connected to austen.,movie version wide sargasso sea.,book and film versions of jane eyre and anything bronte or walter scott.
Who would marry a crazy woman then bring her to england and lock her up?That ship voyage sure would of been fun! Rochester could of just divorced her in jamica or anywhere else.he was duped into marying her.
Is there any truth that the works of the bronte sisters were actually written by their brother.WAIT! I forgot this is a JANE AUSTEN SITE! why am i wasting time with the bronte’s?
Allison T-#2 You are right on target,Kathleen #24 Thank you for mentioning Patrick O’Brien as he did a lot of research about the age of fighting sail.
A few weeks back I bought a film version of Wide Sargasso Sea date was 2006 released here in 07? I did not like it.
I have only read a few austensque prequils or sequels the best were Jane Austen Book Club and Lost in Austen create your own adventure, Mr.Darcy’s diary Captain wentworths diary and Berdoll’s first novel.
Being involved in historical re enactment, war of 1812,we research our chosen time period.Period clothing,uniforms,cooking,dancing,ect.
I wonder about these “para-Literature” books with people from 2008 going back to the regency period.Fun to think about but most of us could not pull it off.How many of you ladies have ever had to wear stays under your regency ball gown-or a regency ball gown? How many have mastered period dancing? Do you know how to flirt with your fans and gloves?
Language has also changed-both british english and american english.And as for money….english currency was confusing and what was the exchange rate?
Katharine T. #19,
the book with the jane austen quiz is “The friendly jane Austen”.