A Jolt of Jane Austen

by Bette-Lee Fox, Managing Editor -- Library Journal, 9/6/2007

This season of Jane Austen madness is highlighted by the recent film Becoming Jane and the soon-to-be-released The Jane Austen Book Club. Though there has been a spate of publications to coordinate with the cinematic debuts, Austen-related titles have been blooming for several years now. It might have started with the biography loosely adapted for the movie, Jon Spence’s Becoming Jane Austen (LJ 5/15/03). But several authors wanting to prolong their own pleasure in reading Austen’s works chose to rewrite some of her classics, with Pride & Prejudice being the favorite: for instance, Janet Aylmer’s Darcy’s Story (LJ 8/06) and Amanda Grange’s Mr. Darcy’s Diary (Sourcebooks. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4022-0876-8. pap. $14.95). Grange’s Mr. Knightley’s Diary (LJ 9/1/07) re-creates Emma from our hero’s perspective. The tone and language are true to Austen’s style, so these titles should appeal to those fans who don’t mind reading about their favorite characters from another angle.

The Jane-quels

Other writers chose to move Austen’s characters forward, letting them enter into the post-Austen phases of their lives. Helen Halstead’s Mr. Darcy Presents His Bride (Ulysses. 2007. ISBN 978-2-56975-588-4. pap. $14.95) isn’t as skillfully rendered as works by some of the other Austen imitators, but it does give the characters more post-wedding history. Elizabeth Aston has made a cottage industry out of the offspring and relatives of Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy with Mr. Darcy’s Daughters (LJ 2/1/03), The True Darcy Spirit (LJ 3/1/06), and the latest, The Second Mrs. Darcy (LJ 2/1/07). Linda Berdoll’s Darcy & Elizabeth (LJ 4/1/06) follows up her Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (LJ 4/1/04).

Additionally, Sourcebooks has released two epistolary collections that give Elizabeth and Darcy’s lives more depth: Jane Dawkins’s Letters from Pemberley: The First Year (2007. ISBN 978-1-4022-0906-2. pap. $13.95) and the upcoming More Letters from Pemberley, 1814–1819: A Further Continuation of Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice" (Sept. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4022-0907-9. pap. $13.95).

Being Jane

Fictionalized details about Austen’s life are the basis for stories of our Jane’s own romance. Nancy Moser’s Just Jane (Christian Fiction column, LJ 9/1/07) describes Austen’s life and her writing from Jane’s perspective. Slightly more inventive is Syrie James’s The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen (Editors’ Fall Picks, LJ 9/1/07), which is also from Jane’s viewpoint but written as a journal discovered many years after Austen’s death and providing the story of her own "lost love."

For those who wish Jane Austen wrote mysteries instead of romances, Stephanie Barron has penned an entire series (e.g., Jane and His Lordship's Legacy, LJ 2/1/05) in which Austen is involved in all sorts of intrigue. Well done, Jane (and Stephanie).

Austen meets the 21st century

Coming around 200 years, some authors prefer to use Austen’s characters as launching pads for contemporary novels. In Sally Smith O’Rourke’s The Man Who Loved Jane Austen (Kensington. 2006. ISBN 978-0-7582-1037-1. pap. $14), a modern-day woman discovers letters most likely belonging to Jane Austen and follows them to Virginia and a Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Alexandra Potter’s Me and Mr. Darcy (Ballantine. Jul. 2007. ISBN 978-0-345-50254-4. pap. $12.95) finds a New Yorker disillusioned with relationships joining a tour of Jane Austen sites in Britain, only to discover Mr. Darcy at every turn. Or does she? A bit far-fetched, but, then again, Mr. Darcy has been known to turn women’s heads. Similarly, in Shannon Hale’s Austenland (LJ 4/15/07), New Yorker Jane Hayes tries to cure herself of her Darcy obsession by spending three weeks at a Regency theme park in England, where female guests dress up in typical 1813 garb while a cast of actors attend to their romantic fantasies. Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club (Plume: Penguin Group [USA]. 2007. ISBN 978-0-452-28653-0. pap. $14) reveals the lives of the six members of a book club reading all of Austen’s novels. Their interplay and the counterpoint of views is a joy to read. How will the movie measure up? We’ll see. Lastly, Laurie Viera Rigler tried to cross time periods, but with mixed results, in Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict (LJ 7/07). Modern L.A. gal Courtney wakes up in the body of a 19th-century Englishwoman, but even her passion for Jane Austen can’t take the Valley Girl out of our heroine.

Some authors just want to share Austen’s ideas, giving full credit to their inspiration. Paula Marantz Cohen’s Jane Austen in Scarsdale (LJ 3/15/06) and Laurie Horowitz’s The Family Fortune (LJ 3/15/06) try to "persuade" us that Austen’s themes can exist in the modern world.

Travels with Jane

Put yourself in Jane Austen’s shoes, and see if her past can stir some creativity. Lori Smith went to discover more about her favorite author—and found herself as well as she recounts in A Walk with Jane Austen: A Journey into Love, Adventure and Faith, WaterBrook, Oct. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4000-7370-2. pap. $13.99. Katharine Reeve’s Jane Austen in Bath: Walking Tours of the Writer’s City (The Little Bookroom. 2006. ISBN 978-1-892145-32-1. $19.95) sets our feet on the same English cobblestones trod by Jane and her family. Emma Campbell Webster’s Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure (Riverhead: Penguin Group [USA]. 2007. ISBN 978-1-59448-258-8. pap. $14) encourages readers to follow Austen’s writings and imagine themselves conversing with Mr. Darcy and looking feverishly at Willoughby. This title lets readers make their own choices and face the consequences. Patrice Hannon’s Dear Jane Austen: A Heroine’s Guide to Life and Love (Plume: Penguin Group [USA]. 2007. ISBN 978-0-452-28894-2. pap. $12) is a quirky little book that sets Austen up as "Dear Abby," answering via her own texts questions about love proposed by 21st-century women.

If you liked the movie

For Sense and Sensibility (the movie) fans, Newmarket has a twofold treat: Sense and Sensibility: The Screenplay & Diaries (2007. ISBN 978-1-55704-782-3. pap. $18.95), part of the company’s "Shooting Script®" series, presents the screenplay of the 1995 film, along with the diary entries of its star, Emma Thompson, during the moviemaking process.

Just Jane Austen

For those who only want the real thing, Anchor books publishes The Annotated Pride and Prejudice (2007. ISBN 978-0-307-27810-4. pap. $16.95). The Everyman Library includes hardcover editions of all of Austen’s works. So sit back, have a cup of tea, and immerse yourself in the Austen mystique.