Old Friends and New Fancies

If you never read another Jane Austen sequel (always excepting Diana Birchill's wonderful Mrs Darcy's Dilemma, about which I raved a while back) let it be this one! The first ever JA sequel, published in 1913, this is a sheer delight from start to finish. Sybil Brinton -- about whom little or nothing seems to be known -- had the happy idea of writing a continuation, not just of one Austen novel, but of all of them rolled into one. This in itself is such a joy. Everybody from every novel turns out to  know everybody else. You may think this is stretching a point, and in a sense it is, but on the other hand nothing is more likely, really, when you come to think about it. All these people move in the same social circle, after all, and at this period you would be bound to meet people of your age and class in Bath or in London. So of course Elizabeth Darcy knows Ann Wentworth, Mary Crawford is forming a friendship with Colonel Fitzwilliam, Kitty Bennett stays in London with Emma Knightley, Elinor and Edward Ferrars live close to Pemberley, that the Wentworths have befriended Fanny Price Bertram's brother William, and so on. So yes, it makes sense, but each time  somebody new pops up, you get a little thrill of delight (or I did, anyway).
The plot is, I thought, quite ingenious, and very true to Austen's manner and methods. The chief protagonist is Georgiana Darcy, who is a delightful and very typical Austen heroine. She has all the intelligence, the charm, the moral fibre, and the ability to suffer her pains and troubles alone, that we are used to meeting in JA's own much loved heroines. But then there is Kitty Bennett -- and how nice it is to find her getting a fair crack of the whip here, after being so much subsumed by Lydia. As we are frequently told by the critics, Austen 's heroines can be divided into two kinds, heroines who are right and heroines who are wrong (and who learn by their mistakes, obviously). Kitty is wrong, in one important way anyway, and hopefully she does learn, though in fact we don't really see her doing so. Other people also get things wrong, and there are a satisfying number of misunderstandings, love affairs that look as if they will never be sorted out, hearts that seem irretrievably broken, illnesses, confusions. Emma Knightly has not stopped matchmaking, Mrs Jennings still interferes in her silly well-meaning way, Lady Catherine is just as high-handed as ever (though Elizabeth has learned to handle her better), Tom Bertram has reformed somewhat, Mary Crawford is a wiser and more sensible woman....
Do please read it. This new Sourcebooks edition is lovely and  I can more or less promise you many happy hours.