I thought I had read all the Jane Austen that was available. As it turns out there was one more novel that she had finished, Lady Susan, but it had not been edited or published. There were also two others that were not finished, The Watsons and Sanditon. I picked up a copy of this collection from Borders a few months ago and thoroughly enjoyed reading them.That time spent dwelling in Austen-land made me eager for more, so I not only watched the new BBC adaptation of Emma, relished in last year's version of Persuasion, and watched Becoming Jane on NetFlix, but I also reread my copy of Emma. I am now in the process of rereading Persuasion even though the binding on my paperback volume is now in horribly bad shape. I don't know what it is, but each time I read one of her novels I find more to love and make new discoveries of passages that I did not remember from the last time I read it.
With this last purchase, I now have all that Austen wrote and I am sure these two (I wasn't as big a fan of Sanditon) will be as well read as the others.
In fact; in my opinion, The Watsons had the makings of an extremely satisfying novel with another fantastic heroine like Anne Elliot or Elinor Dashwood. Unfortunately, it was put aside when some of the subject matter (the death of a father) became too close to home for Jane to finish.
4 comments:
Joan Aiken does "sequels" to Jane Austen novels, including a "finished" version of Emma. Not sure what you'll think -- her writing style is different from Austen's -- but these might be worth checking out.
Isn't persuasion great? I love that book.
Oops -- not Emma, but The Watsons. I was typing between meetings.
Ooohhh! I will have to check these three out! Love, love, love Jane Austen
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