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Archive for the ‘Regency Period’ Category

The Tale of Jerry Abershawe, Highwayman

Posted in 18th Century England, Georgian Life, Georgian London, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency World, tagged , , , , on February 8, 2011| 21 Comments »

Inquiring readers: Once upon a time, road travel was fraught with danger and a traveler could be held up by a highwayman at any time. Jerry Abershawe was such a man. Tony Grant (London Calling) writes about him in this post.

Not far from where I live, on the edge of Wimbledon Common where the Kingston Road passes, are some trees on the side of a small rise of ground. This part of the common is called Jerry’s Hill. It is named after the 18th-century highwayman called Jerry Abershawe, who frequented those parts and held up carriages on their way between Kingston and London. He was one of the last highwaymen.

Jerry's hill. The gibbet was near here. Image @Tony Grant

A highwayman was a thief who held up passers by, usually people travelling in carriages, at gun point or blunderbuss point, and relieved the passengers of their valuables. Some attacks on coaches were brutal and people were killed. Highwaymen weren’t all the dashing handsome masked desperados of fiction with the manners of a lord and a twinkle in the eye for a beautiful lady. “Stand and deliver!” was their traditional call. They chose lonely remote stretches of the highways to perform their dastardly deeds, but they also had to be sure they chose an area where there was regular traffic going to and fro or their despicable mission would be pointless. They chose places just outside towns and cities where there was a constant flow of people travelling. Wimbledon, then a small rural village on the outskirts of London and with a vast area of wild untamed common land around it, was an ideal spot.

Gibbet post at Tibbet's Corner. Image @Tony Grant

Jane Austen was travelling to London from Steventon in 1796 the year after Jerry Abershawe was executed. They were about the same age, 20 and 22 years old.

To Cassandra Austen Thursday 15 – Friday 16th September:

“….As to the mode of our travelling to Town, I want to go in a Stage Coach, but Frank will not let me. As You are likely to have the Williams’ & Lloyds with You next week, You would hardly find room for us then-. If anybody wants anything in Town, they must send their Commissions to Frank, as I shall merely pass thro’ it- The Tallow Chandler is Penlington, at the Crown & Beehive Charles Street, Covent garden.”

Travelling from Steventon, Jane would not have gone through Kingston upon Thames and the London Road leading out of Kingston where Jerry Abershawe plied his highwayman trade. However, you can understand Frank’s concerns for Jane using the stagecoach. A stagecoach carrying a variety of passengers, some undoubtedly wealthy, would have been a target for a highwayman.

From Steventon, the most direct route to London would have taken her through Basingstoke, Virginia Water, Staines, Richmond upon Thames, Hammersmith and on to Westminster and the centre of London. From Staines she would have been travelling on what was known as The Great West Road which lead directly to the second most important city after London, in Georgian times, Bristol, the centre of the slave trade. Some very wealthy merchants and members of the aristocracy would have travelled this road. It must have had its fair share of highway robbers. Stagecoaches on this road would most certainly have been prime targets. So Frank was right to refuse Jane her wish. But maybe the excitement and the risk appealed to Jane. She was young after all. It does not say in Jane’s letter how they did get to Town, but I presume it was in less conspicuous transport and with her brother.

Wimbledon Common showing Jerry's Hill

In 1813, Jane did travel along the London Road leading out of Kingston, Jerry Abershawe’s haunt. She did this many times from Chawton. There is no hint in her letters of any possible dangers but by the time she was living in Chawton, although the Kingston route was now her most direct route to Town, highwaymen were all but extinct. The toll roads had made highway robbery very difficult. Roads were manned every few miles and the people on them had paid to use them. This made it very difficult for highway robbers to make their escape along these routes so this crime virtually died out.

Jerry's Hill, London Road. Image @Tony Grant

To Cassandra Austen Wednesday 15 – Thursday 16 September 1813 Henrietta Street (1/2 past 8-)

Here I am, my dearest Cassandra, seated in the Breakfast, Dining, sitting room, beginning with all my might. Fanny will join me as soon as she is dressed & begin her Letter. We had a very good journey- Weather & Roads excellent – the three first stages for 1s – 6d & our only misadventure the being delayed about a quarter of an hour at Kingston for Horses, & being obliged to put up with a pr belonging to a Hackney Coach & their Coachman, which left no room on the Barouche Box for Lizzy, who was to have gone her last stage there as she did the first;- consequently we were all four within , which was a little crowd;-We arrived at quarter past 4 …”

This time there was no sense of Jane’s brothers putting their foot down and refusing this time to let her travel in what appeared to them in the past in an inappropriate mode of transport. The party Jane travelled with appeared to be Henry, Lizzy and Fanny. There was no sense of danger, just the excitement of the journey, and from Kingston on their last stage, the cramped conditions of four of them inside the barouche. (Imagine being squashed inside a barouche with Jane Austen. What a thought.)

The women would have passed the inn at the bottom of Kingston Hill, where Jerry Abershawe made his headquarters, before their barouche made the long rising trek up the hill onto Wimbledon Common, going past Jerry’s Hill, where I am sure the gibbet would still have been displayed on the right hand side of the road. There probably was no sign of the remains of Jerry Abershawe by that time though. His body had been pecked clean by the crows and his bones had been taken as souvenirs. His finger bones and toes bones were used in candleholders. Jerry Abershawe was the last person to have his body displayed like this on a gibbet.

Jerry Abershawe

Louis Jeremiah Abershawe(1773-3 August 1795), better known as Jerry Abershawe, terrorised travellers between London and Portsmouth in the later 18th century. He was born in Kingston upon Thames and at the age of 17 began his life of crime. He formed a gang, which was based at an inn on the London Road between Kingston and Wimbledon, at the bottom of Kingston Hill called the Bald Faced Stag. I am sure, as well as his primary occupation of highway robbery, Jerry Abershawe also managed to gain the odd carcase of a King’s deer from Richmond Park, which backed on to the Bald Face Stag Inn. The inn no longer exists, but there was a very large and comfortable pub and restaurant built there in the early 1900’s that, just a few years ago, was demolished for new housing built on the site.

Jerry had other places of refuge at Clerkenwell near Saffron Hill. He used a house called the Old House in West Street. Other highwaymen also used this house. Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild were known to have stayed there. It was a house renowned for its dark closets, trap doors, and sliding panels.

Clerkenwell

All attempts to bring Jerry Abershawe to justice failed until in January 1795, when he shot dead one of the constables sent to arrest him in Southwark and badly injured the other constable sent along too. Abershawe was arrested at a pub in Southwark called The Three Brewers. He was brought to trial at Surrey Assizes in July of 1795, and convicted and sentenced to death. On Monday 3 August 1795, Jerry Abershawe was hung on Kennington Common, a couple of miles from Wimbledon and then his body was set up on a gibbet on the hill overlooking the Kingston Road, which was more commonly known then as the London Road, next to Wimbledon Common near the scene of many of his highway robberies. It remained there for all passers by to see and be warned about the price to pay for evil ways.

Newgate Prison

The Newgate Calendar for 1795 describes the manner of his being found guilty of murder. Newgate prison was a notorious London prison in which criminals waiting for trail would be held, and it was there that Jerry Abershawe was incarcerated before his execution.

When the judge appeared in his black cap, the emblem assumed at the time of passing sentence on convicted felons, Abershaw, with the most unbridled insolence and bravado, clapped his hat upon his head, and pulled up his breeches with a vulgar swagger; and during the whole of the ceremony, which deeply effected all present except the senseless object himself, he stared full into the face of the judge with a malicious sneer and affected contempt, and continued this conduct till he was taken, bound hand and foot from the dock, venting curses and insults on the judge and jury for having consigned him to, “murder.”

The Newgate Calendar also describes his execution on Kennington Common.

He was executed on Kennington Common, on the 3rd of August, 1795 in the presence of an immense multitude of spectators, among whom he recognised many acquaintances and confederates, to whom he bowed, nodded, and laughed with the most unfeeling indifference. He had a flower in his mouth, and his waistcoat and shin were unbuttoned, leaving his bosom open in the true style of vulgar gaiety; and talking to the mob, and venting curses on the officers, he died, as he had lived, a ruffian and a brute!”

A hanging at Tyburn 17th c.

Highwaymen especially were supposed to affect an attitude and a jocular type of behaviour called gallows humour. It seems that Jerry Abershawe went to his death displaying ribald and stentorious gallows humour.

Jerry's hill view. Image @Tony Grant

At least Jane was now safe on her journeys to London. But I wonder if she had just a small wish for the thrill of danger and would have loved to encounter Jerry on the wild wilderness of Wimbledon Common and ,”stand and deliver,” to him. If it had happened, would her novels have turned out differently in some ways?

Jane was 20 years old when Jerry died at the age of 22. Just maybe Jane would have loved the thrill of adventure on a journey with the threat of Jerry Abershawe round the next bend.

Tibbets Corner. A stylized sign commemorating Jerry Abershaw. Image @Tony Grant

Post script:

After writing this article I just couldn’t get a nagging thought out of my head.

Why and how did Jerry end up as a highway robber?

I know he was young, 22 years of age when he was caught and executed. There is no mention of family or wife or children or any sort of familial attachments. I can imagine him being brought up, an orphan, perhaps on the market streets of Kingston having to survive and live by his wits. It doesn’t take much to imagine the step into criminality to survive. He got in with the wrong lot obviously. An intelligent, bitter, hard done by, street wise kid gone wrong and obviously with a big personality. We can compare him with those who go off the tracks in our own society today. The forces for evil don’t change apparently. Obviously this is a total surmise but I feel better for it.

Tibbets Corner today - where Abershawe held up coaches. Image @Tony Grant

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Mr. Darcy’s Secret: A Review, and an Interview with Author Jane Odiwe

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen Sequels, Jane Austen's World, Popular culture, Regency Period, Regency World, tagged , , , , , , on February 7, 2011| 7 Comments »

Mr. Darcy’s Secret is Jane Odiwe’s third Jane Austen sequel for Sourcebooks. The story picks up after the Darcys’ marriage and Elizabeth’s introduction as Lady of the Manor. Lizzy is a quick study, for it is not easy for someone to pick up on all the intricacies of managing such a great house as Pemberley, but through her natural grace she quickly gains the respect of the staff and villagers and settles into her new home – where she uncovers a secret, one that places her relationship with Darcy in emotional jeopardy.

The delightful author Jane Odiwe has done it again – created a novel using Jane Austen’s characters that leaves you turning the pages to find out how the story will end. Jane Odiwe lives in Bath and London, and travels extensively all over England. This is obvious, as she is able to single out details as only someone who is intimately acquainted with the regions can. She has also researched Jane Austen and the Regency era for many years, so that the facts ring true and are sometimes surprising, as with the ability for people during that era to marry without posting the banns in one church in Derbyshire, a legacy from the days of King Charles 1.

In so many ways, Ms. Odiwe gets the characters right, which makes reading her books so enjoyable. Take Lady Catherine de Bourgh, for instance:

Lady Catherine de Bourgh looked Mrs Darcy up and donw with such an expression of horror and contempt it was all Lizzy could do to keep her nerve. “Does your husband know that you are running around the countryside dressed as a gypsy riding in a donkey cart, Miss Bennet?” she asked in scolding tones. “What on earth can you mean by disgracing Mr Darcy in such a fashion? Have you no idea of decorum, are you insensible to the honours bestowed on you by him, that fool of a nephew of mine who has singled you out above all other women to bear his name?”

Wickham remains his dastardly self; Lydia is still immature and silly. We learn more about Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, and how she is influenced by Lizzy, with whom she falls in love, and about her backstory with her governess, a most nasty creature named Mrs Younge. Miss Caroline Bingley provides comic relief in a funny story line, as does the ever reliably silly Mrs Bennet. In short, devotees of Jane Austen sequels will not be disappointed with Jane Odiwe’s latest venture in Austen territory. Reading Mr Darcy’s Secret prompted me to ask the author a few questions, and she graciously answered them.

1. Why did you wait until your third book to write about Darcy and Elizabeth?

For me, it was just a natural progression. Initially, I hadn’t wanted to write their story because I really wanted to do something different from the books that were being published. But, after writing Lydia Bennet’s Story, and Willoughby’s Return, I wanted to set myself a real challenge. I felt absolutely compelled to write Darcy and Elizabeth’s story, and also wanted to give Georgiana a happy ending. I’m a great believer in letting things happen organically, and perhaps I wasn’t really ready to write their story until now. I wanted to do justice to the characters, and have the kind of twisting plot with humour, surprises and shocks along the way that Jane Austen liked to write herself, which I hope I’ve achieved.

2. Does living in England give you a different perspective on how Jane Austen’s environment influenced her work?  If so, how does this knowledge affect your own writing about her characters?

Perhaps it does, but if so, I think it is an unconscious perspective. This country is the place of my birth; I am English, and the feelings of connection to its people, landscape and history are very strong. It’s a part of who I am. I was a teacher, and consider myself very lucky and fortunate to have had the joy of teaching pupils from every walk of life, which means I have witnessed the behaviour and customs of a vast cross-section of society from the very poor to the very rich. I’m just an ordinary person, but I have been able to witness first-hand what it’s like to attend high society balls (a long time ago now) and enjoy 20th/21st century equivalents of the kind of experiences that Jane Austen would have done. Rather like Jane too, feeling apart from that world, not really belonging, made the observation of it all the more fun. I’ve seen a world of privilege, I’ve seen the extreme opposite, and everything in between. I think all of life’s experiences and the knowledge gained help to inform your writing, but whether this means that I am successful in writing about Jane’s characters, I will leave my readers to decide.

3. For you, which comes first? The plot or the characters? How long does it take for you to outline your book before you start writing, or do you just dive in and plot as you go along?

Now that is a tricky one, but I think it’s been different for every book. I generally think about what I’m going to write for a long time, several months usually,  before I commit any thoughts to paper, though occasionally I might jot down a few initial ideas or key words. I think the idea for Mr Darcy’s Secret was really started by thinking about what we knew about Mr Darcy, or rather, what Elizabeth did not know. It occurred to me that she really didn’t know him very well at all. Jane Austen gives us no clues about his past, and so that set me thinking.
I used to meticulously write out the plot from start to finish before I commenced writing, but I’ve discovered that for me it doesn’t really work because the characters always do their best to take me away from what I’ve originally planned. So now I have a general idea of where I want to story to go, and have an idea of the ending, but the journey is always an adventure! The characters always want to tell their own story, and I let them.

4. What research  for your book surprised you the most? Did you leave out any material that you found fascinating but couldn’t use? If so, please give an example and tell us why you decided not to use this bit of information.

The research that surprised me most was the fact there was a Gretna Green of Derbyshire. In the village of Peak Forest its church is dedicated to ‘Charles, King & Martyr’ (King Charles 1) and until an Act of Parliament was passed in 1804 its minister was able to perform marriages without having the banns read.

I really enjoyed all the research into Derbyshire which I’ve visited many times from school trips as a child to spending holidays with my sister.
There is a lovely tradition of ‘well-dressing’ which I would have liked to include, but I couldn’t fit it into the timeline or plot – unlike Jane, I decided we’d spend more time in the Lake District.

I remember as a child being disappointed not to see any of the villages we passed in Derbyshire decorated with flowers. The pagan custom started many years ago with blessing the water supply, and there is a history of making clay plaques pressed with flower petals to ornament the wells, which they still carry on today. I would have liked to have included a lot more of the folklore in the book. The area is well known for its stone circles, petrified rocks, witches and ghosts! Maybe next time…

5. Have you plotted your next novel?

I have written another novel, but I’m still tinkering with it…not quite there yet. It’s not a sequel, and it’s a bit off the wall, but I’ve really enjoyed writing it. It’s inspired by Bath, Jane Austen and Persuasion, my great passions after my family.

Oooh, you have me intrigued already! As always, Jane, it is a pleasure talking with you. I wish you much success with this book and the next, and thank you for stopping by .

Read my reviews of Jane Odiwe’s other books and interviews with the author in the following links:

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The Cobb and the Undercliff at Lyme Regis

Posted in 19th Century England, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Period, Regency Travel, Regency walk, Regency World, tagged , , on February 3, 2011| 5 Comments »

From Tony Grant, whose contributions to this blog are numerous: “Two years ago some of my friends wanted a weekend away so we decided on Lyme. Our wives went off to New York for the shopping. We tend to go to places more for the local beer than the literary connections, I must admit. Lyme has some very nice pubs and also we wanted somewhere where we could take a brisk walk. We thought of the Undercliff.”

The Cobb at Lyme Regis. Image @Tony Grant

It depends on the weather conditions but the Cobb at Lyme can look and behave like an evil spirited leviathan; a Moby Dick. It’s a savage beast. At other times it can be a gentle, peaceful and calm creature.

Jane Austen used the Cobb at Lyme for the setting of an integral scene in her novel, Persuasion.

The accident on The Cobb, to Louisa Musgrove, brings Anne Elliot to the fore. She is the one looked to by Captain Wentworth and the others to take charge.

John Fowles, who lived in Lyme for most of his life, used Lyme , The Cobb and The Undercliff as the settings for his novel ,The French Lieutenants Woman.Indeed these topographical elements of Lyme are like a group of brooding characters within the novel and shape the action as much as the human characters…” – Read the rest of the post at Tony Grant’s blog, London Calling.

View of the Undercliff from the Cobb. Image @Tony Grant

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A Talk With Nancy Mayer, Regency Researcher

Posted in 18th Century England, 19th Century England, Georgian Life, Georgian London, History, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Customs, Regency Etiquette, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , on February 2, 2011| 4 Comments »

Inquiring readers,

For those of you who have not yet visited Nancy Mayer’s beautiful website, you are in for a treat. Click here to enter Nancy Mayer, Regency Researcher: A most proper authority on all things Regency. Nancy has been a member of JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America) for some time. She was a member of a local chapter in 1990-1994, then started up a new chapter in 1996, and has been the regional coordinator for northern Georgia since then. Nancy has been researching Regency England for more than twenty years, and finds Google books a big help. While she is responsible for the text on her website, Susan Newman designed the web pages and added the illustrations. Nancy graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions:

1. How and when did you become interested in Jane Austen’s novels?

This is probably heresy, but I came to Austen and her novels because I wanted to learn more about Regency life. I had heard of Pride and Prejudice and seen the old Lawrence Olivier movie, but hadn’t gone any further with it or the other novels until I became interested in the Regency period. After reading Jane Austen’s letters, and some biographical data on her, I started in on her novels. I joined a discussion group in Atlanta around 1990 and haven’t looked back since. Even after twenty years of discussing the novels there is always something new to be found. I am not one who has memorized the books and don’t read them all over every year, but I usually find some new insight each time I do.

2. Which is your favorite Jane Austen book and/or character, and why?

Persuasion. Anne Elliot is my favorite character. She is more mature than the other heroines and so doesn’t make the mistakes they do. One seldom has to blush for her. I also think Wentworth is more romantic than Darcy, but I wouldn’t want to be a sailor’s wife.

3. You are considered an authority on the topic of Jane Austen and the Regency period, and your breadth of knowledge about the era astounds me. What are some of your favorite topics to research and why?

You flatter me. The more I research the more I discover what I don’t know. I like to research marriage, titles, peerage, the law, and mourning rules. I find property law most confusing, and barely know a VanDyke fringe from a scalloped one.

One can find all sorts of period books on Google books.

I am also interested in Lord Byron who was Jane Austen’s contemporary, His life gives the masculine and aristocratic elements missing in Jane Austen’s life. Though they both were alive from 1809 to 1817, one could sometimes think they lived at different times.

4. For the casual (but avid) Jane Austen reader, what are some sources you would recommend for further reading?

  • My Dear Cassandra:The letters of Jane Austen, Selected and introduced by Penelope Hughes Hallet. Clarkston Potter Publishers or Collins & Brown 1990, ISBN 0-51758312-7
  • Some might want the complete letters edited by Deirdre Le Faye, or the ones edited by John Chapman.
  • The novels published by Oxford have great appendices. Some of the Critical editions of the novels have appendices. One should have a copy of Lover’s Vows in one’s Copy of Mansfield Park. There are annotated versions of the stories with explanations of obscure and not so obscure points, and there are even comic book editions of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. No matter one’s taste or interests, one should be able to find a connection with Jane Austen.
  • Mrs. Hurst Dancing by Diana Sperling. This isn’t about Jane Austen but the illustrations of the Sperling family could be those of the Younger Dashwoods or the Bennets. # ISBN-10: 0575030356 # ISBN-13: 978-0575030350. Some are exceedingly expensive, but there are remaindered copies and second-hand copies at reasonable prices.
  • Jane Austen and Her times by G.E. Mitton, originally published 1905, 2007 Barnes and Noble.
  • Also there are probably fifty books out there covering everything from Jane Austen and Art to Jane Austen and Zombies. I know of book on Jane Austen and Food, Jane Austen and Crime, Jane Austen and fashion, ( and Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen).
  • Those who like quizzes and challenges might like: Jane Austen Challenge by Helen Barton: BartonBooks (June 2009) # ISBN-10: 0952725754 # ISBN-13: 978-0952725756
  • Also, So you Think You Know Jane Austen? By John Sutherland and Deidre le Faye Oxford University press, ISBN 0-19-280440-5

5. Would you like to share a common misconception about the Regency period with our readers, one that is wrongly perpetuated by book sources, websites, and blogs?

A general error I have found is thinking that the marriage laws, the church, and laws of inheritance were the same then as they are now. Many think the regency period was just like today, but in costume and with horses.

Nancy, thank you for sharing your wonderful insights. I hope readers will bookmark your website and visit it often. It’s best feature, as far as I am concerned, is your answers to their specific questions, like a personal researcher.

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Review: I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend, by Cora Harrison

Posted in 18th Century England, Austenesque novels, Book review, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Regency letters, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency society, Regency World, tagged , , on January 1, 2011| 5 Comments »

I recently finished reading a charming book by Cora Harrison, I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend, in which Jane Austen has just reached the age of 15. It is February, 1791, and 16-year-old Jenny Cooper has slipped out of Mrs. Crawley’s boarding school to post a letter to Steventon Rectory warning Rev. and Mrs. Austen that their daughter, Jane, is seriously ill. By doing so, Jenny risks her reputation, for she ventures out alone and unescorted in a rough area of Portsmouth.

This scene sets the stage for the rest of the novel, in which young Jenny Cooper chronicles the months she spends with her best friend Jane and the Austens at the rectory.  The girls are avid writers: while Jane spins her creative tales, Jenny describes their routine days in her journal. And what days they were! Jenny observes Jane’s family and friends minutely: her gentle father and stern mother; her charming favorite brother, Henry, and the mentally challenged George, who lived with another family; Cassandra’s love for Tom Fowle; exotic cousin Eliza; the well-dressed Bigg sisters; and other vivid portraits of the people who inhabited Jane’s and Jenny’s world.

Jane Austen reads at Jenny's bedside. Image@Susan Hellard

The scenes are culled from actual events in Jane’s life and from letters that others wrote about her (for none of her letters from that time have survived). As teenagers are wont to do, Jenny and Jane dream of romantic encounters and parties and balls, engage in outdoor activities, and while away their time reading and writing and play-acting, or wishing for pretty gowns.

Image @Susan Hellard

The scene in which a pinch-penny Mrs. Austen must decide which color muslin would look best for ball gowns for all three girls (Cassandra, Jane and Jenny) is priceless, and the descriptions of tender romance between Cassandra and young Tom are heartbreaking to those who know he will die before they can be married. Tom LeFroy makes a suitably short appearance, and Jenny meets handsome Captain Thomas Williams, who in real life became engaged to her within three weeks of their first meeting, and whom she later married before her own untimely death.

Jenny witnessed Jane writing constantly and being inspired by the people she observed. For example, Jenny’s shrill sister-in-law, Augusta, becomes the prototype for Mrs. Elton and Mr. Collins is somewhat inspired by Jenny’s preachy brother.

Augusta. Image @Susan Hellard

While I found the book a delight, not everyone has been thrilled with its purchase. The American cover of I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend is a bit mature for a novel that targets young girls of eleven or so, but it explains the reason why so many older readers are buying the book.

This is what a high school  reviewer had to say about the U.S. cover: “… if you plan on buying [the book] at any time soon, make sure to check out the U.K. version… the cover art is so much cuter!” In fact, the U.K. cover (below) enjoyed the author’s full approval, and was drawn by Susan Hellard, the artist responsible for the charming illustrations displayed in this post and that are sprinkled throughout the book.

Page from the book, in which Jane describes some of her siblings. The style of writing is aimed at a very young audience. Drawings @Susan Hellard.

In writing this novel, Cora Harrison has kept her very young audience in mind. As you can see from the sample page above, the sentences are short and written in plain English, speech patterns and terms from the 18th century are kept to a minimum, the romance is sweet, and the story is written from a young lady’s point of view. While Ms.Harrison hoped that this book would introduce Jane Austen to very young readers, she also envisioned that mothers and grandmothers would enjoy reading the novel as well.

The book's U.K. cover

I have gone into great detail about the author’s intentions for a reason. Reviews of this book, while largely favorable, are varied. Lower rankings come largely from disappointed adult readers who expected a mature romance and a “more interesting plot.” But as the author wrote to me: “I didn’t want to do an in-depth analysis of love. I wanted to do a fun book, romantic in an old-fashioned style.”

Purists have also decried the changes in facts, dates, and characters, but isn’t it the novelist’s prerogative to change historical facts in order to move the plot forward? Besides, Ms. Harrison made her reasons for these changes clear in her Author’s Note in back of the book, which should have been placed as a Foreword. I also think that annotated notes for juvenile readers (such as those included for book clubs), would help adults explain some of the more obscure facts about the Georgian period to their children and place events in the novel in context.

Be that as it may, I rarely read review books from cover to cover, but I kept reading this one until I was finished (and then wished I had a daughter to give it to). This is a sweet book, filled with useful details about life in England 200 years ago. Ms. Harrison’s conjectures on how the Austens lived and interacted with each other is based on the letters and information about Jane that survived. After reading these pages, it is clear that Cora Harrison wrote her novel as an homage to Jane Austen. She also is an author with a mission. “As a teacher I am realistic enough to know that girls won’t automatically read Jane Austen unless their interest is awakened and I hoped to do that…”

More on the topic:

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