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First let me say how happy I am to get a chance to appear here on This Book for Free!

I’m the author of a humorous Regency romance An Improper Suitor and two Austenesque novels, The Other Mr. Darcy and The Darcy Cousins.

People often ask me what it is about Jane Austen that inspires me to write spin-offs or Austenesques (I hesitate to use the word sequel). At first sight is seems like a strange choice. Why would I want to hark back to something that was written all of two hundred years ago?

On the most basic level (and I mean most basic), Pride and Prejudice is the blueprint for our most common romances today. The powerful/rich man falling in love with the poor, socially more insignificant young woman is fleshed out fully for the first time by Jane Austen and has become the tried and true plot that is repeated endlessly in romances today. In that sense, part of Jane Austen’s mass appeal today is that her plot is so easily recognizable. It is something familiar, with an unfamiliar setting – a fairy tale setting, I might add, because it’s about balls and carriages, footmen and palatial mansions. Add to it, you have a “feisty” young heroine and a glamorous young hero who fall gloriously in love. How many little girls dress themselves in long gowns and pretend to be “princesses”? Yet Jane Austen’s people are that fairy tale embodied – real life people who “go to the ball” and dance and perhaps lose their delicate silk slippers, although Elizabeth Bennet is more likely to get her half-boots mired in mud. It’s the quintessential fairy tale converted into real life.

But to sum up Pride and Prejudice this way is to do Jane Austen an injustice. There’s no doubt that Pride and Prejudice is a gorgeous romance. But it’s also about a lot of other things that are not as easy for us to appreciate because they’re rooted in the historical reality of her time. From a 21^st century perspective, some of these topics are more easily recognizable than others.  The class structure and initial snobbery of Mr. Darcy, the equivalent of our modern multi-millionaire, his acquaintances, and his aunt Lady Catherine come across loud and clear. Some of the other issues she writes about are not as easy to recognize. Things like the fragility of women’s reputations, the unfairness of inheritance laws, the dependence of the clergy on patronage, the restrictions on women that prevented them from pursuing what they wanted (for example, Jane’s not being able to go and give Bingley a good shake and bring him to his senses). Jane Austen herself was very aware of these things, dependent as she was on the goodwill of the males around her for getting her novels published as well as having somewhere to live and to write.

Yet again, though, Austen would have fallen by the wayside long ago if her writing depended only on romance and her depiction of a historical lifestyle that is no longer relevant to readers not interested in historical romance. Beyond that, it is her characters that have survived the test of time. Who could ever forget Mrs Bennet with her “nerves” and her inability to understand her husband? Mr. Collins, with his artificial complements and his worship of the powerful Lady Catherine? The flighty, thick skinned Lydia who never realizes how close she has come to ruin? The list goes on. Then there is the sly humour that makes fun of us even as we read, the polished style that controls point of view so well that she takes us for a ride. And many other small things that make up a novel which still speaks to us two hundred years later.

I could go on and on. But the point is that to me these characters are still alive two hundred years after they were written. They are alive enough for me to want to discover more about them. I want to become their friend, to learn more about Darcy’s sister, the shy young woman who lives in his shadow. I want to know what happened to Anne de Bourgh, who hardly says a word during Elizabeth’s visit to Rosings Park, who has to live, like her cousin Georgiana, in the shadow of someone whose personality is so much stronger. I wanted them to get a chance in life, to emerge from the shadows into the sunlight. This is why I wrote The Darcy Cousins. I wanted a story full of fun, full of the dazzle of balls and picnics by the ruins of an Abbey, of secret plans and of rowing on the Thames, things that would make us laugh and bring some joy into the cold world of Rosings Park.

For those of you who love Pride and Prejudice as I do, what do you think is the secret of Jane Austen’s success?

THE DARCY COUSINS BY MONICA FAIRVIEW—IN STORES APRIL 2010

A young lady in disgrace should at least strive to behave with decorum…

Dispatched from America to England under a cloud of scandal, Mr. Darcy’s incorrigible American cousin, Clarissa Darcy, manages to provoke Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Collins, and the parishioners of Hunsford all in one morning!

And there are more surprises in store for that bastion of tradition, Rosings Park, when the family gathers for their annual Easter visit. Georgiana Darcy, generally a shy model of propriety, decides to take a few lessons from her unconventional cousin, to the delight of a neighboring gentleman. Anne de Bourgh, encouraged to escape her “keeper” Mrs. Jenkinson, simply…vanishes. But the trouble really starts when Clarissa and Georgiana both set out to win the heart of the same young man…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Literature professor Monica Fairview loves teaching students the joys of reading. But after years of postponing the urge, she finally realized that what she really wanted to do was write.  The author of The Other Mr. Darcy and An Improper Suitor, the American-born Ms. Fairview currently resides in London. For more information, please visit www.monicafairview.com.

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