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Classic Literature. Fiction. Romance. Historical Fiction. HTML:In the vein of Downton Abbey, Jane Austen's beloved but unfinished masterpieceâ??often considered her most modern and exciting novelâ??gets a spectacular second act in this tie-in to a major new limited television series. Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success. The twists and turns of the plot, which takes viewers from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, exposes the hidden agendas of each character and sees Charlotte discover herself... and ultimately find… (more)
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Charlotte Heywood is a sensible young woman of twenty-two, the eldest child in a family of fourteen children. Because of the number of children, the Heywoods are never able to visit anywhere fashionable. So when chance throws the Heywoods together with the gentleman proprietor of a new seaside resort, Sanditon, the family is delighted that Charlotte is invited to spend the summer there. The Parkers are a kind and respectable family, though Mr. Parker is perhaps a trifle gullible on the point of his pet project, Sanditon.
When Charlotte arrives, she finds plentiful subjects for her great pleasure, observing the behavior of others. Lady Denham is the principal leader of Sanditon society, and despite her riches she is shamefully parsimonious, selfish, and mean. Her suspicious nature makes life very difficult for her dependent cousin, the lovely Miss Clara Brereton. Sir Edward Denham and his sister Miss Denham are hangers-on at Lady Denham's elbow, hoping for a share of the inheritance. Sir Edward â a passionate young man with more feeling than sense â hopes to woo the fair Clara. But what does Clara want?
Add to the mix a young mulatto heiress of weak health, Miss Lambe; two coquettish young fortune-hunters, the Misses Beaufort; Mr. Parker's two hypochondriac sisters, Diana and Susan, who have taught their other brother, Arthur, to be as worried over his health as they; and Mr. Sidney Parker, the last of the Parker siblings, who is a joking, intelligent, and apparently untruthful young man. He brings his two friends, Henry Brudenall and Reginald Catton, to the neighborhood as well. The young ladies are excessively interested in the possibilities afforded by the influx of so many eligible gentlemen. Charlotte, feeling herself possessed of no particular beauty or fortune to tempt any of them, is content to observe the machinations of the party as each person politely connives to get his way.
Jane Austen's part of the story ends with chapter eleven, and it really is a pity that she was unable to finish. I would love to know the full storyline that she had in mind. While it is not immediately apparent where the join comes in, things get a little out of hand as the story progresses. The plot becomes a bit uncharacteristic and the characters begin to say and do things that do not always feel authentic. Sir Edward, for example, seems altogether unfit to be an Austenian character (even for a villain) when he fails to carry off Clara and decides to abduct Charlotte instead. I know Austen laid the foundation for this with Sir Edward's unhealthy obsession with novels in which the hero can never control his passion for the heroine, but eesh! Abduction in an Austen novel?
The person most inconsistent with the Austenian formula, however, is Charlotte herself. I can understand how she would inadvertently fall in love with Sidney, but to confess that she would have done whatever he wanted, regardless of her moral convictions â it just doesn't feel right. Austen's heroines are perhaps weak at times in controlling their feelings, but they can always control their actions and regulate their behavior with good sense. The way it sounds in this book is that Charlotte would have eloped with Sidney, against all her notions of morality, if he had but asked her. Sidney's desire, to have a wife who is sensible in all things except him, comes across as egotistical and selfish rather than amusing (as it would seem that "Another Lady" intended). The justification for all the lies he tells throughout the story feels a bit threadbare.
But there were some good points with the completion, too. I enjoyed the other characters and found them mostly believable. The dialogue was fairly good, though sometimes the acerbic narrative asides were a bit too pointed ("look at me! I'm being snarky in Regency language!"). However, I was mollified by the note at the end of the completion, in which the author gives the reasons for her plot additions and apologizes for the deficiencies of her work. It's good that she acknowledges that she cannot perfectly imitate Austen's style â because, of course, she can't. I'm not sure anyone can. "Another Lady" was certainly brave to make the attempt!
Overall I would say I enjoyed this quite a bit, despite its flaws. It was wonderful escaping to another Austenian world, with all its absurd characters who are somehow believable. I would tweak the completion a bit, mostly in terms of the abduction scene and the moral character of Charlotte, but I'm glad I read it. And it could have been much worse; with the "continuations" of Austen's novels written nowadays, with graphic sex scenes and extremely modern characters, I feel very thankful that this completion did not veer into territory so antithetical to Austen's portrayal of Regency England. It could have been better, but it also could have been much worse, and I believe that most Austen fans would enjoy this. An enjoyable read.
She just wrote the first eleven
part.
What sould I say about it? First of all I found this part interesting and quite Austen-like, I think the development of the story is certainly in the style Jane Austen would have ended it herself, I mean the matches and relations established are very much in her style and no strangesness aroused from them. The writing style is also good and though it is certainly not Jane's it fits perfectly well.
So where's the problem? I think it's mainly in the ending and in some phrases and little details of the characters behavior that the 'Another Lady' is not faithful to her and a more 20th century approach is taken. Some phrases and manners are so far from the typical from Jane's heroines and suitors that I could not help thinking 'this is not Jane' several times while reading the last chapters.
In spite of these I have greatly enjoyed the book and I am very much satisfied with the brave author that dared to end this novel.
To properly explain to you why I love this
Anyway, I was about to give up and write off all Austen adaptations as puerile trash, but I had one more book in my stack of library books that was waiting to be read. I was really hesitant to read it, not only because it was another Austen adaptation, but because it was an adaptation of the very same work I'd just finished and loathed. Even if it turned out marginally better (I wasn't expecting much), I doubted I'd be able to separate it from the crap that filled the other book. But I decided to suck it up and give it a chance, and oh my sweet Jane, if it didn't completely change my mind about Austen adaptations. It was a revelation.
Now, I'm not saying this was perfect by any means. And I don't know how Jane Herself would have actually finished out the story (the fragment, if you didn't know, is 11 chapters long, so a good amount of the groundwork had been laid), but I have to say, Dobbs did a really admirable job of taking what she had to work with, parsing it out and figuring out where Austen may have intended the story to go, as well as where modern readers might want it to go, and then embracing that and going there. Aside from one particular sub-plot (that of the foolish wannabe-rake who takes things too far), I really didn't have any trouble believing that the story Dobbs presented was the one Jane intended. It has her characteristic wit, and skewers the foibles of a population in a very Jane-like way. The hero and heroine Dobbs presents feel very well-suited to each other and to Austen's world, like they may be close to what Austen intended of them, and most of the things they go through worked for me.
I was also very impressed with how seamlessly Dobbs blended her writing with Austen's. I was so invested in the story (both the first and second times I read it) that I was 3/4 of the way through before I ever had the thought to wonder where specifically Austen's fragment left off and Dobbs writing picked up. I had to google, and then flip back and forth and compare. Dobbs did a very admirable job of mimicking Austen's tone and style without feeling forced or hitting many false notes. She captured that sly sense of humor, the sharp eye towards the follies of others, the characterization, the structure - she really took her time to make the story and the style - Austen's style - shine, rather than letting her own style intrude. Rather, when it came time for her to take over the story, she injected her style gradually, so that - even though the plot does become more absurd and somewhat modern in its telling - the transition happens at such a good pace, and the style remains consistent enough, that the reader is never jarred out of the story by an abrupt shift in style or content.
Now, four years later, my "Summer of Jane" - which was to be a single, read-it-all and move on project - has evolved into a yearly tradition, and I've stumbled across many more good - and more than my share of bad - adaptations. To make sure my enjoyment of Sanditon wasn't a fluke due to the horrid nature of the other adaptations I'd read, I bought a copy and curled up with it for a second time. It wasn't a fluke; I fell just as in love with it as I did the first time around, and if it weren't for the fact that people would look at me like, Who? in Austen conversations, I'd talk just as readily of Charlotte and Sidney as I do of Elizabeth and Darcy, Catherine and Tilney, Wentworth and Anne... This was the first Austen adaptation I read that made me feel anything even close to what I felt the first time I read any of Austen's works, and it remains one of the few to have done so.
I am not sure who "Another Lady" may be, but as
Unless, of course, I decide to read her letters... hmmm - now there's an idea!
Gricel @ things-she-read.org
âAnother Ladyâ says
I imagine this was how Wheel of Time fans felt when Robert Jordan died before finishing his final novel in the series. Good thing he left extensive notes. Unfortunately Jane Austen didnât, all âAnother Ladyâ knew was that 1) in five of six novels, the heroine lives in a country village until a rich bachelor arrives 2) each heroine has a rival and 3) nobody dies on stage and you can expect a happy ending.
It all starts with a coupleâs carriage being overturned near the heroine Charlotte's home. Because her family helps them out and takes care of the gentlemanâs ankle they take Charlotte back home with them to Sanditon, a seaside resort for a vacation. There Charlotte meets all sorts of dashing and extravagant people. Including Mr. Parkerâs brother Sidney. One thing I really loved about Sidney Parker was he reminded me of Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey my favorite Austen novel. Sidney is charming and witty and teases Charlotte mercilessly. This is hilarious because her character is extremely practical and cautious and he disconcerts her to the point of bafflement.
Some hardcore fans claim the novel was better left unfinished, but Iâm glad âAnother Ladyâ did. I mean you have to give her credit for even attempting. She admits that Austenâs writing canât be faithfully copied and for that she apologizes, and I donât mind. To be honest I didnât notice the switching of authors, it was that seamless to me. Iâm not a scholar on the subject though so maybe to others it would be more evident. The ending was more like a Georgette Heyer ending in that it was a bit more fantastical, but that made it all the more enjoyable.
If youâre an Austen or Heyer fan read it. Take it to the beach and laugh. I hold Charlotte Heywood and Sidney Parker right up there with Austenâs other characters. "Another Lady" did a really good job.
The first eleven chapters penned by Austen introduce the cast and set the scene. A carriage overturns in a small town on the Sussex coast, and the gentleman travelling within seeks medical assistance for a threatened sprained ankle. He is Mr Parker of Sanditon, a seaside village, with his wife, Mrs Parker. They meet a kind farmer by the name of Mr Heywood, who takes the beleaguered travellers home to meet his family of a wife and fourteen children. In return, the Parkers offer to transport the whole Heywood family on with them to Sanditon, which Mr Parker likes to promote as a bathing place and modern health resort. Mr Heywood declines on his own part, but accepts for his eldest daughter, Charlotte, who becomes the Parkersâ house guest. When the three of them finally reach Sanditon, Charlotte finds not a populous location like Brighton or Eastbourne, but instead a small community by the sea, being slowly transformed into an up and coming holiday destination by Mr Parker and his co-sponsor, Lady Denham. There she meets Mr Parkerâs brothers, Sidney and Arthur, and his two hypochondriac sisters, Susan and Diana. Lady Denhamâs hateful relations are also on the scene, including the pompous and ridiculous Sir Edward and his sister Miss Denham, plus a distant cousin, Clara Brereton, who is on probation as Lady Denhamâs companion. And a veritable influx of summer guests are promised to arrive at Sanditon any day, but there might be some confusion as to numbers.
And then, after presenting all of Sanditonâs inhabitants to the reader and hinting at a secret romance between two of the characters, Jane Austen died. Marie Dobbs picks up on mid-paragraph, but loses the irony and sharp wit of Austenâs writing in almost the same chapter. Instead of letting the characters make fools of themselves, Dobbs mocks them through the penetrating observations of her snotty heroine, Charlotte. Austenâs Sir Edward spends half a page expounding on romance novels, but Dobbs cuts to the chase, and condemns him for using ânonsensical words and inappropriate quotationsâ. Charlotte herself turns from a laughing Elizabeth Bennet into a prudish Fanny Price, and seems ill-matched with the only decent suitor of the set, Mr Parkerâs brother Sidney, who is himself an unappealing combination of Frank Churchill and Henry Tilney. The rest of the characters are little more than caricatures, from the fussy Parker sisters to the Misses Steele â sorry, wrong novel â Beaufort, staying at the hotel. I donât mind comic relief, if the characters are actually amusing, or at least pleasant, but I didnât even like the heroine of this novel. The only pair I was actually happy for was Arthur Parker and Miss Lambe, who at least didnât mess around and deserved their happiness.
The direction of the story is fairly predictable, and painfully slow to get to the point â which is fine when reading Austen, but not a pale imitation. There are pages of dialogue about toast and seaweed, all in the proper language but not really helpful to the plot and tedious to read. The romances are signalled from the beginning, and the lovers too flat and pathetic to care about. I think Dobbs was struggling with so many names and relationships, because nobody really makes the grade in the end. How I wish Austen could have finished her own novel, or at least written a few more notes before she died.
Here is the
Alas, I found Sanditon hard going. Despite being an Austen die-hard, I could not summon up the same level of enthusiasm as I always have with Ms. Austen's (for me) perfect Regency novels. Perhaps that is why one cannot imitate another author. There is a fine touch, an aliveness, a magicality to each author's work that can be copied but never perfectly imitated.
Jane Austen wrote the first eleven chapters and `Another Lady' took over from there. While reading, I have been wondering if Ms Austen meant the story to go in this direction. The story seems to flounder in the new author's hands. I found her descriptions fussy, overly-detailed and, in places, laboured. While the framework of dry, sly wit and detailed observations of people, places, actions, and daily activities remain, the enchantment of Jane Austen's style is lost. The women are silly and dull-witted (even the increasingly vacillating heroine); the men lack any kind of depth or gallantry, and sorrow comes across as the sulks in a few instances.
I find Sydney Parker shallow, sly and manipulative and cannot believe that Charlotte does not instantly dismiss him from her (increasingly scattered) mind. Many of the lesser players do, however, have the wonderful absurdity characteristic of an Austen work--the busybodies, the chatterboxes, the hypochondriacs, and the industriously idle. For me it is not true Austen in terms of the plot development, but as I said, some of the players are really memorable little gems. The Misses Beaufort could easily be 21st-century socialites by the way they latch onto the latest fashions and fads. Their activities with collecting, drying and pressing seaweed are hilarious. Despite these little glimmers, I found Sanditon seriously disappointing.
Starting to read this book, I found myself entering into that singular rhythm found in Austen novel; smiling to myself at the quaintness, and delighting as she drew out characters. But there was a point when things no longer felt "right". The characters changed, and the writing seemed to bear the complexities of a more modern hand. By about chapter 14, I put the book down and began to investigate more thoroughly where the break was from Austen's original and the pen of Another Lady. This apparently occurs in chapter 11, where Austen was outlining the situation of the twice-widowed Lady Denham, who was living back in the home of her first (deceased) husband, who was not titled. His portrait was on the wall in a corner, while Sir Henry's occupied a more prominent place of honor over the mantle. The last sentence Austen wrote, was on this, and shows her typical delicious style/ "Poor Mr Hollis! It was impossible not to feel him hardly used; to be obliged to stand back in his own house and see the best place by the fire constantly occupied by Sir Henry Denham"
I think I almost enjoyed my research more than the actual novel (which was one my mother got as a library discard, and passed on to me.) I did both online reading and then discovered an afterward in this edition that gave nice info.
Normally, I steer clear of novels "in the style of", but this was nice to read, and I must admit that I am rather proud of myself for picking out the change in authorship.
It was okay, but I would not consider it a Jane Austen novel. The first 11 chapters were hers and the rest of the story was okay, but I
However, after my experience with Aiken's Watsons completion, I didn't expect much from the 1975 completion by "Another Lady" For what it's worth, I loved it. No, I'm not saying "Another Lady" (from the copyright apparently Marie Dobbs) is Austen's equal. But she tacked on her story seamlessly from where Austen ended, developed the characters very nicely and seemed to get the period details right. On its own terms, this is a winning historical romance, and I loved in particularly how she developed the hero, Sidney Parker, from the bare hints in what was left to us. I agree with the review below that he rivals Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey in wit and charm. I've been unimpressed by most of the Jane Austen pastiches I've tried, this one left me with a smile. One point off to indicate no, this doesn't rank with those of Austen's novels completed by her, but the story is very enjoyable and earned a permanent place on my bookshelf.
This gets off to a somewhat slow start as itâs busy introducing characters and setting the scene of this close-knit seaside community, plus rather than immediately settling in with one of the
Sadly Sanditon stops before there was time enough to truly dig into the personalities of the three heroines, Charlotte, Miss Lambe (a mixed race character which could have been refreshing for a book of this era depending on how she might have developed) and Clara, but I was intrigued by Edwardâs villainous intentions, it seemed like that could get pretty juicy in a conflicting Henry Crawford sort of way.
I havenât watched the mini-series of this yet, but you could definitely see why someone would want to expand on this story, thereâs a ton of potential here.
Unfortunately I was not impressed with the Davies version of Pride and Prejudice so I was slightly concerned with what he would do
As a romance story it was an entertaining read, with its interesting characters, especially the Parker family and Charlotte Heywood. I also got to like the characters of Lady Dernham and Esther Denham.
But I felt the sexual innuendos were crude and totally unnecessary for a work supposedly based on a Jane Austen fragment, and some of the characters seemed extreme or acted in an extreme way.
I certainly have preferred other finished versions and it was disappointing to find that the story is not finished. Overall an enjoyable read but not a great read.
Received a paperback copy for review
The first eleven chapters of Jane Austen have
An enjoyable and well-written re-read.
Advanced Readers' Copy provided by Libro.fm
The storyline involves a strong female character, Charlotte Heywood, who meets Mr. & Mrs. Parker due to a carriage accident that occurs near her home at Willingden, Sussex, where she lives with her parents and siblings. She is later invited to the visit and stay with the Parkers. Mr. Parker is an entrepreneur who is transforming a small fishing village into a seaside resort at Sanditon. Charlotte meets the second son of Mr. and Mrs. Parker, and it appears a relationship may develop between the two.
This is where the new material begins. It includes much more contemporary content than anything ever written by Jane Austen. It includes cursing, anachronisms, and much more sexual content than anything in Austenâs chaste romances. I did not care for the new material. I wish there had been some attempt to blend the two styles. Oh well. For me, the first half is great. The second is awful.