by Kathryn Nelson, guest blogger and author of Pemberley Manor.

Of all of the dozens of sequels to and adaptations of Jane Austen's work, none, including mine, claim to approach her extraordinary style and ability to delight and endure, but I see my book as an entertaining adjunct to her work.  The reader is quickly drawn into a maze of confusions and missteps which leads them, Jane Austen style, to a happy ending - or does it?

From a review by Laura Boyle in the Jane Austen Regency World Online Magazine:

Scenes of marital felicity between Darcy and Elizabeth abound and are explored in a delicate and tasteful way. Sometimes heartbreaking and often humorous, the story will keep readers intrigued to the last... "

I recently heard a writer interviewed who said he doesn't like to read, and doesn't have time for it anyway. I can't wrap my mind around either of those thoughts, and when the two are put together, I'm lost. If I didn't read, I don't think I would write. My writing is the product of being poked and prodded by things I've read or heard into a new direction of thought. Every answer creates a question for me.

I have to admit that writing a sequel to someone else's story is taking that concept a bit further than I ever imagined. The writing of Pemberley Manor was an obsession that took hold of me after watching the BBC/A&E production of Pride and Prejudice in 1995. Jane Austen's works seem to call out for sequels unlike any other author I know. The works of other great authors often call for adaptations, interpretations, modernizations. Austen has garnered more than her share of those too, but no other author living or dead has, to my knowledge, inspired as many direct sequels - continuations of the lives of her characters - as she has.

I have at times wondered if Jane herself is channeling, stirring the pot to see what people make of her couples. Surely she knew that their lives after marriage would be a different story, and if it wasn't her story to tell, it doesn't necessarily follow that she wouldn't have found it interesting to contemplate.

For me, the struggles and disastrous misunderstandings, the unfolding of a deeper understanding between two people, can't really happen until the happily ever after is well on its way. And Jane Austen gives us scant help in judging how this marriage will work. One day, well into the ramble that eventually became Pemberley Manor I actually spent a day copying out the words of Fitzwilliam Darcy to try to make out his character, following Elizabeth 's example when she danced with him at the Netherfield Ball. Taken altogether, Darcy's words in Pride and Prejudice amount to a very few pages, including one disastrous monologue meant to serve as a marriage proposal and one terribly long letter, only marginally better.

In both cases, Darcy admits unapologetically that he persuaded his friend Bingley to stop romancing Elizabeth 's beloved sister Jane. Did he think that would endear him to her? Did she forget that small detail when she visited his estate in Derbyshire and blushed at the thought of being Mistress of Pemberley?

I find Darcy impenetrable, just as Elizabeth did initially. She, in the meantime, uses her arsenal of alternately witty and angry retorts to hide her own feelings, which she surely must have noticed some time before she saw the extent of his property. Right up until the wedding brings everything around right, Jane takes her characters only a small step toward mutual understanding, from shredding one another to a gentle teasing. Their only serious conversation happens during his second proposal, and once Darcy has laid his soul bare, Elizabeth jumps into the breach and begins to joke again.

I'm banking on a difficult marriage here. Nick and Nora Charles meet Catherine and Heathcliff. Take the wedding night, for instance. Darcy behaves in a most ungentleman-like manner, not for the first time, and Elizabeth throws in the towel, leaping to a conclusion in her usual style:

"Mr Darcy, pray allow me to suggest a remedy for your most evident distress. Since our marriage has not yet been consummated, I believe you would find little difficulty in securing the offices of a good clergyman in the neighbourhood to perform an annulment immediately. It can serve neither of us to continue as man and wife when there are so little grounds to suppose we could offer one another any reasonable hope of future happiness. Indeed, it seems certain that our expectations of one another are wholly irreconcilable."

She was not prepared for the anguish that met her eyes when he raised his head.

"Is that your wish, madam?" he asked hoarsely.

Well, of course that's not her wish, or Pemberley Manor would have been a very short novel. I hope I'll be forgiven for treading on sacred ground. The truth is, I just couldn't stop myself. Thanks for allowing me on board. I'd welcome feedback from your readers on the subject of sequels: are they flattering or flagrant abuse of an author's property?

Originally posted 2009-04-01 05:54:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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adaptations, adjunct, bbc, boyle, confusions, darcy, dozens, felicity, Jane Austen, jane austen style, Kathryn Nelson, maze, new direction, obsession, sequel, sequels