“I adored this book—
set in Jane's beloved world, but giving us new characters to love—instead of blasphemously tampering with her creations as so many pseudo-sequels have done. How refreshing, also, that the story was written from the male viewpoint, and we could follow Edmund all the way to Antigua, instead of languishing in English drawing rooms whilst awaiting his return. Edmund can truly take his place next to Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley, and it is nice that, unlike those two paragons of all male virtues, we are actually allowed to know what is going on inside his head.”

—A Reader

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To Readers
of Jane Austen’s Novels

The Janeite (sometimes called an Austenite) is always wishing there were more Austen. The Janeite reads the six published novels many times over, and the unfinished novels, and the juvenilia, and the letters, and the biographies. Then starvation sets in.

There is, of course, something to be gleaned from the pseudo-sequels, depending on the intensity of the deprivation; then from the cinematic adaptations, and from films that borrow themes or plots from Austen, and from the novels and films of Austen’s life itself; and then from the handbooks and the literary-critical essays. But resorting to these, even though some are wonderful attempts in themselves, is like subsisting on gruel after feasting on nutritious food: Use the stuff, but only if you must do so to survive.

The fact is that there simply is no such thing as more Jane.

But what if there were a novel that was not about Jane or about any of her characters but still caught some of the elusive elements that Austenites love about Jane Austen’s books?

It would have to be written by a Janeite. It would have to be romantic and yet realistic; it would have to be ingenuous and yet satirical. It would have to be set in Austen’s era. But it need not pretend to be Jane. It would have license to be different from Jane.

That is the balance that is so difficult to achieve: being like Jane without clumsily aping Jane.

After all, a gift received should be given onwards; and what Jane gave us ought to be given again, in a new form, so far as it lies in our power to give it.

In this spirit, Mermaid Press of Maine presents

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Not a Janeite? See our FAQ, “Is this book only for readers who like Jane Austen?”