Emma Watson: Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel Completed by Joan Aiken

Description

Jane Austen gave life to the fictional Watson family in 1803, but sadly abandoned them five chapters in - now Joan Aiken completes their story in her ingenious novel, Emma Watson. Emma Watson has been brought up by her aunt in a wealthy and refined household, an educated lifestyle far removed from her widowed father and five siblings. So when her aunt enters into an imprudent second marriage, nineteen-year-old Emma is sent back home and must join her sisters in their pursuit of a husband . . . Aiken takes on the fate of Austen's characters with confidence and skill, flawlessly entwining themes of loss and love together in this stunning regency pastiche.

Joan Aiken was born in Rye, Sussex in 1924, daughter of the American poet Conrad Aiken, and started writing herself at the age of five. Since the 1960s she wrote full time and published over 100 books. Best known for her children's books such as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and Midnight is a Place, she also wrote extensively for adults and published many contemporary and historical novels, including sequels to novels by Jane Austen. In 1968 she won the Guardian Children's book prize for Whispering Mountain, followed by an Edgar Allan Poe award for Night Fall in 1972, and was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature in 1999. Joan Aiken died in 2004.

Shows a confident hand in reworking the various plots and philosophies for which Jane Austen is so admired -- Sarah Francis * Times Literary Supplement * Aiken forces us to see what Austen made her own heroines see: themselves from another perspective -- Lizzie Skurnick * New York Times Book Review * Her sense of time and place is impeccable. Others may try but nobody comes close to Aiken in writing Jane Austen sequels * Publishers Weekly * Aiken displays a lively turn of invention, not to mention assiduous research into her period . . . undoubtedly entertaining, a pretty, lively, amusing little pastiche -- Jane Shilling * Sunday Telegraph *