Ellen Mary Soule

An Emma sequel which begins with the story of Sir Rupert Broom Drew who has had enough of London society and decides to move to the country. Soon he finds an establishment near Box Hill, called Tinkling Towers near the village of Highbury.
After a disastrous marriage Jane Churchill nee Fairfax is back in Highbury. Hopefully the gentleman Emma has selected for her is not as weak-willed as Churchill is.
The tale continues with the story of the children's lives and their romantic entanglements.
An enjoyable story… (altro)

I can't resist any form of sequel, retelling or updating of Jane Austen's Emma; my literary quest is now to read every ode to one of my favourite novels that I come across, from the Austen Project (Alexander McCall Smith, rubbish) to published fan fiction. The only trouble is - I think I have now read every possible permutation in existence, so even the 'fresh' twists on Austen are old!

Ellen Soule's novel is very much like Sybil Brinton's Old Friends and New Fancies, revisiting Austen's characters soon after the events of the original novel, and plodding faithfully on through the years with the usual hatches, matches and dispatches. For the most part, she gets the tone right, adopting a pseudo-Austen narrative voice, although lacking in several layers of subtlety and wit. There just isn't enough of a story arc to carry over 400 pages - and I know Emma is one of Austen's longest novels, and those who aren't fans would argue that nothing much happens in Highbury either, but Soule's sequel exists in some kind of weird time warp that makes the pages drag. Over twenty years pass from the end of Austen's original, with Emma marrying Mr Knightley, yet Mr Woodhouse just - won't - die - and the Terror/Bonaparte are still regarded as a recent threat in France? ('Uncle John will protect me from Boney and the guillotine!') I always assumed that Emma had a contemporary setting - 1814-15, when Austen was writing and publishing the novel - which would take this sequel up to the 1830s, whereas Napoleon died in 1821. Soule introduces a young French woman, a friend of the Martins' daughter who is staying with them to escape the aftermath of the Terror in Paris - but the Terror was over by 1794. Not a major issue for most readers, I suppose, but years of reading about the Revolution threw me for a loop. (Also, on a pernickety level, the Boys Brigade, which Emma's son joins, was established in 1883, and croquet was known as pall mall until the 1860s, but hey ho.)

Leaving the when aside for the what, the plot is fairly uneventful - the Knightleys and Martins have two children, who grow up with Anna Weston, born at the end of Austen's novel. Jane Fairfax returns, having divorced Frank Churchill after a year of marriage at most, and marries another original character, who moves into the Dickensian and non-canon estate of 'Tinkling Towers'. Jane's divorce, albeit only a narrative device, annoyed me too - the author acknowledges how rare and involved a process divorce would have been, involving parliament, but blithely skips over how Jane would have been ruined in society ever after. In reality, the Churchills would have stayed married, no matter how unhappily, living separate lives if necessary, but would never have decided - after a year - to make such a public spectacle of themselves. Why not just kill Frank off, perhaps in a duel, and have Jane return a widow? Another historical inaccuracy that confused me. So Jane becomes 'Lady Jane', even after explaining that she is only 'Lady Broom', dependant on her husband's title, and disappears into Tinkling Tower with her new husband. The next generation of Highbury grow up, between one chapter and the next, and are suddenly ripe for marriage - either with each other, or another lame original character straight out of a romance novel (Doctor Dom, the gypsy's son, I'm looking at you). Ad nauseum, for 300 pages.

Parts I enjoyed - Emma and Mr Knightley, still resolutely in character, the secret tunnels found under Donwell Abbey, and Adelaide, the Knightleys' daughter. What made this novel such a chore to read - the original characters and their Dickensian names, the historical inaccuracies, the many, many abrupt marriages ('Who is getting married now? Mr Woodhouse called out. 'Is it Miss Bates?'), and the rushed ending after hundreds of pages wasted writing in circles. If a sequel sticking close to Austen's original novel, with nothing to offend and written in the style of Mills and Boon is to your taste, try Sybil Brinton's 1913 Austenuation instead.… (altro)