Katharine Moore, who died at the ripe old age of 103 in 2001, was a published author of fiction and non-fiction, but her Victorian sequel to Jane Austen's Emma remained a private piece of up-market fan fiction until after her death. Available free to download online - though plagued with irritating formatting errors when uploaded to Kindle - Donwell Abbey is a well written and creative vision of Highbury forty years later that must appeal to every fan of Austen's novel.

In 1858, Emma is the dowager mistress of Donwell Abbey, surrounded by an extended family of children, grandchildren, great nieces and nephews and in-laws. Poor old Mr Knightley has been dispatched once again (granted, he would be in his eighties, but why is living so long an impossibility?), overcome by the death of his son and heir, another George, who died in battle during the Crimean War. Young George's widow, Anna Weston (daughter of Emma's old governess), and her daughter Emily live on at Donwell, and Emma's daughter Jane, married to Charles Wentworth from Persuasion (a Tilney also adds to the cast of thousands), has produced a vast array of cousins who also come to stay. Not to mention the descendants of John Knightley at Hartfield! To be honest, I completely lost track of the family tree after connecting Emily to Anna to Emma. In the foreword, Moore's characters are described as 'phantom' grandchildren, created with apology as 'a tribute to characters so vital that they insisted on having descendants of some kind, however unworthy'. I didn't find the third generation of Knightleys, Eltons or Churchills unworthy, nor does the story lack in detail and Austenesque humour, but Donwell Abbey falls flat compared to Emma. In Austen's Highbury, the reader gets to know all the familiar faces, from Hartfield to Miss Bates, but I couldn't even keep track of the Knightleys in the sequel!

The story is basically about the advance of mid-Victorian industrialisation into the rural England of the Regency, and the changing social aspect of the nation as a whole. Old families like the Knightleys are being challenged by nouveaux riches like the Eltons - Augustus Elton is behind a plan to cut a railway line through the parkland of Donwell Abbey, and wants to marry Emma's granddaughter into the bargain. Moore's characters seek to live 'untrammelled by the traditions and loyalties of the older generation', though to my mind, the Victorians were far more rigidly class-bound than Regency society. Emily, Euphrasia (don't ask), and Lily Elton also defy traditional gender roles, either by becoming 'new women' or living independently.

An interesting blend of Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell, liberally seasoned with quotes and historical references, plus an epistolary chapter or two for Victorian authenticity. Reading the pdf online is probably easier, but there is no reason not to give this harmeless continuation a try - it's quick, light and free! ( )