There's been a bit of buzz on Natalie Jenner's Austen At Sea (#1,341). She's also the author of The Jane Austen Society. Looking back, I didn't care much for that book, either, and many of my criticisms of Austen at Sea are the same. I felt that this book couldn't decide what it wanted to be: was it serious literary criticism with the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices debating the merits of Jane Austen's novel? Or was it about Henrietta and Charlotte Stevenson, daughters of one such judge who correspond with Jane Austen's living brother? Or was it about women's marital and property rights both in England and the United States at the end of the Civil War? The story jumped between these threads and others.
Henrietta and Charlotte are invited to England by Sir Francis Austen with the lure of private letter written by Jane to her brother - one that has miraculously escaped the destruction of her papers by the rest of the family. Not only do these two women in their twenties run away from home to do it (their father, a Massachusetts Supreme Court judge doesn't approve!) but Henrietta impulsively marries on board ship setting up future complications. And why not randomly introduce Louisa May Alcott as an eccentric fellow passenger as a contrast to Jane Austen?
It was all such a mish-mash that it failed to entertain or enlighten me. Hard pass on this one.
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