JANET TODD is a novelist, biographer and literary critic. A former President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, she is an internationally renowned scholar and academic, known for her work on women’s writing and feminism. Her most recent publications include Radiation Diaries: Cancer, Memory and Fragments of a Life in Words; A Man of Genius; Lady Susan Plays the Game; and Aphra Behn: A Secret Life. She is the General Editor of The Cambridge Works of Jane Austen and editor of the Cambridge Companion to ‘Pride and Prejudice’.
Praise for Janet Todd’s work on Jane Austen
‘Monumental, powerful, learned … sets the standard’ Frank Kermode, London Review of Books
‘Essential for anyone with a serious interest in Austen … rendered with razor-sharp clarity for a modern audience – exceptionally useful’ Duncan Wu, Raymond Wagner Professor in Literary Studies, Georgetown University
‘Intelligent and accessible’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Easy to read and engaging; excellent on Austen’s work’ Choice
‘Janet Todd is one of the foremost feminist literary historians writing now’ Lisa Jardine, Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies, Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, University of London, Independent on Sunday
Praise for Janet Todd’s previous work
‘Fascinating, a page-turner and a delight’ Emma Donoghue
‘Janet Todd’s pain-filled interweaving of life and literature is a good book written against the odds – it is frank, wry and unexpectedly heartening’ Hilary Mantel
‘A stunningly good, tight, intelligent truthful book and one of the most touching love letters to literature I have ever read. Ah, so that’s why we write, I thought’ Maggie Gee
‘I read it avidly, unable to stop. I love the voice, especially the tension between restraint and candour in its brevities – and yet endearingly warm and honest. It’s an original voice and utterly convincing in its blend of confession, quirkiness, humour, intimacy. It’s nothing short of a literary masterpiece, inventing a genre. A delight too is the embeddedness of books in the character of a lifelong reader; it is fascinating to learn of Todd’s fascinating variegated past. How gallant (like the verbal gallop against mortality at the close of The Waves)’ Lyndall Gordon
‘Beautifully written, viscerally honest, horribly funny’ Miriam Margolyes
‘A quirky, darkly mischievous novel about love, obsession and the burden of charisma, played out against the backdrop of Venice’s watery, decadent glory’ Sarah Dunant
‘Strange and haunting, a gothic novel with a modern consciousness’ Philippa Gregory
‘A mesmerizing story of love and obsession in nineteenth-century Venice: dark and utterly compelling’ Natasha Solomons
‘Intriguing, pacy and above all entertaining; clever, beguiling’ Salley Vickers
‘Genuinely original’ Antonia Fraser
‘A rip-roaring read’ Michèle Roberts, Sunday Times
‘Terrific insight. Todd’s sound and generous reimagining of women’s lives is a splendid work’ Publishers Weekly (Starred)
‘Mesmerizing and haunting pages from a Gothic-driven imagination’ Times Literary Supplement
‘Gripping, original, with abundant thrills, spills and revelations’ The Lady
Recent works by Janet Todd
The Cambridge Companion to ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (editor) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Jane Austen: Her Life, Her Times, Her Novels (London: André Deutsch, 2014)
Lady Susan Plays the Game (London: Bloomsbury, eBook, 2013; paperback, 2016)
A Man of Genius (London: Bitter Lemon Press, 2016)
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life (London: Fentum Press, 2017)
Radiation Diaries: Cancer, Memory and Fragments of a Life in Words (London: Fentum Press, 2018)
Jane Austen’s
Sanditon
With an Introductory Essay
by
Janet Todd
Fentum Press, London
Sold and distributed by Global Book Sales/Macmillan Distribution and in North America by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, Inc. part of the Ingram Content Group
Introductory Essay and revised text copyright © 2019 Janet Todd
Janet Todd asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (hardback) 978-1-909572-21-8
ISBN (EBook) 978-1-909572-22-5
Typeset by Lindsay Nash
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Jane Austen’s Sanditon
Table of Contents
Anna Lefroy to Andrew Davies: Continuations of Sanditon
Introductory Essay
The two faces of Jane Austen: the watercolour sketch by her sister Cassandra; and its prettified version to accompany her nephew’s hagiographical Memoir in 1870
The phenomenon of Jane Austen
Jane Austen is one of the greatest novelists in English Literature, a pioneer in fiction and an immense influence on those who wrote after her. Whether intended for publication or private amusement, whether from finished or abandoned works or from fragments, all her words have interest for us now in our eclectic and curious twenty-first century.
Her fame rests primarily on the six published novels. With a first glance, these appear simple, romantic, almost wish-fulfilling tales. Yet, each is profoundly complex, and each is distinct in tone and technique. Few people fail to be delighted by a first reading of Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion; further readings of all the novels reveal the delights of unexpected intricacy, meaning, subversion – and sometimes uncomfortable conformity to values now largely ignored. The greatness of Jane Austen is that her books are never exhausted; they retain an ability to nudge and surprise.
Reading is a conversation between novelist and reader, and each generation reads Jane Austen differently, finding her speaking to