Jane Austen Books Galore: Sequels, Prequels, Mash Ups and More

Fall is a busy time for publishers, who are pushing their new offerings out just in time for the holiday season. In my review queue are:

Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition, by Patricia Meyer Spacks

"Drawing on extensive knowledge, wisdom, and original insights, Professor Spacks is a monumentally intelligent guide to Pride and Prejudice. Reading Austen's masterpiece with her commentaries at hand is like reading it with a better, wiser friend: someone who is able to anticipate our questions and reactions and someone who also knows Austen and her people intimately."
--Deidre Lynch, University of Toronto

Harvard University Press: Coming out soon in October

Dancing with Mr. Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen and Chawton House, by Sarah Waters

An anthology of the winning entries in the Jane Austen Short Story Award 2009, which celebrates the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s arrival in the village of Chawton, where she spent the most productive years of her literary life

A Harper Original Coming out in October

Life in the Victorian Country House by Pamela Horn

Country houses formed a distinct community and power base within the broader Victorian countryside. This book shows how landed families' day-to-day existence depended on the skills of the indoor servants who provided their meals and ministered to their general comfort, and the outdoor staff who contributed to their leisure and sporting pursuits. It considers the relationship - and the divisions - between those living 'above stairs' and and the carefully considered hierarchy of domestics who met their needs 'below stairs'.

Also considered are the wider social activities of the two groups who, while living under the same roof, experienced a very different daily round. That applied to preparations for the holding of house parties and the running of sporting events, as well as the important social influence exerted by the London 'Season'.

Random House: Coming out in late September

Mr. Darcy Takes the Plunge by J. Marie Croft

Impeccable comportment is mandatory in Regency England, a society governed by strict rules of conduct. Perfectionist Fitzwilliam Darcy, heir to an august ancestral estate, is the epitome of an unimpeachable gentleman, at least until...
Our hero's immaculate image is somewhat tarnished when he and his traveling companions arrive, hot and sweaty, at Pemberley and decide to take a fateful plunge into a scummy pond.  An embarrassing encounter on the estate's lawn leaves a long-lasting impression on Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, who are new acquaintances of Georgiana and Anna Darcy.

Available in October

A Darcy Christmas: A Holiday Tribute to Jane Austen, an anthology

Share in the magic of the season in these three warm and wonderful holiday novellas from bestselling authors.

Christmas Present by Amanda Grange, A Darcy Christmas by Sharon Lathan, and Mr. Darcy's Christmas Carol by Carolyn Eberhart

Coming out from Sourcebooks in October

The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy by Mary Lydon Simonsen

Convinced that the lovely Elizabeth Bennet is her brother’s soul mate, Georgiana Darcy enlists her clever and not at all snobbish cousin Anne de Bourgh in ensuring that pride and prejudice aren’t able to keep these two hearts apart. All is going according to plan until Lydia Bennet brings scandal on the family by eloping with George Wickham, and Darcy is called away from Elizabeth’s side before he has a chance to propose. It will take all Georgiana and Anne’s considerable matchmaking talents to ensure that Elizabeth and Darcy are reunited in time to claim their happily ever after.

Coming in January from Sourcebooks; you may pre-order the book here

Let's not forget the mash-ups!

Emma and the Vampires by Jane Austen and Wayne Josephson

"Emma Woodhouse—handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition—had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress her. Until the vampire attacks began ...

An Amazon.com reviewer said: Wayne Josephson converts Emma into a vampire thriller with stakes and tea. Although everyone knows vampires exist, Emma is terrific as she goes from totally clueless to Regency Buffy like slayer. (Merry Genre Go Round Reviews 20100802)  Read the first chapter on scribd.

The book is available now. Order at this link.

Jane and the Damned: It's more than her wit that is biting, by Janet Mullany

The “stakes” are high and vampires rule when legendary author Jane Austen joins the ranks of the undead in Janet Mullany’s bloody wonderful literary mash-up, Jane and the Damned. In the bestselling tradition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters; and Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, comes a supremely smart and wickedly fun novel that renders the beloved creator of Persuasion and Emma truly immortal—as Mullany pits a transformed Jane Austen and her vampire friends against savage hordes of invading French!

A Harper Collins book, due in late September. Click on this link to order

Move over Zombies – Jane Austen is Going Paranormal

Yesterday I reported about more zombies. Today it will be vampires.

I’m glad Jane Austen had a great sense of humor! Janeites will have to expand theirs with all the Austen mash-ups, retellings and paranormal happenings going on in the book & movie world!

Last week, Vic reported on the announcement of a new Austen inspired paranormal series entitled The Immortal Jane by author Janet Mullany who has graciously shared all the details in her guest blog on Austenprose. Here’s an excerpt.

I'd been thinking for some time about why historical romance authors consider Jane Austen the granny of us all, and it's because she is a master of subtext. The only way she could express sexual tension, because of her time and place in history, was by inference and subtle clues. It seems now the explicitness of historical romance means we have to find our own subtexts. (I should put in a plug here, so to speak, for the workshop Pam Rosenthal and I give, Writing the Hot Historical, which we're giving at RWA Nationals, where we talk about this sort of stuff, and I urge everyone not to use the term pebbled nub and to read Mansfield Park.) So, I discovered another subtext throughout Austen – vampires.

Read the entire blog: Jane Austen Goes Paranormal and learn all about her upcoming Austen inspired vampire novels for 2010. Janet has also just revealed her newly re-designed website Janet Mullany: Where Wit and Passion Meet. In celebration, she is holding a contest for two lovely 1818 ca prints. The deadline to enter is August 1st.

You can find Janet Mullany on Twitter, every Thursday at Risky Regencies, and occasionally at History Hoydens.

Cheers, Laurel Ann, Austenprose

The Immortal Jane Austen, or Beam Me Up, Scottie, Our Popular Culture Has Gone Haywire

In 2010, The Immortal Jane Austen, the first installment of a series of books, will be published. Written by author Janet Mullany, this humorous book is "about Jane Austen in Regency England who joins the vampire resistance in Bath when England is invaded by French forces." The new immortal Jane is not to be confused with The Immortal Jane Austen by esteemed Jane Austen scholar, Maggie Lane, which is already in print and available in stores. In her serious endeavor, Maggie Lane discusses Jane's six immortal novels in terms of her life and imagination.

Our popular culture just can't get enough of Jane. We must sequel her books, satirize her stories and life, and twist her plots in shocking ways, as in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the recent best-seller by Seth Grahame-Smith. He is currently researching Abraham Lincoln, who he intends to turn into a zombie slayer. When reading about these new developments, it's all I can do to control my gag reflex. A colleague of mine spotted Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in The World of Mirth, a toy store in Carytown in Richmond, Virginia. Other items spotted in this establishment (which is truly worth a visit) are rubber chickens and Mr. T bobble head dolls. 'Nuff said. As long as these trendy endeavors make a boat load of money for the writer and publisher they will continue to be published.

Which brings me to this point: An agent, whose blog I ran across, thinks that this cliched opening statement of The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany, author of the forthcoming Immortal Jane, is brilliant, despite the fact that a variation of this sentence has been written a gazillion times before:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman of fortune and passable good looks amuses herself in London with fashion, philanthropic works, and flirtation until a suitable gentleman makes an offer. I consider the pursuit of the bonnets and a husband fairly alike - I do not want to acquire an item that will wear out, or bore me after a brief acquaintance, and we must suit each other very well."

If an agent, on whom publishers depend to separate the wheat from the chaff, thinks that this opening statement is noteworthy (while not mentioning that Pride and Prejudice is its inspiration), what does this say about the state of the publishing business? As for how the Mullany version of The Immortal Jane Austen will be critically received - stay tuned and see.

• National Dumbing Down Continues Apace, Second Pass

• Austen, we have a problem: Reinvent the classics or leave them be?