I have had a fair few books sent to me recently from Source Books relating to all things Jane and this weekend I finished another one, The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Anne Collins. The others read I have already posted about, Old Friends and New Fancies , and Mrs Darcy's Dilemma both of which I enjoyed immensely.
This book is in a different style altogether. The interest in reading the Chronicles is not so much the style or to see if it is sufficiently Janeite, but in the historical background against which it is set. Critics of Jane Austen say that her stories are set in a vacuum, nothing intrudes, the time in which her six great novels 
are set could be any date and little reference is made to any outside events which might impinge on the worlds at Mansfield Park, Highbury, Bath or Pemberley.
Rebecca Ann Collins sets the marriage of Darcy and Lizzie firmly in its historical context and we hear of local landlords enclosing their land and causing poverty and hardship, the Reform Act which changed the way Members of Parliament were elected, the accession to the throne of William IV and then Victoria and the coming of the railway. Darcy, Bingley and the Gardiners are in business together and also become local philanthropists by setting up a local school, building a hospital and, by the end of the Chronicles, are taking an interest in the Children's Act and striving to stop underage children being exploited.
This slant to the story of Lizzie and Darcy and their friends and family makes for a more serious work, less lightness and charm and I have to confess that while I found this take on the events after Pride and Prejudice intriguing, for me it lacked a certain lightness. This is, however, another worthy addition to the canon of all things Jane and next time I read Pride and Prejudice or, indeed, any of the novels I will be more aware of their historical background.
Only problem with reading three sequels on the trot is that I am now getting mixed up with how many children Darcy, Bingley, Lydia or the Gardiners have had and who marries who and it all gets a little confusing. I have another two to hand, The Darcys Give a Ball by Elizabeth Newark (I have already checked the blurb and in this one it would appear that the Darcys have at least two sons and two daughters with different names from those in other books so I am sure to be even more confused that I am now), and The Watsons finished by Joan Aiken (another copy of which I have finished by somebody else...more confusion), so I certainly have enough Austen linked stories to keep me going for a while.
I will report on these in due course and am amazed, as ever, at the continuing fascination authors have with Jane Austen and the number of books such as these named above that are published year after year. I blame it all on Colin Firth and that shirt.
