Jane Austen only wrote eleven chapters of this novel before she died and, along with the Watsons, all Austen fans are left wondering What If. I have three versions of The Watsons on my shelves finished by three authors which I have posted about here, but just the one of Sanditon.
This particular edition, a Novel by Jane Austen and Another Lady, has been in my possession for years when I found it in a withdrawn library book sale and snapped it up for the princely sum of 50p. (I do wonder if anybody with any literary bent ever looks through these withdrawals as I have found some excellent titles over the years). I read it with huge enjoyment. I also have a paperback which I purchased in the USA years ago and it was not until I got home that I realised it was the same edition. I wasn't worried. I alI do not fuss about duplicates. Or even triplicates for that matter...
The novel centres on Charlotte Heywood, the eldest of the daughters still at home in the large family of a country gentleman from Willingden, Sussex. The narrative opens when the carriage of Mr. and Mrs. Parker of Sanditon topples over on a hill near the Heywood home. Because Mr. Parker is injured in the crash, and the carriage needs repairs, the Parkers stay with the Heywood family for a fortnight. During this time, Mr. Parker talks fondly of Sanditon, a town which until a few years before had been a small, unpretentious fishing village. Upon repair of the carriage and improvement to Mr. Parker's foot, the Parkers return to Sanditon, bringing Charlotte with them as their summer guest.
Mr Parker is eager to get 'good families' to come and stay in Sandition and to turn it into a fashionable sea side resort. We have the familiar collection of characters gathered in a small town which is a feature of Austen and we meet with the pretentious, the foolish, the sly, the encroaching and the fashionable. Mr Parker has invalid sisters, one of who is a dead ringer for Miss Bates, and two brothers, one of whom, Sidney, was clearly destined to be the hero of the book and the love interest, if you will forgive the expression, of Charlotte Heywood.
I recently re-read Sanditon on learning that it is to be dramatised and filming starts next year. The script is by the ubiquitious Andrew Davies (he of Pride and Prejudice et al) and he has promised 'lots of nude bathing' at which I had a hard job to supress a yawn of boredom. Yes, I know he was responsible for Mr Darcy and his wet shirt after a dive in the lake at Pemberley, but he does go on about respressed sex in literature. I daresay he may be right, but I don't really want to know about it. The only entry into the sea by any of our protagonists is a gentle immersion by two ladies dressed from head to toe in a bathing dress and taken into the sea by the bathing machine. But I daresay we will have lots of naked frolicking.
Note: I hasten to add that my approvel of this may change depending on who the cast is and who is frolicking....
I have done a bit of research and found that the Lady in this case is Marie Dobbs, an Australian who came to live in the UK and who achieved her greatest success as a writer of fiction, first of short stories for women’s magazines, and then four novels, including Sanditon, which became a surprise bestseller.
Marie died in 2015 aged 91 and, from her obituary, I insert the following opinion of her completion of Sanditon:
Marie Dobbs’s use of the pseudonym “Another Lady” for her completion of Sanditon – a reference to the fact that early Jane Austen novels were attributed to “A Lady” – sparked a literary guessing game over the identity of Austen’s co-author. Writing in the Financial Times, the novelist C P Snow said that “Another Lady” was “clearly an experienced writer with a sharp talent of her own.” Martin Amis expressed “surprise” at the ability of the “Other Lady” to “reproduce the tart periodicity” of Jane Austen’s sentences, concluding that she was obviously a “very professional writer – a rather more contemplative Barbara Cartland, one imagines.”
Philippa Toomey, in The Times, noted the challenge of emulating “the wit, the satirical eye, the delineation of character, the style, the extreme economy of technique, and the charm” of the Jane Austen canon. “Thanks and praise, therefore, to the Other Lady, for her tact, her taste, wit and discretion. She has provided us with a novel which ... dances and sparkles in sunshine and freshness.”
She also wrote under the name of Anne Telscombe and I have tracked down two of her titles, Miss Bagshot goes to Moscow and Miss Bagshot goes to Tibet. They are available second hand but I decided to check out my library and found they have both these in stock so have reserved them and look forward to reading them. Shades of Miss Harris goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico? I shall be interested to find out.
It is thought that Sidmouth serves as the model for Sandition and neighbouring Brinshore could be nearby Branscombe. Jane Austen certainly collected names when she travelled anywhere - There is a Barton Cottage in Sidmouth, and there were Dashwoods, Eliots and Willoughbys registered as living there in 1817, and a Mr Woodhouse buried in the local churchyard.
I have read various sequels and prequels to Austen over the years. Some I have enjoyed, some not and some are risible (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes to mind), and there always seems to be a new one on the go. I read them because I long for more Jane Austen - who doesn't wonder how Emma and Mr Knightley will get on or do Darcy and Elizabeth live happily ever after or what happens to the ghastly Wickham and Lydia?
Only six novels. Only six. Oh how thousands of us wish there were more.
