"FOLLIES PAST" - A PREQUEL TO PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Friends in England sent me Follies Past, a prequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Since I'm always wary of sequels and prequels and all manner of imitations of Austen's books, I was surprised that I enjoyed reading the novel far more than I expected. The author, Melanie Kerr, spins a good yarn, and she portrays characters so well known to me from my many readings of Pride and Prejudice with consistency and smoothness so as to be recognizable without undue dissonance.  Characters who are lesser known or never named in the earlier novel become the major focus of the story in Follies Past.  To her credit, Kerr's effort surpasses that of the mighty P D James in her sequel, Death Comes to Pemberley. 

My favorite character, Elizabeth Bennet, does not appear at all in the prequel, but Darcy is present, and the reader comes to know more of his sister, Georgiana, who remains in the shadows in P&P.  Of course, the author does not write like Jane Austen, but no one writes like JA, and Kerr's effort is good enough.  I thank my friends for sending me the book.

HAPPY 200TH BIRTHDAY TO "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE"!

In a good many earlier posts, I've written of the enormous influence of Jane Austen's novels on my entire life.  The words below are excerpted and edited from my post titled. "It's Only a Novel".

As a 16 year old living in a tumultuous household, Jane Austen's novels were balm to my troubled soul. What sparkling wit! No fiction writer is Austen's equal in writing dialogue. What limpid prose! Reading Jane was sheer delight, not to mention that reading her books took me out of myself and out of my environment. After reading the first of her novels, which happened to be Pride and Prejudice, and which is still my favorite although I dearly love them all, I rushed to read the other five. I wanted to be Elizabeth Bennet. I read Jane's novels, and I read them again, and again, and again, up until now, and when I need cleansing and freshening from the load of drivel in print and on the tee-vee, I plunge into the novels and come away refreshed and renewed.  One last thing: I believe that reading Jane Austen's novels in my impressionable teen years contributed for the good to the formation of my moral center, which should give pause to anyone who says, "It's just a novel."

Jane's gift for irony is, to me, unsurpassed. Disclosure: my alcoholic and verbally abusive father had a gift for irony which was not always inflicted on his wife and daughters, and I learned from him to view our mad world through ironic eyes. I owe him for his gifts of books from an early age and for encouraging me to read by always having books and magazines around the house, even when my mother had to borrow grocery money from extended family. We never lacked for music, either. There's irony for you. To this day, I feel sorry for my poor mother's plight, but, in my heart of hearts, I can't regret that the books and music were present.

So.  My tribute to Jane Austen and her lovely novel, originally titled First Impressions, which is 200 years old today, is a rehash but is no less fervent and admiring than if I'd written the words today.

Thanks to MM for sending me the link to an article in The Atlantic, which shows covers of many different editions of P&P that have been published over the years.