Letters from Pemberley

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 3, 1999

Strictly for Jane Austen devotees, this epistolary novel picks up where Pride and Prejudice left off. Drafting 25 letters from Elizabeth Darcy (n e Bennett) to her sister Jane, Dawkins seeks to describe Elizabeth's first months as mistress of Pemberley. Gossip about characters from Pride and Prejudice is presented, as are a number of new characters cheerfully identified by Dawkins in her preface as pastiches of Austen characters from other books and from Austen's own life. Indeed, new characters are introduced with a sly wink to insiders (like Richard Mansfield and the sisters Norland--the elder a young lady of sense, the younger of sensibility). Dawkins strains to be Austenian in tone and vocabulary but, as she herself admits, she's neither an Austen scholar nor an expert on the period. In consequence, she often errs with anachronisms and inconsistencies in character. Lovers of Pride and Prejudice will have difficulty imagining the headstrong Elizabeth, who was an easy match for the condescending Catherine de Bourgh, as subdued and socially self-conscious as she is here. Austen, furthermore, would likely not consider a young girl's marriage to an older man an attempt to find a "father figure." Dawkins's expressed wish to entertain is, however, realized in this light, amusing book. Most readers will prefer to revisit favorite characters where they're more true to form--in Austen's own pages.