Sanditon by Jane Austen And Another Lady: "Women drive this ... They're so well written ..."

Charlotte Williams who plays the heroine Charlotte Heywood

Editor's Note: My copy of Sanditon (Scribner) ends with An Apology from the Collaborator ( the late Marie Catton Dobbs), from which I have drawn upon the following:

"The first eleven chapters of Sanditon were written between January 27 and March 18, 1817. By that time, after writing 26,000 words, it was clear that Jane Austen was gravely ill and physically unable to pick up the work again. She died on July 18, 1817.

"The fragment was bequeathed to her niece, Anna Austen Lefroy, and now belongs to King's College, Cambridge. Only brief extracts from it were quoted in Austen Leigh's Memoir, published in 1870s, and it had to wait more than a hundred years after the author's death for its first edition by Dr. Chapman in 1925...

"... Nobody could suggest it was a forerunner of Emma or Mansfield Park. Nobody could write other articles contradicting them. The other profitable line as to assess the fragment on its own merits as an isolated example of Jane Austen's 'probable development'."

"As such Sanditon has long been familiar to literary critics; I would like to emphasize, however, that neither this apology nor my completion of the manuscript is intended for them, but for the lay readers of Jane Austen. Ever increasing numbers, seeking to escape the shoddy values and cheap garishness of our own age, are turning to Jane Austen's novels to catch glimpses of life in what appear to be far more leisured times...

"The actual join in the present narrative takes place half-way through Chapter 11 following that last typically Austen sentence: 'Poor Mr Hollis! It was impossible not to feel him hardly used: to be obliged to stand back in his own house and see the best place by the fire constantly occupied by Sir Henry Denham.'

From an ITV introduction:

"Inspired by Jane Austen’s unfinished final novel, Sanditon is a compelling depiction of a developing Regency seaside town at the forefront of the great social and economic changes of the age. When a carriage accident introduces the young Charlotte Heywood to the Parker family, she embarks on a journey from the only home she has ever known to the seaside idyll of Sanditon.

Carried along by the enthusiasm of entrepreneur Tom Parker for the development of the once small fishing village into a fashionable seaside resort, Charlotte quickly finds herself at the heart of a diverse and unexpected community. From the direct but miserly Lady Denham, on whose fortune the Sanditon project relies, to the bitter fight between the numerous relatives hoping to inherit Lady Denham’s money, Charlotte quickly discovers that not everyone is as they first appear.

With the arrival of a wealthy mixed race heiress, and a succession of hypochondriacs seeking saltwater ‘cures’ flooding in, Charlotte must learn for the first time to navigate the complex social structures evident in the town.

And then there is Sidney Parker. Handsome, but also the most wild of the Parker brothers, Sidney and Charlotte almost immediately clash. Charlotte — spirited, open and inexperienced — is tactlessly forthright about Sidney’s family and he is affronted by her stridency and naïve ignorance. With the sea stretching out behind them, and the bustle of a regency ball just out of ear-shot, the battle lines of this central, winding and heated romance are drawn. Amidst the rival suitors and unexpected danger, can Charlotte and Sidney see past each other’s flaws and forge a real relationship? Against the backdrop of Tom’s ambitious vision for the town beginning to crumble, can Sanditon — and Charlotte’s place within it — be saved? This rich, family saga stretching from the West Indies to the rotting alleys of London, leads us to the heart of a town consumed by class divide, ambition, power play and romance. In Sanditon, Charlotte Heywood comes to discover herself … and ultimately find love.

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Sanditon by Jane Austen And Another Lady: "Women drive this ... They're so well written ..."

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