Answers to Go with Susan Smith
Q. I am partial to the PBS costume dramas on Masterpiece Theater. In January, I watched “Sanditon.” Then I forgot to record several episodes. Does the library have that series on DVD?
A. Yes, we have it. I pulled it from the shelf for this customer to pick up during our daily Front Porch Pickup hours: Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. -1 p.m. and 4-6 p.m. On Sunday pick up hours are 4-6 p.m.
The customer said this PBS series reminded her of Jane Austen’s books. Like “Pride and Prejudice,” its main character, Charlotte, is an independent young woman who, perhaps unsurprisingly, finds herself as a guest in the social circle of an arrogant, wealthy and single man.
“Sanditon” is, indeed, based on a book by Jane Austen. Like the film’s creator, many novelists have written their own conclusion to this unfinished Austen work.
The following information comes from an end note in “Sanditon: A Novel by Jane Austen and Another Lady.” Like Jane Austen, this author has chosen to remain anonymous.
The end note, written in 1975, begins: “An Apology from the Collaborator. 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. Like all Jane Austen’s minor works, ‘Sanditon’ has of course attracted critical attention. But unlike ‘The Watsons’ (of which no less than three completed versions exist), ‘Lady Susan,’ or ‘Catharine,’ there could be no learned theories advanced about when it was written or why it was abandoned.
“Nobody could suggest it was a forerunner of Emma’ or ‘Mansfield Park.’ Nobody could write other articles contradicting them.”
Anonymous, the author, continues: “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.
“In rereading Jane Austen, we are able to experience something of that age of elegance which too often eludes us in this twentieth century. We are unrepentant about this form of escapism and turn to her six novels for relaxation on plane journeys, in family crises, and after the sheer physical exhaustion of our own servantless world.
“What was there to worry about when completing Jane Austen’s last manuscript? Only the way she wrote it.
“Her language, her integrity and her painstaking methods of work — that terrifyingly accurate and meticulous technique — combine to give us the same sense of serenity and assurance in the six novels in which she brought her world to life and made it real for us. None of these things can be faithfully copied.”
This anonymous author wrote her conclusion to “Sanditon” in 1975. In the years since then, other writers have tried to finish Austen’s last book. We have several of those books if you’d like to see how their endings compare to the filmed version.
Personally, I love Austen’s books and the filmed versions. I also like to read about Jane Austen. If you’d like a more modern view of the importance of Austen’s writing, we can give you that, too.
Here’s my short summary of the books I’ve read recently. Austen was a well-educated woman of no fortune whose prospects were not likely to include marriage. She did not accept the one proposal she received because it didn’t offer the prospect of marital happiness as she viewed it. She chose instead to depend on family support and continue with her writing.
Her novels, of course, offered her heroines a different future.
