Lady Vernon and her Daughter

Lady Vernon and her Daugher: a novel of Jane Austen's Lady Susan
Jane Rubino w/ Caitlin Rubino-Bradway
Crown Publishers, 2009. 382 p. Fiction

Adorn yourself in your most fetching Regency gown, set the table for afternoon tea and open the pages of Lady Vernon and her Daughter for a delicious respite that Austen herself would approve.

Authors Jane Rubino and Caitlin Rubino-Bradway have taken Lady Susan (a lesser known work of Jane Austen's written entirely in letter format and never published in her day) and then recreated a new story within the original. They've provided the back story, fleshing out the letters while effectively turned them inside out. What they've accomplished provides an entirely different picture of Lady Vernon's character -- and her daughter's for that matter. It's really quite a remarkable feat as they've turned a rather calculating and heartless creature into one of great sympathy. As with us all, the surface of our words and actions are never the whole story and the letters read completely different after the engaging tale the Rubinos have woven. It's a pleasure to see such clever re-structuring.

Appropriately Austen, the authors explore the fallacies of human nature and the book is an examination of the malicious effects of rumor, gossip, misinformation and half-truths -- how the evil slips and drips from one slimy tongue into the willing ear of another with acidic results. Never fear, with Austen-like fortuity, the good and the true will overcome these slanderous obstacles to gain love and fortune while the gossipmongers ultimately end up with the detritus blackening their own characters. Amid the mundane knock-offs that engulf the genre, this one is a sure hit.

DAP