Confusion, Confession and Conviction
A Pride and Prejudice Regency Variation
BY
Victoria Winfield
Contents
JANE AUSTEN BIOGRAPHY………………..
Chapter One………………..
Chapter Two………………..
Chapter Three………………..
Chapter Four………………..
Chapter Five………………..
Chapter Six………………..
Chapter Seven………………..
Chapter Nine………………..
Chapter Ten………………..
Epilogue………………..
Appendix: The Regency Era………………..
Stars Glow the Brightest at Night
Chapter One: Rich bachelors and rich desires………………..
Chapter Two: Afternoon at Longbourn………………..
Chapter Three: Vile beauty – Mr. Darcy………………..
Chapter Four: Netherfield Park………………..
Chapter Five: Strange truths and absolute conviction………………..
Chapter Six: The unexpected visitor………………..
Chapter Seven: The unforeseen proposal………………..
Chapter Eight: Sincere reasoning and shameful bigotry………………..
Chapter Nine: ‘The night is fractured and they shiver’………………..
Chapter Ten ………………..
Chapter Eleven: A tragic shock and deep remorse………………..
Chapter Twelve: Bondings and rejoicing………………..
GEORGE IV OF THE UNITED KINGDOM………………..
A Duke in Hertfordshire
Chapter 1………………..
Chapter 2………………..
Chapter 3………………..
Chapter 4………………..
Chapter 5………………..
Chapter 6………………..
Chapter 7………………..
Chapter 8………………..
Chapter 9………………..
Chapter 10………………..
Chapter 11………………..
Chapter 12………………..
Chapter 13………………..
Dear reader,
Thank you for purchasing this Pride & Prejudice variation collection, which is comprised of three distinct books written by three authors. Each book describes a love triangle at Longbourn, involving our dear couple.
In the first book, “Confusion, Confession and Conviction”,Elizabeth meets the man of her dreams. The Duke is attentive, courteous and mannerly—everything Mr. Darcy is not. When the Duke follows her to Longbourn, Elizabeth decides to accept his proposal. If only Darcy’s face didn’t haunt her dreams.
How can Darcy convince her of his regard after his ungentlemanly proposal? How can he protect her from her own naiveté before it’s too late?
The second book, "Stars Glow the Brightest at Night", describes the most remarkable gentleman Elizabeth has ever met. Bearing a deep fondness for music, poetry and heart-felt, intellectual books, young Elizabeth Bennet finds herself completely swept off her feet
when she encounters the handsome Duke Nicholas, holding an equally intense passion for literature.
But the arrogant Mr. Darcy has also got his engines working; while his affections for Miss Bennet commences to pale his conceited aura, Elizabeth finds herself torn between obvious reality and a vile façade. Will she manage to unveil the terrible darkness just in time? Or will prejudice and recklessness lead her down a lost path?
In the third book, "A Duke in Hertfordshire", Lizzie meets the charming Mr. Milford. It seems that she has finally found just the kind of person with whom she could see herself ending up. The fact that he’s a duke certainly doesn’t hurt her family’s opinion of him. Everything seems to be going well until Mr. Milford proposes and the prospect of marriage suddenly becomes an impending reality. But will Mr. Darcy find a way to protect Elizabeth before she becomes the bride of a despicable man?
We hope you will enjoy this Pride & Prejudice variation collection. As a reader of the canon, I believe you’ll appreciate the additional chapters in the book, dealing with the Regency Era and the Biography of Jane Austen.
The life of Jane Austen bears a stunning resemblance to her novels. At a cursory look, these novels seem to be comprised of innocuous, unexceptional, and quiet events that do not command the attention of many people in the reading community. In the same manner, Austen’s life seems nondescript and less impactful at a first glance. This impression is underscored by her brother, Henry, who indicated that “Austen’s life was, by any means, eventful.” I believe that the biography of Jane Austen included in this book would shed some light on the background of writing the canon.
Understanding the Regency Era is massively important for any reader of the canon; it provides an in-depth view of the core characteristics of the period, the traits and highlights that have been preserved in the world and the annals of history since this period passed. The Regency is noted for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture. This era encompassed a time of great social, political, and economic change. For this reason, I have included an extensive and thorough research of this period.
Each book in this collection is a standalone, so please read the books in any order you wish. Of course, you can enjoy reading these P&P variations before regarding the biography of Jane Austen and the research about the Regency Era.
We wish you a pleasant reading and hope you will get excited and thrilled by reading this book,
Victoria Winfield, Sophie Devon, April Kelsey & Harriet Thompson,
London,
June 2017.
JANE AUSTEN BIOGRAPHY
Chapter 1: Personal Background
The life of Jane Austen bears a stunning resemblance to her novels. At a cursory look, these novels seem to be comprised of innocuous, unexceptional, and quiet events that do not command the attention of many people in the reading community. In the same manner, Austen’s life seems nondescript and less impactful at a first glance. This impression is underscored by her brother, Henry, who indicated that “Austen’s life was, by any means, eventful.” Additionally, Austen’s nephew, James, in a book published five decades later, intimates that “Austen’s life was barren regarding the events that occurred in her lifetime, and that she did not experience any great crisis or disruption to change the predictable and fairly peaceful course of her life.” However, viewing Austen through the events that occurred in her life, the adventures, disruptions, and crises that she might have faced, is a massively flawed approach to viewing her true impact to the society. There is a need to evaluate Jane Austen in a different lens that includes an in-depth analysis and understanding of her complexity of her personality, advanced observation prowess, and quick wit. This means that evaluating the events in Austen’s life will lock many of her true powers and strengths during her lifetime out of the purview of the analysis. Therefore, it takes a deep understanding of her personality to get to grips with the extent and scale of her influence and impact on the society. This situation is eerily similar to the structure of her novels; in this case, the complexity of these books is in the style and the characters, rather than the story itself. This makes Jae Austen an intricate character to understand, especially when it comes to the influence she exerted during her lifetime through her novels as well as her personality.
Many critics and observers argue that the lack of drama or profound disruption in Austen’s life as compared to other authors or writers
of her time detracted from her skill. They argue that it is from profound experience of the drama and disruptive nature of life that one earns the true sense of human existence; in turn, this allows such an individual to have a mastery of content and insight that help them to become interesting and superior writers. However, Austen’s lack of drama did not affect her wits, ken eye for observation, and the ability to understand the trends, and phenomena behind the status of the society. As a result, her novels were still insightful and within perspective of the times or the era in which she lived. In fact, Austen’s existence outside the realm of convention in the society at the time such as lacking a spouse and children, or the extraordinary experiences that many other writers had, meant that she had the freedom of time and imagination to work on her books. This also makes her books different from those during her era because her perspective, drive, and inspiration were outside the conventional living that was the primary influence of many other writers during her time. For example, she could critically view the aspects of etiquette, behavior, and norms for men, women, and individuals in marriage at the time without the bias of involvement because of her “outsider” mindset at the time. It gave her the freedom and the broad mindedness to evaluate some of the crucial subjects at the time, especially the divisive ones in a balanced manner because she was not shrouded by conventions and traditions. She adopted an anonymous approach to publishing her books; this meant that Austen did not receive personal recognition for her work outside the realm of her family and friends. In fact, she did not show any interest in pursuing such recognition in the literary circles at the time. This explains the muted influence of her works and the influence she has had on the society as a whole through her literary works.
According to Richard Blythe, Austen’s core intention was to “create literature but not to lead a literary life.” This was a direct contradiction of many of the writers from her generation that sought the recognition their afforded them. They took an active role in advancing some of the core issues, opinions, and worldviews they had advocated for in their books. On the other hand, Austen adopted a passive presence regarding the role and influence of her books. Essentially, she let “the books do the talking for her,” and thus she shied away from the limelight and literary lifestyle. In a way, this afforded her further wriggle room and freedom to pursue many issues and ideas to cover in her novels such as romance, the societal transitions regarding innovation, technology, creativity, and morals as well.
For example, Jane Austen’s focus on the society depicts the Regency Period as a time of the renaissance of romance and the decline of morals. She argues that this period provided a massive view of the evolution and development of etiquette and social evolution regarding mannerisms, behavior, relationships, and marriages. She indicates that these rules ensured that interactions between individuals in the society were carried out in ways that avoided confrontation or embarrassment; these conventions and norms also provided the rules of engagement between men and women as well as the division of the society into classes. Always, they ensured that such relations were influenced and regulated by conventional rules. This ensured that people had an understanding of their roles in the society and their responsibilities in their families and the community.
Austen’s background offers an ample understanding of her state of mind, and the lenses through which she viewed the world. It establishes a background regarding some of the core aspects that stand her writing and novels out from the rest of the writers of her generation. It also establishes crucial hallmarks of her environment, societal set-up, and her social circle or relationships at the time she was writing. This is crucial because it offers the reader a sneak peek into her mindset and personality, which is instrumental in appreciating the complexity and importance of her novels and literary work as a whole.
Chapter 2: Jane Austen’s Formative Years
Jane Austen was born in December 16, 1775 in a small Hampshire town in the south of central England called Steventon, where she lived with her parents, George and Cassandra Austen. His father was a minister in Steventon. The primary characteristic that the Austens were known for was their passion for reading novels from the local circulating library. They created a family tradition of avidly reading these novels together and also making some home theatricals. This established the foundation and platform upon which Jane Austen would fall in love with literature and writing. It gave her an extensive head start in understanding the importance of literature in the lives of many families. She also understood that it was a powerful medium to communicate with a massively wide audience about crucial issues in the society. For example, Austen’s first high-spirited satires were written for the family. This was an indicator of Austen’s early passion for writing that drove her to write for the family. In fact, it indicates that she was doing it for fun and as part of the family’s love for literature. Many of these satires were later turned into books after careful and numerous rewritings. This underscores the raw nature of these writings and that she had not developed a style and publishable level when she was writing these satires. However, the fact that many of these satires were turned into books indicates that some of the themes and core issues she tackled were salient enough to warrant an expanded audience beyond the confines of her family’s warm embrace and reaction to her satires. It also highlights Austen’s grasp of the broad societal aspects and issues that were influencing the sociocultural status of her community and family at the time. The “satirization” of these issues is also indicative of an understanding of the power of stylistic devices in writing that was later revealed in the quality and acclaim of her novels at the time and hundreds of years later as well.
Austen developed a close attachment to her only sister, Cassandra, out of her seven siblings. In fact, they went to school together between 1783 and 1785, first at Oxford, then Southampton, and layer at Abbey school in Reading. However, at some point, the Austens could not afford the tuition to keep these girls in school. Therefore, they returned home to embark on an aggressive and extensive learning period focusing on French, Italian, as well as playing the piano. The study of French and Italian indicates that the Austens aimed to diversify their daughter’s grasp of culture, language, and attitudes, and mindsets across the repertoire of Europe. This also indicates that Austen had a musical background of playing a piano, which can help to explain here extensive creativity, and a culturally informed disposition in her novels. Most accounts focusing on this period indicate that the Austen daughters were extremely pretty and that they enjoyed parties. Although these shindigs were limited, mainly because of Mr. Austen’s clergy roots and strict behavioral enforcements, they are described in Austen’s novels as interesting. Such parties and lifestyle exposed Austen to the cultural construct, mentality, and societal structure. This played a role in her writing because it was the foundation of many of her novels.
Austen’s experience with marriage perhaps formed one of the biggest pillar in her literary careers, content, worldview, and many of her talking points or themes in her novels. For example, when she was twenty, she met a young Irishman called Tom Lefroy, who was visiting his uncle in Hampshire. Austen developed a liking for Lefroy during his stay and they were staring at the possibility of marriage. However, the clash of classes during this period was a serious issue. In this case, Austen was the daughter of a poor clergyman and Lefroy was from a class higher than Austen’s. Therefore, Lefroy’s family decided to send him home rather hand letting this attachment with a lady form a poor family to continue and end up in marriage. This was her first brush with marriages. Her second bout with the concept of marriage came when she was twenty-seven years old. The wealthy Harris Bigg-Wither proposed to her and she accepted. This dynamic of a proposal from a wealthy man was attractive to many women in her social class throughout the society. Therefore, it came as a rude shock in the following morning when Austen decided to change her mind and refuse to get married out Bigg-Wither. She was giving up a guarantee of securi
ty and wealth that were inherent in this marriage. She argued that she did not love him and thus she could not marry him. This indicated that her decisions were not driven by the desire for material satisfaction like many people in the society at the time. It differentiated her mentality and worldview from many of the women during her time. This distinctive thinking and the knack to go against the conventional thinking and ways of behaving is also highlighted in her novels as she tackles some of the hitherto shunned issues such as morality in her writing.
However, her novels address the issues of romance and marriage extensively, indicating that the experiences she had with courtship, marriage, and love in her novels. They also underscore that she was fascinated by the concepts of love and marriage; this is especially the case for the correlation between love and marriage. For example, she believes that marriage should be based in love and not the desire for material satisfaction. However, in many ways, this belief meant that she was opposed to the societal worldview dusting her era which emphasized on class and wealth as the primary determinants of marriage. Additionally, the fact that she was never married allowed her the freedom to view and analyze this concept without any bias from experience. This allowed her books to be open minded in evaluating marriage as a crucial concept in the society.
Austen’s formative life set the tone for her love of literature, her view of the society, and especially her interaction with marriage, love, and relationships. Her relationship with her family and the structure provided by her clergy father allowed her to be tenacious, articulate, and focused in targeting and evaluating some of the crucial issues facing the society at the time.
Chapter 3: Early Novels
Austen wrote three books between 1796 and 1798; these include Sense and Sensibility (originally called Elinor and Marriane), Northanger Abbey (originally called Susan), and Pride and Prejudice (originally called First Impressions). However, none of these books were published. Northanger Abbey was published in 1818, after Jane Austen had died. It was primarily a satire focusing on the Gothic novels that were broadly popular during her time. In the book, Austen presents a heroine that has an overactive imagination and loves Gothic novels; this leads her to see mysteries that do not exist during her stay in Northanger Abbey. This book is a reflection of Austen’s experiences during her formative years where she widely read many of the books in the circulation library in Hampshire. The genre of novels that she read in her formative years established the foundation for her literary love and the decision to create literature through her satire writings during this time and later writing novels. She captures the concept of heroines in the place of the then ubiquitous heroes in a largely patriarchal literary field. She also represented the society’s strengths, weaknesses, complications, and dilemmas in dealing with traditions, customs, and superstitions as well.
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