My life in books

Syrie James' Austen pastiche, The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen, is completely delightful. James is a good writer, and her knowledge and understanding of - and enthusiasm for - Austen and her work is quite thorough, which is fortunate, because it takes all of these qualities to pull off the conceit of the book, which is the discovery of a lost manuscript by Jane Austen, the text of which is the bulk of the novel.

Samantha is a reference librarian at an American university. Four years ago, she was a Ph.D. candidate at Oxford, where her thesis subject was the "other women" in Austen's novels. Then her mother became ill, she had to leave off her studies to care for her, and after her death, had to work of pay the bills. A return to Oxford was out of the question, but she remained entranced by the life and work of Austen.

As the novel begins, Sam is back in England, having accompanied her partner, a physician, to an international medical conference. While he is busy, she goes antique bookshopping, and picks up a plainly-bound volume of 18th century poetry, which she estimates to be about 200 years old. When she gets back to the B&B and examines her prize, she discovers that some of the endpages are still uncut - opening them, she finds a fragment of a letter, which from both the handwriting and the contents she suspects to be Jane Austen's. Even more astounding, the letter mentions a lost early manuscript.

Samantha can't resist trying to track down the missing manuscript - and when she finds it (yes, it is remarkably easy to find, but Sam does after all have the letter, which is laden with clues), she and the owner of the house where it has lain hidden all these years begin to read.

The manuscript - titled The Stanhopes - is very much in the style of a young Austen, and its subject matter is drawn from (but considerably toned down) Austen's satirical Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters. In fact, the letter Sam discovers, from late in Austen's life, refers to Plan of a Novel as inspired by her memories of the lost novel of her youth.

Rather more melodramatic than Austen's mature work, James' pastiche is nonetheless so good, I almost felt at times that I was reading a new Austen novel. James has filled her homage to Austen with echoes of her characters and scenes, cleverly making these appear to be the prototypes of the originals - as if Austen, in this parallel universe, had reworked and improved upon the material of her lost first novel.

As well, the framing story featuring Samanatha is has a very Austen-like dilemma to be resolved, one that in some ways parallels the events in the lost manuscript, and provides a similarly satisfactory outcome.

Highly recommended to any but the most purist of Austen fans who could never read anything other than the original Austen.