Prejudice in Jane Austen, Emma Tennant, Charles Dickens--and Us

Abstract

In one of the treasure troves that the internet habitually throws off these days, the AUSTENLIST itemizes sixty-eightJane Austen literary reversions (including eight of and Prejudice) written between 1850 and 2000.1 Most are sequels to the novels or a given novel's action seen from a minor character's point of view, but there are also such oddities as a re-creation of Austen's letters in rhyme royal, a postscript to Persuasion with a choice of endings 'a la The French Lieutenant's Woman, a play aboutJane's mysterious seaside romance, a novel about Antipodes Jane and her doings down under in Australia, and, just in 1996, the first of three planned novels aboutJane Austen, detective. Of course, I was not tempted to read any of the lot in my life's short day of frost and sun, especially since most seem to be byjaneite enthusiasts of one stripe or another-and since this is intended to be an essay on the nature of prejudice, I must admit, male academic professional that I am, that I am casually, but no doubt unfairly, prejudiced against the sort of arch and nostalgically genteel thing such a society of Austen fans turns out. Or so, mostly, I have heard. For, like all prejudices, this one is based, if not upon total ignorance, then at least upon hearsay and a fairly limited sampling of evidence, after which the soul, having selected its society, snaps shut the valves of its attention pretty securely. Still, there was at least one writer on the Austen list, Emma Tennant, to whom that prejudice did not apply, for I had read and liked her 1978 reversion of Sir Walter Scott's Heart ofMidlothian entitled The Bad Sister. I consequently decided to give Tennant's 1993 novel, Pemberley. Or Pride and Prejudice Continued, and her 1994 novel, An Unequal Marriage. Or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later,2 a try, to see whether and how