Norma Darcy | What I Learned From Jane Austen

An idea sprung from the works of Jane Austen:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

So begins Pride and Prejudice, the 1813 novel by Jane Austen, one of the greatest literary works in the English language and the start of my love affair with the Regency era.

I have read the book countless times over the years with great enjoyment. In my teenage years, it was the central love affair that engaged my imagination but as I grew older, I began to appreciate the humour in the story and beyond that, the observations on the human condition. Austen’s sharp, unflinching gaze finds all the absurdity and conceits of people and mocks them without mercy.

After Lydia’s indiscretion in the second half of the book, it becomes apparent to the modern reader just how fragile a woman’s reputation was at the turn of the nineteenth century. As Mary says in one scene, “One false step involves her in endless ruin.” I found this an intriguing idea. What if one had, as a woman at that time, fallen from one’s perch in society? For men, the rules were different, and much more license was given. But for a woman to fall in love with an unsuitable man and to be ruined by him… Where would she go? How would she manage? These were the themes that I wished to explore.

Another of Austen’s works, Persuasion, is also a tale about human frailty, absurdity, conceit and want of resolution. At its heart, it is a tale about a couple divided by their disparity in fortunes and social standing and the well meaning but misplaced interference of others. The heroine, Anne Elliot, is regretful of her past and the decision she made as a young girl in turning down the hand of a penniless naval officer, Frederick Wentworth.

Of all Jane Austen’s heroines, I find Anne one of the most appealing. I love Lizzy, of course, the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. Who could not? She is pretty and sharp and witty. She says things that I would never have the courage to. But I find I have a great deal of empathy with Anne. Her gentle sorrow is heart-breaking. She is not vain or selfish like her sisters. She is calm and assured, intelligent and selfless but underneath it all, she has a great capacity for love.

All of us have regrets about our youthful mistakes and wish we could turn back the clock and do things differently. We don’t always get a second opportunity in later life to correct the errors of the past. Anne is at twenty-seven, considered almost without hope of finding a husband, someone who is past their first bloom of youth and unlikely to have a second chance at love. I wanted to write about such a woman.

The heroine of my book, THE BLUESTOCKING AND THE RAKE is Georgiana. Georgie is not the young, vivacious, beauty of other novels. She is a woman who has loved, lost and learned to regret. Like Anne, she has a weight of sadness that she carries within her and a yearning to find love again.

In many romance novels, it is the woman who rescues the rake from himself. I liked the idea of flipping the situation around and having the heroine rescued by the love of a man. Perhaps if that man were also a rake, someone quite remarkably unsuitable, almost the epitome of the man who had caused her current woes and yet still be able to convince her to entrust her heart to him, I thought this could be a very romantic idea.

Georgie, is similar to Anne in that she made decisions as a young woman that come back to haunt her now at the age of twenty-nine. In Persuasion, Frederick Wentworth is unrepentant and unprepared to forgive Anne for refusing him. In The Bluestocking and the Rake, Georgie is unprepared to forgive herself. My hero, Lord Marcham is desperate to show her that she deserves a second chance at happiness and that he is prepared to forgive anything, as long as she loves him. The romance begins when he realises he has to break down the wall she has built around her heart and convince her that she is worthy of loving—no mean feat, given that she believes him to be amusing himself at her expense and so has steeled herself against him.

So I thank Jane Austen. Not only for giving me hours of reading pleasure but also for being the springboard for my imagination. Without her, I might never have had the joy of writing Georgie’s story.

About THE BLUESTOCKING AND THE RAKE

2014 Winner—Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award—Romance

The Earl of Marcham has decided to put the excesses of his colorful youth firmly behind him so that he may find a wife and beget himself an heir. But a straitlaced spinster may stand in his way after she releases a morality pamphlet exposing some of his most private misdemeanors. Determined to have his revenge and teach her a much-needed lesson, the earl decides that his best course of action is to seduce her…

Miss Georgiana Blakelow has long given up the hope of marriage. Instead, she’s resigned to serving as governess to her siblings and saving the family estate from ruin. She might succeed, if only the wretch of an earl who won the estate at the gaming table would be reasonable.

As the sparks fly, and as Lord Marcham finds himself unexpectedly attracted to Miss Blakelow, she becomes even more determined to keep him at a safe distance. The closer he gets, the more likely he is to discover that his bluestocking isn’t all that she seems.

About Norma Darcy

Norma Darcy was born in London but grew up living by the sea after her family moved to Whitstable, Kent, when she was two. She started writing when she was sixteen, but it wasn’t until many years later that she began to write seriously. A graphic designer by trade, she has always dreamed of earning a living from writing. She now lives in Kent with her husband.

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