Austen at sea de Natalie Jenner

Le nouveau livre de Natalie Jenner sera consacré à Jane Austen, mais vu par le prisme américain. Il sortira en anglais en mai 2025.

Citation :

In AUSTEN AT SEA, Henrietta and Charlotte Stevenson, the only children of a widowed Massachusetts supreme court judge, are desperate to experience freedom of any kind, at a time when young unmarried women are kept largely at home. Striking up a correspondence with Jane Austen's last surviving sibling, ninety-one-year-old retired admiral Sir Francis Austen, the two sisters invite themselves to visit and end up sneaking on board the S. S. China, a transatlantic mail packet steamship heading to Portsmouth.

They are joined on the China by a motley crew of fellow Americans including a reluctant chaperone, two Philadelphia rare book dealer brothers secretly also sailing at Admiral Austen's request, a young senator's daughter and socialite in hot pursuit of the brothers, and Louisa May Alcott, traveling to Europe for the first time as an invalid's companion. Alcott will end up leading the other women on board ship in a charity performance of vignettes from Charles Dickens's latest novel A TALE OF TWO CITIES, and hilarity ensues when the men petition to join.

Landing in Portsmouth, the American visitors soon learn Sir Francis's real purpose in receiving them, and the battle begins over a piece of Austen's legacy so controversial, it will result in historic and climactic court cases on both sides of the Atlantic. Jenner's trademark large cast of characters this time includes a theatre impresario, a newspaperman, a street waif, suffragists and Boston bluestockings, a fortune teller, a disgruntled divorce court judge, and the entire bench of the Massachusetts state supreme court. Releasing in the 250th year since Jane Austen's birth, AUSTEN AT SEA is a celebration of literature and the lengths we will go to, to protect who and what we love.

Je n'ai pas tout lu parce que je trouve le résumé trop long, mais Louisa May Alcott sera l'un des personnages du livre.

Je ne sais pas trop quoi penser du résumé.

L'intrigue a l'air pour le moins originale. A voir ...

Natalie Jenner a partagé cette illustration de son roman. Elle a été réalisée par l'artiste Sally Dunne (qui a fait les superbes dessins des romans de Georgette Heyer pour les éditions de Folio Society) 



Sally Dunne (sallyillustrates.com)

Je pense que le résumé est trop long, je l'ai lu en diagonale.

Après j'ai beaucoup aimé Le cercle littéraire donc je me laisserai tenter un jour s'il arrive en français.

Je pense que je le lirais, même si j'ai été déçue par Le Cercle littéraire... j'ai passé un bon moment et La Librairie de Bloomsbury (que je n'ai pas encore lu) a l'air très chouette.