My
fascination – nay – obsession with all
things Austen began inauspiciously enough.
To quote Mr. Darcy, “I was in the middle
before I knew I had begun.”
“It is a truth
universally acknowledged...”
I never imagined the A&E Pride
& Prejudice mini-series could have moved me so
profoundly. Although it renewed my interest in all
of Jane Austen’s novels, it was Darcy & Elizabeth
who sent me headlong into an obsession
that has not yet run its course. (Granted, my
interest might not have been so keen had the role of
Mr. Darcy not been so well cast.) My path to Jane
Austen fandom in general and Pride & Prejudice
specifically began like hordes of others. I was
swept away by A&E’s production of the mini-series.
Darcy & Elizabeth’s story transfixed me. I simply
could not bear to have it end. (I really, really
could bear for it to end.) In my quest for more, I
dug out my hardback copy of P&P and read and re-read
it. I reread Austen's other novels and several
biographies. This little foray into all that was
Austen was fulfilling in many ways. I learnt what
any Jane Austen enthusiast worth their salt knows.
Jane was
not some humourless spinster.
Her
cunning prose and societal insight announced itself
early on. In what is described as her Juvenilia
her heroine warns a friend prone to histrionics,
decrying fainting fits – “Run mad if you must, but
do not swoon.”
Her letters to
her sister Cassandra were filled with local bits of
news, some related with more than a little cheek. In
one letter to her sister, Jane tells of a pregnant
neighbor taken to the straw. “Mrs. Hall was
brought to bed yesterday of a dead child some weeks
before she expected, owing to a fright,” writes
Jane. “I suppose she happened to look unawares upon
her husband.” (Who would have guessed Miss
Austen was that irreverent?)
For all that, my
appetite for Pride & Prejudice remained unsated.
I
fantasized about what might have really come to pass
behind Pemberley’s portieres. Was she so inclined,
Austen certainly could not enlighten us – and not
just because she is dead. As a well-brought up
maiden, she could not have presumed to know what
passed between a married couple. (For that matter,
if one looks carefully Austen’s novels, they do not
contain a conversation solely between menfolk
either.) Indeed, Jane Austen’s novels concluded with
the wedding ceremony. Although Jane Austen is very
nearly perfection, she is burdened by a single
criticism. In ending P&P with the Darcys on the cusp
of what undoubtedly would be a marriage of unrivaled
passion, she has left many of her readers with a
case of literary coitus interruptus.
(It
is a sad commentary on my character that Austen’s gifts
as a writer took a backseat to Colin Firth’s
incomparable portrayal of the smoldering Mr. Darcy.)
Like
countless others, I continued to moon about the
Darcys. I was embarrassed by my lately-come
fanaticism, but unable to shake it. While the
internet was rife with fan fiction, a computer
dunce, I was completely oblivious. So, to fill my
need to learn what might have become of the Darcys,
I eventually quit my explicit day-dreaming and began
to fill page after page of legal-size yellow tablets
with purple prose. Pen and paper soon deemed too
slow, I continued to muse in the glow of my computer
screen. Honing my limited fictional skills, I was
content in the certainty that my words would never
see the light of day. Indeed, that freedom unleashed
my heretofore dormant imagination. Perhaps I was not
the first sequelist, but none were more brazen.
The whole
enterprise was a lark – pages locked in a drawer to
one day embarrass my children. My husband, a most
reticent man, expressed his admiration for my
accomplishment by insisting that I publish the book.
Reluctant to expose myself in that fashion, I agreed
only because I was certain that no one would buy it.
We published Mr. Darcy Takes a wife as The
Bar Sinister - a title that I thought as
brilliant at the time. While I cowered in the car,
my own dear Mr. Darcy went from bookstore to
bookstore with The Bar Sinister in hand,
asking to speak to the manager. Perhaps it was due
as much to his quiet manner as the merit of my book,
but every single one agreed to place The Bar
Sinister on their shelves. Emboldened, we began
selling them one by one via our own no-frills
website. We soon began getting large orders from
distributers, fulfilling them out of our garage.
In the year 2000,
selling a book on Amazon meant a book was open for
appraisal by anonymous reviewers. Hence, it was the
ultimate test of my mettle – a trait I had already
exposed to be dolefully lacking. I knew some might
believe a sequel to Pride & Prejudice with
The Bar Sinister’s explicitness of questionable
merit. I was unprepared for a hue and cry that could
be heard on several continents. The level of vitriol
was quite off-putting. But I came to understand that
amongst Jane Austen followers there is an element
that could only be described as “lunatic fringe.”
Although I received no outright death threats, some
reviews were ominous enough for me to consider
checking the ignition of my car for incendiary
devices.
Fortunately, the
wail of horrified Janeites was soon drowned out by
those who loved the Darcys and my version of their
passionate story.
With the demand
for the book increasing day by day, we sold the
rights to Sourcebooks who resurrected the working
title, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and endowed it
with a beautiful cover. A national presence allowed
professional reviewers a chance to weigh in. Most of
them were surprisingly generous. Booklist, Library
Journal –even the Chicago Tribune all gave good
notices. While One Canadian newspaper reviewer
generally liked it, she suggested that Mr. Darcy’s
penis was actually another character in the book. I
would have taken offense, but one could argue the
point.
I am told there
are thousands upon thousands of Jane Austen sequels,
furtherings and retellings now. Most stay true to
her vision. Others sport zombies, Dracula and at
least one containing “love that dares not speak its
name”. In comparison, MDTAW’s seething passion is
positively sedate. To my complete surprise and
untold gratitude, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife has
sold nearly 400,000 copies and has been printed in
four languages. I have written four successive
sequels (MDTAW 2004, Darcy & Elizabeth 2006,
the Ruling Passion 2011, and New Pleasures
2016) and am writing a fifth. As a work in progress,
it is lovingly referred to as Mr. Darcy Takes His
Wife Some More.
When I recall the
early groundswell of vituperation I once weathered,
I am reminded of the story of a man who, upon being
found guilty of some infraction, was swept up by a
mob of citizenry. He was tarred and feathered and
run out of town on a rail. Afterwards, he was asked
by a reporter how he felt about event. He replied,
“If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, I’d just
as soon walked.”
All in all, I’m
glad I went along for the ride. I’ve met so many
wonderful people that it hard to recall the early
days of eager dread as I awaited the overnight
Amazon reviews to load. I still care about my
readers’ opinions, but I am proud to say I can now
read unkind reviews without falling into a fainting
fit. However, my dearest friends would probably
agree that I’d run mad long before.
Linda Berdoll
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