Rebecca Ann Collins

A lifelong fan of Jane Austen, Rebecca Ann Collins first read Pride and Prejudice at the age of twelve. She claims that she fell in love with the characters and has, since then, read all of Jane Austen's works many times over and gathered a wealth of information about her and the period in which she lived and wrote. She has a rich library of material about the life and times of what she calls "the Pemberley families" as Pride and Prejudice became her favourite Austen novel.

Just five years ago, what had been a pastime became something of an obsession. Two things started her on her present career -  the BBC's magnificient production of Pride and Prejudice, which brought all her favourite characters so dramatically alive in a stunning visual context and ironically, the rash of sequels that appeared soon after- some of which made Jane Austen's characters act as though they were puppets in some Regency-style soap opera!

It was in this context that Ms. Collins began work on The Pemberley Chronicles, which placed her favourite characters in their original environment- nineteenth century England. Instead of manipulating them, she lets them lead the lives that Jane Austen appeared to have plotted for them at the end of her great novel and then she observes them as they make their way through the changing context of an era of profound economic and social change, perhaps the most dynamic period of English history.

"It is unthinkable," she says, "that these intelligent, educated and cultured men and women could have frittered away their days concerned only with affairs and marriages, while all the great issues of the era, the things that Charlotte Bronte, George Elliott and Charles Dickens were writing about, swirled around them. Yet this is how they are portrayed by many writers who purport to produce sequels to the Austen novels."

In Ms. Collins' books, all the main characters remain essentially Jane Austen's, except they age, mellow and sometimes depart the scene. At no time does she presume to imitate Miss Austen's unique style, preferring instead to use a slightly formal, late 19th century mode, which is in keeping with the period in which the author- and internal narrator is more at home. Considering that the series of Pemberley novels stretches over two thirds of  the 19th century, this is indeed a reasonable and prudent choice. As the Pemberley  families face the changes that confronted all the people of England, Ms. Collins, not content to hang a "happily ever after" tag upon the door, observes the impact upon their  lives.

The popularity of the Chronicles led on to other titles - The Women of Pemberley, Netherfield Park Revisited and The Ladies of Longbourn. All share the same qualities of  carefully researched backgrounds, credible plotlines and consistent characterization. There is also the gentle humour and decorum that was so characteristic of Jane Austen. While she is prepared to take greater liberties with the characters she has created, perhaps her greatest achievement is to have "borrowed" Jane Austen's people to add weight to her own work, without ever appearing to imitate or worse, plagiarize the original. Better still, she has that happy knack of telling a good story and telling it well.

With Rebecca Ann Collins, the shades of Pemberley will certainly live on.
 

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