The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen
Syrie James
Avon, Nov 2007, $13.95
ISBN: 9780061341427

Historians and romance readers have always wondered whether Jane Austen, author of six novels and many letters, kept a dairy as none were found yet that was popular in early nineteenth century England. None were found until now. In Chawton Manor House, one of the homes owned by Ms. Austen's brother, a worker repairing a roof found a seaman's chest; inside are manuscripts of the previously LOST MEMOIRS OF JANE AUSTEN. The chest was probably left there and forgotten by Jane's beloved sister Cassandra who admitted to having destroyed much of the letters written by Jane to her. This particular publication is one manuscript whose condition is excellent but written when the great author was ill and dying sometime in 1815-1817, but relates to events from an earlier time.

With the death of her father Reverend George Austen in 1805, his suddenly impoverished daughter Jane gave up writing, a pastime she enjoyed since she had already expected to be a spinster having never met a man she considered her intellectual equal. That is until the summer of 1810 in Lime when she meets witty and intelligent Mr. Ashford; she is excited by this handsome charmer who inspires her to return to writing by revising a novel she had drafted years ago but never finished (Sense and Sensibility).

Every time this reviewer assumes there is no new way to dissect Jane Austen, I am proven clueless by an author with a new spin. Syrie James is the latest to pay homage (some might say chutzpah) as she uses the device of finding a long forgotten hidden journal written by the author to tell the tale of Ms. Austen's inspirational romance that led to her completing her great novels. Readers will believe Syrie James captures the voice of Ms. Austen with this fictionalized entertaining account by romantic literature's first author "in her words".

Harriet Klausner