A novel by JANET TODD
Publisher: Fentum Press (July 9, 2021)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1909572276
ISBN-13: 9781909572270
Eccentric Fran wants a second chance. Thanks to her intimacy with Jane Austen, and Shelley, she finds one. Jane Austen is such a presence in Fran’s life that she seems to share her cottage and garden, becoming an imaginary friend. Fran’s conversations with Jane Austen guide and chide her – but Fran is ready for change. An encounter with a long-standing friend, and a new one, a writer, lead to something new. The three women unite in their love of books and in a quest for the idealist poet Shelley at two pivotal moments: in Wales and Venice. His yearning for utopian communities and visionary power lead them to interrogate their past relationships, literature, motherhood, death, feminism, the resurgence of childhood memory in old age, the tensions between generations. Despite the appeal of solitude, they open themselves to different ways of living outside partnership and family. Jane Austen has plenty of comments to offer. This “coming of old age” novel is a (light) meditation on age, literature, friendship, hope, and the joy of new opportunities.
USA: Available from bookshop.org or Amazon.com
UK: Available from uk.bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk
Reviews, Interviews and Appearances for Jane Austen and Shelley In The Garden
Published reviews
- Washington Post: Jane Austen makes a cameo in a charming new novel about friendship and the literary life 14th September 2021
- Booklist Magazine: Jane Austen and Shelley In the Garden 10th September 2021
- Foreword Reviews: With consuming literary passion, Janet Todd’s complex novel combines the past and the present together with the living and the dead 10th September 2021