Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters
It’s been quite a while since I read any Jane Austen fanfic, but a friend of mine lent me Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters by Elizabeth Aston. When you write in a post-copyright fandom, you can sell your fanfic just like Real Fiction. I’d love to write some Barsoom fanfic and get paid for the pleasure.
Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters is high on plot and low on atmosphere, not unlike the Jane Austen fanfic I used to read. The Darcys have gone off to Constantinople, leaving their young sons at Pemberley and their five daughters in London for the season. These daughters bear an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Bennet’s troublesome brood, with one telling exception - there is no equivalent of Jane.
Two daughters are saucy, one preachy, two flirty. Our Lizzy-equivalent survives her requisite crush upon an unusual Wickham-equivalent, then manages to get into an Elinor-style bind with her cousin’s fiance. Yet nowhere do you see the stoicism that marks true Austen heroines. Instead, the author goes out of her way to point out the amoral nature of society’s restrictions. In Pride and Prejudice, blame for the waywardness of the younger Bennet daughters is attributed to the unequal marriage of their parents, but no explanation is ever given as to how Mrs. Darcy’s Daughters turned out so poorly.
Since true Austenfic revolves around issues of character, it is strange to find the five sisters unchanged in the end, except for the odd marriage or two (or three). Fanfic can be literary but in this case, despite the fancy trade-paperback binding, it isn’t.
April 18th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
my comment shall be that i think that the book Mr. Darcy’s Daughter is full of advernture
and tension to the reader itself. I myself have been intense on the places were u mostly are suppose to be intense on. I do not wish you to believe this but i have wish so many times that i would be in England and would have the
same problems as the Darcy Daughters. i thought it to be a non-fictional book but i have msitaken for it is a fiction. i recall that my cousin have hit me slithly ofcourse for my being so naive. i have loved pride and prejudice and have read it too. so at the start of reading Mr. Darcy’s Daughter i have made the predictions taht Mr. Wytton would get out of his engagement to Sophie and fling to Camilla as it happened on the book. believe me that it was my real prediction. and i was very happy to say that my predictions have came true. ofcourse i did not predict that the twins would do such horrid things. but i guess it was the best to not know everything in the real world or our fantasies. i love how both Camilla and Mr. Wytton found that they had fallen in love with the person they have thouhgt would be far from loving him/her. ofcourse it is funny and very thoughtful indead that the revenge have become of help to the two love birds. and i do wish that there is a man of wealth, adventure, and mind just like Mr. Wytton for me to marry.