Godmersham Park: The Sunday Times top ten bestseller by the acclaimed author of Miss Austen

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Probably because genius is so hard to imagine; genius in daily life, living in the disguise of an ordinary person. The class distinctions portrayed by Gill Hornby between the lower servant class and an impoverished but educated daughter-turned governess set Anne apart in her household position at Godmersham, a particular division within a class structure that Austen rarely defined. But still there's the reminder of class, station in life, and how all female's position in life is reliant on a male.

Gill Hornby is the author of the novels The Hive and All Together Now, as well as The Story of Jane Austen, a biography of Austen for young readers.Her new one, Godmersham Park, is also inspired by the Austens, telling the story of Anne Sharp, who became one of Jane’s closest friends after taking up the position of governess to her niece, Fanny. In this follow-up piece, Hornby switches her attention to Anne Sharp, governess to the Knight family, the wealthy branch of the Austens. In one interview with a shady lawyer, she learns her father is cutting her allowance to the bone and evicting her from her home. I understand it’s based on a true story so the author can only go so far with this, but I’ll be honest there wasn’t much of a story.

Muy confusa con el triángulo entre Henry, Anne y Jane (a su pesar, pues Jane no ve a Anne más que como una buena amiga todo el rato, como otra hermana). At the same time it is a beautifully written and evocative story peopled by well observed, rounded characters. Miss Sharp is a shadowy figure but is known to have been close to Jane Austen and that the two corresponded even after she left her position. This seems quite unfair given how little evidence there seems to be about her personality either way.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. To shed light on Anne's governess days, we also have the diaries of Fanny Austen Knight, who was Jane's niece and Anne's student for two years at Godmersham Park.

Distractions come in the form of the dashing Henry Austen and friendship comes from his sister, the arch Miss Jane Austen. This fictional Anne was raised in a mostly absent parental home, suggesting a mystery—her family’s secret hovers but is easily guessed at. The storyline about Anne Sharp's family background is necessarily highly imaginative and her friendship with Jane Austen never seems to quite connect enough to give her the same insight into the author which was found in Hornby's previous novel. On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. La propia Jane Austen hace hincapié, por ejemplo en “Orgullo y prejuicio” en cuales son las enseñanzas adecuadas para una mujer o en “Sentido y sensibilidad” se indica que dependen de la bondad de familiares cuando se quedan solas y sin un padre que las apoye, tal y como les sucedió a la propia Austen o a Anne Sharp en sus vidas reales.After losing her mother and being cast aside by her father, Anne Sharp knows that her life of leisure and luxury is at an end – she must find work. The authors note was a great summary of events after the novel ends and added to the enjoyment as it was a bit of an abrupt ending otherwise. Anne Sharp survived as a lone woman - and not just survived, actually triumphed - against all possible odds. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

That meant there were several storylines that looked like they were going to go somewhere but were never mentioned again. She and Jane only met twice more during their lives but Jane sent her a presentation copy of Emma with a handwritten inscription and she was also remembered in Jane’s will which definitely shows the closeness between the two women despite not seeing each other. The story is more character than plot driven, which while not inherently bad, does cause the book to be quite slow-paced.She is also a highly intelligent and perceptive person, and her commentary on the various absurdities of the household and society at large are both insightful and entertaining. She was Jane's niece and the daughter of Elizabeth Austen, The book moves slowly and there are Bridgerton and Downton Abbey vibes as the estate and landscape are brilliantly evoked as are the dresses and customs of the day. Most casual readers of Jane Austen won't be familiar with this friend, and none of Anne's own words or letters survive, but what we do know is that even though Jane Austen was publishing anonymously, she presented Anne with a special copy of Emma, and they were close enough for Cassandra to send Anne a lock of Jane's hair after her death. I admit that this is a fictionalization of a true fact, and therefore, it is open to doubts and interpretations, but I appreciate the book for showing this "hidden figure" that shows the reality of working women of a certain class at that time. In my recollection of that book at least, her beloved sister was someone whom Cassandra often found herself managing -- clever, but difficult, prone to depression, clearly frustrated by the lack of an outlet for her talents in the years before she managed to become a published and productive author.