Eliza's Daughter: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility

by Joan Aiken

Book Overview

A Young Woman Longing for Adventure and an Artistic Life... Because she's an illegitimate child, Eliza is raised in the rural backwater with very little supervision. An intelligent, creative, and free-spirited heroine, unfettered by the strictures of her time, she makes friends with poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge, finds her way to London, and eventually travels the world, all the while seeking to solve the mystery of her parentage...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402212887
• ISBN13: 9781402212888
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Tragically gothic and too extreme for Jane Austen's original characters

I've read most of Joan Aiken's fan fiction spinoffs from Jane Austen and loved them...but this one was too gothic and extreme. Turning Jane's original characters on their heads and into the miscreants was disappointing. Documenting the condition of Britain's out of wedlock orphans and cast aside children was and is necessary...but dumping the abuse, cruelty at Jane Austen's beloved Sense and Sensibility doorstep was disappointing.

Eliza's daughters, A sequel to Sense and Sensibility.

For avid Jane Austen readers sequels are fun and not to be taken seriously but we cannot help hoping that someone else might capture the magic. Joan Aitken is the best of many who try to prolong the enjoyment of Miss Austen's style. This story, Eliza's Daughters,has ingenious plot lines, moves along at a great pace till a quick and rather weak ending. An enjoyable read , nevertheless.

Entertaining, especially for Jane Austen fans!

As a Jane Austen fan, I've always wished she'd been more prolific in her lifetime. I found this book while searching for other books about young women in 19th century England. Although the plot is tame by today's standards, Jane would never have considered writing such a scandalous book. The book is well-written though and has many Jane-esque attributes. The teaser at the end left me wondering if the Joan Aiken has a sequel to the sequel in mind. I'm happy to see that Joan seems to be much more prolific than Jane was and I look forward to reading the other Jane Austen sequels. I highly recommend this book to other Jane Austen fans!

Very amusing, ate it up.

was somewhat frustrated during the reading of this book as I read Sense and Sensibility many years ago, saw the movie several years ago, and, with a mind like a steel sieve, couldn't remember the plot or people. In spite of that, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and the imitation of Austin's style. I was somewhat annoyed by the secrecy that the main character maintained, hiding certain events from the reader, and found the "surprise" at the end vexing, as I don't think there is a sequel to the sequel. Although I could find no obvious anachronisms, there was no mistaking in my mind that this was written by a modern author - Austin herself would never have dared write of some of the more shocking events that occurred in Eliza's rough life, which by modern standards is still shocking but no big deal to see in a book (outside of formula romances.) Following my immersion in this book(And having a proclivity to take to odd fancies) I find myself seeing my own mundane modern life through 18'th century eyes even as I find myself speaking as I think they spoke, and feeling an urge to put on some kind of big brown plain 18'th century everyday frock (Which I don't own). A successful book lingers with you for a while after you turn the last page, and this one does much more so than the run of the mill romance I've read on occasion.