Jane Austen’s Memorable Characters
“Austen is a master of character,” says Charlene Carr, “and the longevity and popularity of her writing illustrate the importance of women’s stories.” Carr is the author of eleven novels, including Hold My Girl and We Rip the World Apart, which won the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction earlier this year. In the tribute she composed for “Unexpectedly Austen,” the series Liz Philosophos Cooper and I are co-editing this year as part of Austen’s 250th birthday celebrations, Carr writes that “As a writer of domestic fiction myself, I know I’ll always hold a place in my heart for her words and for the path she paved.” She says that Pride and Prejudice is the Austen novel she “kept coming back to, each time new and yet so comforting in its familiarity.”
You can find the full text of her tribute on the Jane Austen Society of North America website. This month’s installment also includes quotations from three other novelists: Emma Straub praises Austen’s “magnificent secondary characters, … the ones who make you giggle and cringe”; Katherine Rundell praises Austen’s heroine Emma Woodhouse as “vividly human to us, which is far better than perfection”; and Marlon James says that “nobody has ever been slyer with characters than Austen.”
Photo by Brenda Barry
I was delighted to see my novel The Austens included in a recent list by Shawna Lemay of things she loves. She photographed the book with the last bouquet of the season and her card catalogue, and she writes, “I felt that I knew Jane Austen in all new ways after reading The Austens.”
Over the past few week, I’ve signed copies of The Austens at Indigo in Dartmouth, Bookmark in both Charlottetown and Halifax, and Coles in the Halifax Shopping Centre.
I’m back in Prince Edward Island for the Cavendish Literary Festival this weekend, looking forward to speaking about Jane Austen and L.M. Montgomery this afternoon on a panel with Kate Scarth and Laura Robinson and to reading from The Austens tomorrow morning. I’m also excited to hear from other writers, including Sheree Fitch, Sandra McIntyre, Donna Jones Alward, Keir Lowther, and Linden MacIntyre.
Speaking of PEI and L.M. Montgomery, some of you may be interested in the Green Gables October read-along hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks. This year’s focus is Anne of the Island. She invites readers to “read the book and either join the conversation on my posts or share your own posts wherever you would like. Be it a blog, social media account, or otherwise, all are welcome!” (#GreenGablesOctober25 and #ReadingAnneoftheIsland)
Sunset on the north shore of PEI
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Here are the links to the last two posts, in case you missed them:
Publication week for The Austens
Amanda Root on playing Anne Elliot: “her discernment and constancy never cease to inspire”
My debut novel, The Austens, is now available from Pottersfield Press!
Copyright Sarah Emsley 2025 ~ All rights reserved. No AI training: material on http://www.sarahemsley.com may not be used to “train” generative AI technologies.
