Jane Austen and Elizabeth Aston

Our special Austen Week series continues, with Elizabeth Aston, author of Mr Darcy's Daughters, The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy and The True Darcy Spirit. Why does Jane mean so much to her?

Then they stopped, holding hands, and looked down. The girl knelt, and laid a red rose on Jane Austen’s gravestone.

The gesture brought tears to my eyes. The same kind of incredulous tears as when, at thirteen, I finished Persuasion and realized there were no more to read, that Jane Austen had written just those six astonishing novels.

I was influenced by Jane Austen from the moment I was born. My brothers were named after their grandfathers; I was named after the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. So she was destined to be an inspiration to me, as a writer and as a woman: the most clear-headed, witty, satirical, humane and romantic novelist that England ever produced.

We women writers have it easy today, with our education and our opportunities and our computers, and yet we should be enthused and encouraged by Jane Austen’s example. Two hundred years ago, what were the odds that a country parson’s daughter would overcome all the difficulties of her life and write books that generations of men and women would read and be enchanted and amused and enthralled by for the next two hundred years?

But she did.

And the characters from those six novels have been part of my life ever since. "Good evening, Mr Darcy!”

Elizabeth Aston is a passionate Jane Austen devotee who studied English at Oxford. She lives in Oxford and Italy with her family. Find out more about her Austen inspired novels here.

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