I happened across this Pride and Prejudice sequel a number of weeks ago: Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I was not even aware there are numerous authors writing prequels and sequels to Jane Austen’s novels. While I am intrigued, I confess I find myself somewhat conflicted.
When Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” came out, I did read it and then wished I hadn’t. I didn’t think it was as good as the original Gone With The Wind and I frankly didn’t like the story. So my personal bias is that it is awfully difficult to match the style of the original author and have it come off well.
Even more than that, I’ve long felt that it is wrong for someone to write another author’s characters. If I were to write a novel, those would be MY characters. I created them and gave them a life story. I would not want someone else coming along and writing more about them after I was dead. What if what they wrote was completely contradictory to what I had intended them to be?
I suppose to take this thought to its logical conclusion, I should also not like film adaptations of books. After all, it gives a voice and a look to each character that is perhaps not accurate to the vision of the author. However, that doesn’t seem to bother me. So maybe I’m being inconsistent, but there it is.
I also understand that many of the prequels and sequels tend to be fairly racy and that doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t think this is the case with the Charlotte Collins one, but in doing some looking around Amazon it does seem to be fairly common. So I guess caveat emptor would apply when looking at these kinds of books.
So has anyone read Charlotte Collins? Does anyone read the prequels and sequels? What are your thoughts?