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Dear reader, if Jane Austen lived today, she'd be an avid blogger, she'd be on Facebook, and of course she'd also be tweeting away — but mostly about other people, not herself. That's because Austen had a passionate fascination with people and what made them who they were, an interest that keeps the modern world fascinated by the woman who wrote novels set in small villages nearly 200 years ago, said Laurel Ann Nattress, editor of an anthology of Austen-inspired stories. "She would definitely be on Twitter, out there having fun. Blogging, connecting with people. Facebook," said Nattress in a phone interview about her book, Jane Austen Made Me Do It.
"I wasn't really pleased with what life was happening around me, and so I saw this fabulous world 200 years ago. It was just amazing how civil these people were, the gentility and civility were really striking, I think, (compared) with what we were seeing on television." Nattress immediately re-read Pride and Prejudice, although she said she struggled a bit with the language at first, and then the other books. Though for years Nattress said she merely "worshipped in silence," the advent of the Internet in the mid-90s opened up a new world of sites where other Austen fans gathered. In 2007, she began a blog, "Austenprose," (http://austenprose.com/) to share her passion for all things Austen, including a growing body of "Austen sequels" and other Austen-inspired tales. These days this includes some with touches of vampires, zombies and hammerhead sharks. Amidst this literary outpouring, Nattress suddenly realised there wasn't an anthology of Austen-inspired short stories. With the help of a literary agent who phoned to thank her about a review she'd done, she set out to rectify that. — Reuters
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"She loved
understanding how people ticked, and you see that in her
characterisations and her plots. So I think that the whole social
networking thing would fascinate her too, because you learn more about
people." Nattress first read Austen as a schoolgirl, but her
passion for the writer who gave the world Sense and Sensibility
and a handful of other novels didn't truly begin until 1980, when a
television production of Pride and Prejudice made the world of
Regency England come alive for her. "I loved the era, I loved the
gentility, I loved the respect that the characters had for each other. I
love their dialogue — that sharp, witty, funny dialogue," she
said.