“The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen…Her Secret Seaside Romance”

reviewed by Gabrielle Pantera

Rating: HHH

The story of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen takes place in the two years before the publication of Sense and Sensibility. “Jane Austen was in her early thirties and had already written the first drafts of three complete novels, but was stalled in her writing career,” says author Syrie James. “I couldn't help but wonder: what happened during those missing years?”

Maybe Austen fans had noticed a gap in Austen biographies, a complete silence from January 1809 through April 1811.

     “Jane's sister Cassandra confided to her niece that the only man Jane ever truly loved was an unnamed gentleman she once met at an unspecified seaside resort,” says James. “This tantalizing anecdote is known as the mysterious ‘seaside romance’. Everyone wonders, who was that man? What happened to him? I decided to invent him.”

     That the Memoirs were found, in a walled up part of the attic at Chawton, now the home of the Jane Austen Society, was a clever deception in the style of The Blair Witch Project. This device was also used in Stephanie Barron mystery novels that features Austen as a sleuth. However, the fact that the Editor is fictitious may confuse readers. “Dr. Mary I. Jesse does not exist,” says James. “Nor is there a Jane Austen Literary Foundation. Mary I. Jesse is an anagram of my own name.”

     The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen has plots and characterizations that mimic Austen’s books. Overall James does do a good mirroring Austen’s writing style. But, James overuses this a bit too much, to the point of tedium. James could have woven more facts into the novel and made the memoir more believable. Two other things threw me out of the novel. One was the flashbacks to previous events in Austen’s life. The other was having Austen tell Walter Scott to make Waverley a novel instead of a poem. Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley, published in 1814, is often regarded as the first historical novel.

     As a screenwriter, Syrie James is credited on IMDB with writing Once In A Lifetime, the TV movie adaptation of the Danielle Steele novel starring Lindsay Wagner. James’ screenplay adaptation of The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, simply called Jane, won the Scriptwriters Network HOP award.

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen, A Novel. Trade paperback 303 pages. Publisher: Avon, An imprint of Harper Collins (November 6, 2007). Language: English. ISBN- 987-0-06-134142-7 $13.95