Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton

Reviewed by Gerti

What an odd duck this book is! According to the cover blurb, “Old friends and New Fancies” is the first ever Jane Austen sequel, and perhaps among the earliest fan fiction ever! Little is known of author Sybil Brinton except that she penned this love letter to Austen’s fiction back in 1913. It’s a wonderful read, because the language she uses is more similar to that of Austen’s day than what fan fiction writers put out today, so it’s almost like finding another, final Austen novel that ties all her plots together! The only thing Brinton fails at, is that she doesn’t have Austen’s sharp wit, but it is a small failing indeed when there is so much other fun to be had! It’s like riding in a literary time machine!

Brinton is gifted at finding connections between the various characters in Austen’s novels (excluding juvenilia, “Lady Susan” and “Sanditon”.) She starts with JA’s most popular work, “Pride and Prejudice”, and does the usual thing, with Georgiana Darcy engaged to Colonel Fitzwilliam. She then breaks that couple up and allows them to find new fancies, much as the title says. Fitzwilliam finds himself falling in love with Mary Crawford, one of the pair of sophisticated siblings who appear in “Mansfield Park” to play with the hearts of the Bertram family. Georgiana also forms a connection to Mansfield, when she finds herself proposed to by a sailor named William Price, the brother of goody-two-shoes Fanny Price, the heroine of that novel. Trouble occurs when Sir Walter Eliot of “Persuasion” fame also sets his cap at Mary Crawford, and a younger Bennet sister likewise expects an offer of marriage from handsome Mr. Price.

Do you feel your heart beating faster already? Yes, for true Austen fans, this novel is a delightful mashup of Austen’s best and worst characters, with trouble-making Mrs. Jennings (from “Sense and Sensibility”) killing Kitty’s chances at romance, and Lucy Ferrars (once Steele, from the same novel) poisoning Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s mind against poor Mary Crawford. Heroes, villians and classic characters all dance around for the enjoyment of Austen fans, and I couldn’t get enough of it, even though Brinton’s book weighs in at 377 pages.

Sad notes for me: Colonel Brandon is dead by the start of the book, so we don’t get to hear from him (and I always found his character so appealing!) Mary Bennet is also excluded (although she’d be the perfect bride for a curate) as is Mrs. Bennet, whose “spasms and flutterings” add so much humor to “P & P”. But Emma Woodhouse is here, now Mrs. Knightley of course, and she’s still matchmaking despite learning her lesson in the book that shares her name. And while little is seen of Catherine Morland from “Northanger Abbey”, her brother and greedy friend Isabella Thorpe play a role here, too. And I’ll just give you this spoiler – Isabella gets the groom she deserves in the end! In short, this book is a must read for all Austen fans. I’ve just finished and can’t wait to read it again!