Eliza's Daughter [Hardcover]

Joan Aiken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1994

In the sequel to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Eliza's daughter, Liz, grows up as a charming, well-educated, irrepressible hoyden in the town of Byblow Bottom, until she is brought back to the Dashwood sisters' home. By the author of Jane Fairfax.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Others may try, but nobody comes close to Aiken ( Jane Fairfax ) in writing sequels to Jane Austen. Here she follows characters met in and suggested by Sense and Sensibility , spinning an absorbing tale rich in characterization and diverse settings. Raised with other "by-blows" (illegitimate children) by a disreputable foster mother, and uncertain of her parentage, Liz Williams regularly receives money and admonitions from a Colonel Brandon, who never visits her. (Brandon, of course, married Marianne Dashwood in the Austen novel.) Determined to discover the mystery of her parentage, Liz takes shelter with the Ferrars (nee Elinor Dashwood), who send her to school in Bath, where, through no fault of her own, she loses her reputation and her position and is forced to flee to London to make her way in the world. This she does--with a vengeance-- meanwhile discovering sobering truths about her parents and herself. Spirited Liz is an 18th-century feminist of the first order. Whether consorting with poets or fighting off brigands in Portugal, she holds her own with bravado and good cheer. Aiken's sense of time and place is impeccable, and her wit is employed to good effect. Her vision of the later lives of Marianne and Elinor embraces Austen's irony; while they did not achieve the happiness we would have wished for them, here they find fulfillment in unexpected ways.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This sequel to Austen's Sense and Sensibility is less successful than Jane Fairfax (LJ 4/15/91), Aiken's companion to Emma, for it fails to capture Austen's idioms. The style owes more to Dickens than to Austen, as does the plot: The illegitimate daughter of Colonel Brandon's sister is raised by brutish foster parents, shuttled from one lukewarm relative to another, discovers her parentage, and at last claims her birthright. Read on its own merits as a distinct novel, Eliza's Daughter has something to offer, but those hoping for reading that captures as much Austen as last year's sequels to Pride and Prejudice (Presumption, LJ 9/15/93, and Pemberly, LJ 11/1/93) will be disappointed.
Cynthia Johnson, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; First Edition edition (May 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312109725
• ISBN-13: 978-0312109721
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,758,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joan Aiken (1924-2004) was the daughter of Pulitzer prize winning poet Conrad Aiken and started writing herself from the age of five. During her lifetime she published over one hundred books for children and adults, including the acclaimed Wolves of Willoughby Chase series. In the UK she received an MBE from the Queen for her services to Children's Literature.

This year sees the publication of a brand NEW story collection - The Monkey's Wedding - with previously unpublished material that shows Aiken on top form. This collection of funny, spooky, unexpected but classic Aiken stories has received wonderful reviews and will delight her readers. See below for details.

Her work continues to be adapted for film and television; she is established as a consummate storyteller,and recognized as one of the best loved authors of the twentieth century.

"The Wonderful World of Joan Aiken" is at www.joanaiken.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, especially for Jane Austen fans!, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Eliza's Daughter (Hardcover)

As a Jane Austen fan, I've always wished she'd been more prolific in her lifetime. I found this book while searching for other books about young women in 19th century England. Although the plot is tame by today's standards, Jane would never have considered writing such a scandalous book. The book is well-written though and has many Jane-esque attributes. The teaser at the end left me wondering if the Joan Aiken has a sequel to the sequel in mind. I'm happy to see that Joan seems to be much more prolific than Jane was and I look forward to reading the other Jane Austen sequels. I highly recommend this book to other Jane Austen fans!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What happed to Austen's characters?, December 2, 2001

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Eliza's Daughter (Hardcover)

Most of the characters from the original novel are butchered to make Eliza look good. Edward and Elinor no longer seem to care for or respect each other. Marianne never comes to love Colonel Brandon and is just plain spiteful. Mrs. Dashwood goes insane. Almost all of the characters end up miserable except Eliza. You are supposed to like and admire her for overcoming all of her struggles but I just do not see how that is possible.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Would be better as an original novel, not an Austen sequel, June 8, 2000

By 

Vicki J. Kondelik - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eliza's Daughter (Hardcover)

Joan Aiken is a good writer; she makes no attempt to imitate Austen's style, but I did not expect her to. The book is enjoyable, and the main character, who is almost entirely Aiken's own, is likeable. (I'm saying "almost entirely Aiken's own" because Eliza was only a baby when Sense and Sensibility takes place.) In fact, I think that the book would have been even better if it had been an original novel, instead of a sequel to Jane Austen. And this would have been easy to do; just change the names of the Austen characters, and they would be completely different people! Their personalities are completely different from the characters we know.

I find the changes in Edward and Marianne most disturbing. Edward is portrayed as mean, bitter, and tight with his money. He does not seem to have any love for Elinor at all, and he resents Colonel Brandon and Marianne for being rich, while Edward and Elinor are poor. When Eliza comes to stay with Edward and Elinor, it seems that Edward can not wait to get Eliza out of the house. And when he finds out Elinor is writing novels, he is completely horrified. This is not the Edward that we know! We find out that Elinor and Edward had a son, who died when he fell off a horse; possibly the change in Edward's character comes from bitterness over the death of his son. But this is not gone into at all; in fact, it is mentioned only once. As for Marianne, I could not imagine her being so mean that she would not allow Colonel Brandon to see Eliza even once, or have anything to do with her. Why has Marianne turned into such a mean, spiteful woman? There is absolutely no explanation of that, as far as I can see.

I also found the portrayal of Margaret Dashwood completely unbelievable. Why would Margaret remain unmarried, and become a schoolteacher? Wasn't it considered shameful for a girl of her social class to become a teacher? Also, I found it strange that she went out of her way to avoid Eliza at the school. And Mrs. Dashwood: why would she go crazy? There's a mention of some sort of illness, but nothing further.

The only Austen character who remains pretty much true to character is Elinor, although I thought the part about her writing novels was contrived. Is Aiken trying to turn Elinor into Jane Austen? (Just like the recent film of Mansfield Park has tried to turn Fanny Price into Jane Austen.) And isn't it interesting that Elinor has written six novels, and her publisher is John Murray?

As I said, though, this novel is not all bad; in fact, it's quite good when it gets away from Austen's characters. I enjoyed the plot very much. It reminded me of a detective story, with Eliza searching for clues to her mysterious past. And I also found Eliza's adventures in Portugal quite exciting. As an opera fan, I especially liked the parts about music and singing, and I almost wished that Eliza had become an opera singer like her mother. Also, I enjoyed the part where Eliza, as a child, meets Wordsworth and Coleridge, and the allusions to their poetry throughout the book.

The teaser at the end makes me wonder if Aiken plans to write a sequel to the sequel. I have no idea who the father of Eliza's child might be. There was something about being able to guess who it was from what has been said, but I could not figure it out. If Aiken does write a sequel to this book, I think it would be interesting, especially if she leaves out Austen's characters.

So, all in all, this was an enjoyable book that would have been better if it had not been an Austen sequel.