Diana Birchall

Praise for Mrs. Elton in America:

“It’s a delight to meet with old friends in new situations. America, where everything is bigger and better, is just the setting for the obnoxious but hugely entertaining Augusta Elton.”
“A polished performance... it will surely entertain lovers of Austen’s work and women’s travel writing alike.”
“A comic gem!”

Diana Birchall writes:

In Defense of Mrs. Elton had an interesting evolution. It began as an internet serial told on the Janeites online literary list. The group was discussing this obnoxious character from Jane Austen's Emma, and I undertook to defend her. My defense took the form of a serial story, told in eleven parts over the period of about a month, and the response from the geographically far-flung, but intellectually close-knit Janeites community was startling. I received responses, actual fan letters, while I was still writing, and had the amusement of seeing more scholarly inclined readers analyzing what I was writing while I was still writing it. One person wrote that watching "Mrs. Elton" unfold electronically must be like the way it was when people in America met ships from England at the dock and shouted, "Did Little Nell die?" Yet the early serial writers never knew the instant response that is now possible on line, and which was so thrilling for me. The story’s popularity led to its publication and distribution by The Jane Austen Society in America in Canada, Australia and England, in an edition wittily illustrated by Juliet McMaster. A play based on The Courtship of Mrs. Elton has been performed by Jane Austen groups. All three “Mrs. Elton” stories are collected in the volume, Mrs. Elton in America.