#BlogTour | The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Vol. III by Collins Hemingway #TheMarriageOfMissJaneAusten #GuestPost #HFVBTBlogtour @austenmarriage @hfvbt

Posted on 18/12/2019 Updated on 17/12/2019

Hello, my Festive Sunshines! I have the huge pleasure to be today’s stop on this wonderful blog tour for; The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen by Collins Hemingway. Not only will I be telling you all about this book, but I have an exclusive guest post by Collins, which is so good, plus a giveaway. So, grab a cuppa and enjoy!

The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Vol. III by Collins Hemingway

Publication Date: November 4, 2017
Format: eBook & Paperback; 338 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

The Stunning Finale to Jane Austen’s Saga

In the moving conclusion to “The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen,” Jane and her husband struggle with the serious illness of their son, confront a bitter relationship with the aristocratic family who were once their friends and face the horrific prospect of war when the British Army falters on the continent. The momentous events of the Napoleonic wars and the agonizing trials of their personal lives take Jane and Ashton to a decision that will decide their fate—and her future—once and for all.

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | IndieBound

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Praise for The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Series

Hemingway again displays his notable ability to recreate time and place, moving on from the heady days of Jane Austen’s early love to a marriage beset by difficulties and a country at war. Hemingway … vividly and authentically portrays the times. … [T]his is a lively, compelling read, [a] sobering but moving finale to Hemingway’s successful trilogy. —BlueInk Review

Immensely satisfying … Marriage is lively, compelling, and fun. … [Her] relationship with her husband Ashton still sparkles. Marriage is a lovely ode to their connection. … Hemingway has combined Austen’s humanity with her fiction and created a Jane that lives and breathes on the page. Audiences will want her to be real… It offers a wonderful, imagined alternate life for the well-loved author. —Claire Foster, Foreword Review

‘Enjoyable … an imaginative, well-researched series.’ —Kirkus Reviews

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Guest Post

What Do We Really Know of Austen’s Romantic Life? by Collins Hemmingway

If we talk on a superficial level, Jane Austen’s life is one of the best documented of any writer. She was born and raised at Steventon, Hampshire, moved to Bath (unhappily, it appears) when her father retired in 1801, and settled in 1809 in the now famous Chawton Cottage where she produced her literary masterpieces.

But what of the years between her mid-twenties to early thirties? Unlike the rest of her life, this seven-year period between 1802 and 1809 goes puzzlingly blank. About all we know is that she, her mother, and her sister shuttled around southern England looking for cheap places to live after her father died in 1805.

Jane’s beloved sister Cass destroyed virtually all her correspondence about the seven-year period, along with any journals she may have kept. For most of her life, the surviving correspondence is relatively steady at ten or so letters a year. But the 1802-09 period contains gaps of a year at a time to three-and-a-half-years at a time. From 1801 to late 1808, we have only 13 letters—not quite 2 a year. Except for an occasional passing reference to her in other people’s letters and diaries, we know very little of Jane’s whereabouts or doings for this time.

Though her family maintains she had no serious relationships, it’s this seven-year period when any romance would have occurred. There is an alleged proposal from a person she wasn’t serious about, and little else. Yet there have been rumors of at least one other man, of which little is known.

According to the family, in 1828 Cassandra saw a man who reminded her of a one-time suitor of Jane. She told her nieces Caroline and Louisa that they had met the beau on the Devonshire coast in 1801, he and Jane had fallen in love, and they were to meet again, when a proposal was expected. Instead, Jane learned that he had died. Cass says he was “pleasing and very good looking,” but never provides the man’s name.

What’s odd is that Cass does not mention this story until 1828— more than a quarter-century after it is supposed to have happened! The nieces cannot even agree about where on the Devonshire coast this romance occurs. Cassandra spreads more confusion than information about that circumstance.

Even speaking about this expected proposal, she apparently fails to mention to her nieces a proposal that Jane supposedly did receive in December 1802. Biographers dutifully recount the engagement to Harris Bigg-Wither, when (the story is) she accepted a proposal from the wealthy but boorish young man, recanted it overnight, and fled back to her parents in Bath.

This purported engagement and refusal, which would have created a scandal, does not show up in any surviving contemporaneous letters or journals by anyone who knew Jane. The event is not recorded until nearly 70 years later by one of same nieces, Caroline, who was not even alive when it supposedly occurred in 1802!

Caroline sourced the story to her mother, Mary, who died in 1843—26 years after Jane died, 41 years after the event, and 27 years before Caroline’s telling. How would Mary have recalled the exact dates, December 2-3, 1802, of a proposal involving a sister-in-law she was not close to? In her notes, Caroline references her mother’s day books—brief diaries. However, the entries say nothing of the proposal, only that Jane and Cassandra were at Steventon on those dates. The suitor lived nearby.

The proposal is recounted in the first memoir of Jane, put together by James Edward, Caroline’s older brother, with Caroline’s help. Caroline is one of the younger relatives. How is it this story is handed down by her but not by the many other older nieces and nephews? James Edward was seven years older than Caroline and was around Jane on a regular basis. He attended her funeral on behalf of his ill father. Yet he sources his younger sister for the tale of the botched proposal. Wouldn’t he have heard the story around the dining room table himself?

Both of these “romances” come across as a bit unreal. There are too many specifics in one encounter (Bigg-Wither) and far too few in another (the mysterious suitor on the beach). Were there separate romantic encounters, each one ending disastrously, or perhaps one relationship that these inconsistent stories point to—or are designed to point away from?

Austen’s family took notice of her increasing fame in the middle of the repressed Victorian era. As the memoir makes clear, her younger relatives were happy to bury any suggestion that Austen would have ever done anything untoward such as write to make a living or—fall in love. The author Virginia Woolf, in contrast, says that her last novel Persuasion proves that Austen had loved intensely and, in the last year of her life, no longer cared who knew.

One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to envision the possibility that there may have been a very serious relationship overlooked or even hidden by her prim and proper descendants. What if Jane Austen had married? What if she had met someone very much her equal but also the sort of man a Victorian might want to lose in the mists of time?

What kind of man might that be? How would their relationship have begun? Might bits and pieces of the history be true? How would it have developed? How would it have ended? This possibility led me on a lengthy research and writing project culminating in the trilogy The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen.

My goal was to tell a tale of a meaningful relationship built upon the “understanding” Austen often writes about. I wanted to see how, as a married woman, she might have fit into the large and turbulent world of the Regency. I wanted to create a story that seriously tested a woman when everything was against her—law, society, biology. Perhaps most important, I wanted to see how the archetypal woman of the period would have handled all that marriage meant for a woman of that day.

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About the Author

Collins’ passion for literature, history, and science enable him to create complete, sharply drawn fictional characters fully engaged in their complex and often dangerous worlds. His fiction is shaped by the language of the heart and an abiding respect for courage in the face of adversity.

As a nonfiction book author, Collins has investigated topics as diverse as corporate culture and ethics; the Internet and mobile technology; the ins and outs of the retail trade; and the cognitive potential of the brain. Best known for the #1 best-selling book on business and technology, Business @ the Speed of Thought, which he co-authored with Bill Gates, he tackles challenging topics with clarity and insight, writing for the intelligent but nontechnical reader.

Born and raised in Arkansas, Collins has lived most of his adult life in the American Northwest, with a career that has spanned writing, high tech, and aviation. He has a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Arkansas, Phi Beta Kappa; a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Oregon; and numerous technical certifications in computer technology.

For more information please visit Collins Hemingway’s website and blog. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Goodreads.

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Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, December 16
Review at Gwendalyn’s Books

Tuesday, December 17
Review at Jackie and Angela’s Book Reviews

Wednesday, December 18
Review at Books and Zebras
Guest Post at Chicks, Rogues and Scandals

Thursday, December 19
Excerpt at Jathan & Heather
Guest Post at Library of Clean Reads

Saturday, December 21
Review & Interview at Jorie Loves a Story

Friday, December 27
Review at Pencils & Pages

Saturday, December 28
Excerpt at What Is That Book About

Wednesday, January 1
Review at Older & Smarter

Thursday, January 2
Review at The Book Junkie Reads

Friday, January 3
Feature at CelticLady’s Reviews

Monday, January 6
Review at @ya.its.lit

Thursday, January 9
Excerpt at I’m All About Books

Friday, January 10
Excerpt at The Lit Bitch
Review at Peaceful Pastime

Monday, January 13
Review at Jackie & Angela’s Book Reviews

Tuesday, January 14
Review at Impressions In Ink

Thursday, January 16
Review at Amy’s Booket List

Friday, January 17
Review at WTF Are You Reading?
Review & Excerpt at To Read, Or Not to Read

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Giveaway

During the Blog Tour, we are giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card! To enter, please use the Gleam form here – The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen Vol III

Giveaway Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on January 17th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Paperback giveaway is open to the US only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud will be decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner is chosen.