Persuasion

An Open Letter To Jane Austen


My dear Miss Austen,

I hope you will not think me too forward, or judge me as taking an unforgivable liberty, but I felt that I must write to express my kindest and most sincere regards, in appreciation for your novel, ‘Northanger Abbey’.

As you can plainly see, your writing has the same effect on me as that of the great Bard himself: it causes my writing to follow the patterns of your own. Just as a man walks out of one of Mr Shakespeare’s plays with the language of Elizabethan London in his mind, so yours fixes in the brain the style of Bath at the time of Waterloo.

I found your Miss Morland to be a most agreeable heroine. She may have been naïve and in possession of an over-active imagination, but her sweet heart and gentle disposition made her quite engaging. Although Mr Tilney made some sport of her, his character was proven to be true, and in every respect thoroughly decent. I am glad, too, that his sister Miss Tilney was in every way the best friend Miss Morland could need or desire.

Of course when one writes a novel there must also be less agreeable characters, which one must unfortunately include for the sake of progressing one’s story. Such a character is Miss Isabella Thorpe, as vexing a creature as ever simpered her way across the Pump-room floor. Although I am certain you would be no more direct than to express a desire not to make her acquaintance, in these less refined times we would refer to her as a heinous airheaded slut. While you would limit yourself, at worst, to snubbing her in the street, we would be more likely to smack the bitch, and her odious brother, upside their conceited and duplicitous heads until they were both quite bald from the striking.

Either that, or give them their own reality TV show.

However let us put aside such unpleasant concepts, and focus on more constructive criticism. ‘Northanger Abbey’ is a slight story, pretty and thoroughly agreeable to be sure, but without the grander romantic scope of your more famous works, such as ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I am hesitant to suggest it, my dear Miss Austen, but in my humble opinion there is but a single element which, if added to the story, would have furnished it with greater delight for the modern reader.

I speak, Miss Austen, as you may have surmised, of zombies.

I pity the man who reads your novel and does not think, “Deuce it all, but these misunderstandings between Miss Morland and Miss Tilney could be resolved with brisk economy if they spent some time together fighting hordes of the undead!” Let the gentler sex be content with talk of muslins and ribbons and making suitable connexions… zombies hungering for the sweet taste of living flesh are all that we gentlemen require for our literary enjoyment.

And let us not forget, Miss Austen, that if that scoundrel Mr Thorpe were to be infected with zombie bloodlust, Mr Tilney (or one of his military relatives) would be well within his rights to splatter the cad’s rotting cerebellum across the Pump-room wall with a volley of rifle fire. How might such a scene appeal to your gentle readers of either sex!

I do hope that you will take my humble suggestion with such regard as it deserves, and I look forward with restless anticipation to your next novel, ‘The Blood-Spattered Walls of Mansfield Park’.

Until then, I remain your humble and obedient etc.

Mr Blandwagon