Product Description

When Charlotte Bronte died in 1855, she left behind the beginnings of a new novel - twenty pages of a work in progress called Emma. Now, almost 150 years later, Clare Boylan has returned to this most intriguing of fragments, and turned them into an astonishing story of mystery, atmosphere and page-turning suspense. When Conway Fitzgibbon arrives at Fuchsia Lodge with his daughter Matilda, the headmistress Miss Wilcox couldn't be more delighted. The ladies' school is limited in numbers and eager for new pupils, particularly ones so finely dressed, and boasting a father who is 'quite the gentleman'. But as Christmas approaches, and Miss Wilcox inquires about arrangements for the holidays, she is in for a shock. Conway Fitzgibbon, like the address he left behind, does not exist. So who is Matilda? With Miss Wilcox unable to extract any information out of the girl, it falls to a local lawyer, Mr Ellin, and a young widow, Isabel Chalfant, to unravel the truth. What they discover is a tale that travels the highs and lows of nineteenth-century England, an investigation that changes all their lives forever ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #348281 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Clare Boylan's expansion of Bronte's scrap of plot into Emma Brown is powerfully imagined and stylish, with enough melodramatic twists to keep the momentum going until the end. She is distinctly successful in recreating faithfully an idiom both familiar yet obsolete. Charlotte Bronte left a fragment of a novel at her death, subsequently published under the title Emma, concerning the placement by a rich father of a haughty and unresponsive daughter at a school for young ladies. As with Jane Austen's Sanditon or Dickens' Edwin Drood it has offered later writers the challenge of guessing a dead author's intentions.

Paradoxically, one of the opportunities that such an enterprise offers is the possibility of subverting the apparent direction of a plot-line, or undermining the perceived character of participants in the story and Clare Boylan takes extensive--perhaps too extensive--advantage of her freedom in this regard. A modern author's preoccupations are unlikely to be the same as those of a mid-Victorian and Boylan's story takes Charlotte Bronte's characters into darker milieu, and with a greater explicitness of social detail, than their creator is likely to have permitted herself. Rather like Charles Palliser did with Dickens in The Quincunx, Boylan seems to be trying to strip away the euphemism and restraint required of the great 19th-century novelists to show the reality of the world they mirrored. Students of Victorian social history will recognise elements drawn from Mayhew and WT Stead, among others: indeed Stead and the incident for which he is now best remembered--the purchase of a child--has clearly influenced a key character and plot element.

There is much of Dickens, and perhaps even more of Wilkie Collins, in the plotting, which survives a tendency to the schematic or mechanical to deliver a story that ranges widely through 19th-century England and society. This is a remarkable achievement in many ways. While clearly not the novel that Charlotte Bronte would have written, it is a successful resuscitation of the forms of high Victorian fiction as a vessel for 21st-century concerns. --Robin Davidson

Review
'Emma Brown is deliciously gothic. Secrets, subplots, love affairs and liars add intensity to this vital story.' DAILY MAIL 'you want to know what happens, and who Emma really is - the essential test of success ...convincing...a 19th-century novel for today, with a creditable Brontean flavour.' SUNDAY TIMES 'extraordinary...wonderfully intricate and intriguing.' IRISH TIMES 'part detective story, part psychological drama...result.' MAIL

Penelope Lively, Sunday Times
'you want to know what happens, and who Emma really is - the essential test of success'

Customer Reviews

Good read with real flavour of Bronte
I really enjoyed this book. It must always be a risk to take on and complete something begun by one of the great writers, but Clare Boylan has produced from Charlotte Bronte's fragment, a novel which is both a worthy tribute to Charlotte but also a very good read in its own right. Many of the familiar Bronte themes are here and there is also a sufficiently intriguing and complex plot to keep those pages turning. This novel shows the sharp contrasts between different classes in 19th century society, and also demonstrates well the problems faced by women in that society. However, at its heart is a well-crafted mystery and a cracking good tale. I think Clare Boylan managed a good balancing act. She manages to retain enough of Charlotte's style in her writing that you never completely forget her, but at the same time, she has produced something distinctive of her own.

Engrossing Read
I found this novel absolutely riveting. Like most gothic tales, 'Emma Brown' is essentially a mystery. Although it is certainly predictable at times, I kept turning the pages until I reached the end.

This adaptation may not please purists, but for those in search of a good read, I highly recommend Boylan's novel.

My expectations were high, but "Emma Brown" falls short!!
Charlotte Bronte began writing what would have been her last novel, "Emma," soon after "Villette" was published in 1853, and before she married her father's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854. According to some biographers, Charlotte allowed her husband to read the two chapters she had completed but he discouraged her from continuing. Nicholls, a diligent, serious-minded man, believed that since "Emma" was about a girl's school where the protagonist suffered, it would bear too much resemblance to "Jane Eyre." He was concerned the critics would accuse her of being repetitious. The twenty page draft was put away and Miss Bronte died five months later.

Author Clare Boylan was introduced to this fragment of unfinished work by Bronte biographers Lyndall Gordan and Juliet Barker and was inspired to undertake the awesome task of completing "Emma" - to recreate Charlotte Bronte's post-Romantic, gothic literary style as well as life in Victorian England, and to continue a tale hardly begun. This is not the first time a modern writer has tried to get inside the head and imagination of a long deceased author to write a sequel to a novel, or, as in this case, to complete one. I sincerely admire Ms. Boylan's efforts, but do not think she has succeeded. Although "Emma Brown" starts off well, and continues to intrigue far beyond Miss Bronte's contribution, halfway through the book the narrative begins to deteriorate.

Isabel Chalfont, a prosperous, attractive widow, "not young nor yet old," who resides in a rural English village, is our narrator. Three of her neighbors, the pretentious Misses Wilcox, own and teach at Fuchsia Lodge, a school for young ladies. Their enterprise is a small one, just a few students, but the Wilcox sisters are always on the lookout to expand. Therefore they are delighted when wealthy Conway Fitzgibbon, Esq. of May Park, Midland County, deposits his heiress daughter in their care. The mysterious Miss Matilda Fitzgibbon boasts an extremely expensive wardrobe and an "insolently distant" air. She possesses a plain, weary countenance and looks unhappy most of the time. This may be partially due to the fact that she sleepwalks and experiences strange fits. Matilda neither glories in her finery nor interacts with her peers. She is obviously favored by the Misses Wilcox over the other pupils, because of her wealth and status in society. However, she is indifferent to their pampering.

When letters are mailed to the girls' parents asking them if they expect their daughters to travel home for Christmas, the note sent to Fitzgibbon, Esq., is returned unopened. It appears that there is no such place as Midland County and no such person as the addressee. Another neighbor, local bachelor William Ellin, is asked to investigate. And indeed, he takes it upon himself to play detective, but consults with his friend, the level-headed, intelligent Widow Chalfont first. She pities the terrified girl, who seems to have no memory of her past, and offers her a home and affection while they wait for the mystery of her identity to be solved.

Isabel tries to draw the girl out, and at times she seems responsive. One morning, however, Matilda goes on an errand and never returns. Her destination and her history are much more shocking then anyone could have imagined. Mrs. Chalfont's story, as well as Mr. Ellin's tale, are interwoven into the narrative, where far too many contrivances and coincidences occur to make for credible reading. The excesses of fate and melodrama are among this novel's weaknesses. Also, during the seemingly never-ending period when Maltilda wanders through the stews of Victorian London, there is just too much repetition. As interested as I had become, I found the reading so tedious I was tempted to put the book down. I am reminded of the silent film episodic serial, "The Perils of Pauline." The perils never cease, but the suspense and drama do. I also seriously doubt whether Charlotte Bronte would have written as graphically as does Ms. Boylan about the perversions to be found in the back alleyways of London, especially child prostitution.

I find many similarities between "Emma Brown" and "Jane Eyre." I don't think Charlotte Bronte would have gone in this direction. Yes, there is the obvious similarity of the girl's schools, Lowood and Fuchsia Hall, where, when found to be a fraud, Matilda is tormented by her former benefactresses as much as Jane ever was by Mr. Brocklehurst. I accept that, and these scenes play only a small part overall. However, just as Jane was befriended by Helen Burns, despite her many humiliations, so does the once hostile Diana make friends with and comfort Matilda. Jane finds longed for maternal kindness in Miss Temple, as does Matilda with Isabel Chalfont. There is a governess who falls in love above her station, etc..

On a more positive note, the author is obviously familiar with Miss Bronte's writing, including her correspondence. At times I hear the voice she has strived to create throughout. She address effectively some of Miss Bronte's major themes, the search for one's identity, women's forced dependence no matter the social class, and the limited options open to educated but impoverished women. Elements of the story, apart from the girl's repetitive wanderings, are fascinating and certainly held my interest. I just feel disappointed that "Emma Brown falls short when my expectations were so high.
JANA