Plot summary

Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth

Colin Firth

SirColin Andrew Firth, CBE is a British film, television, and theatre actor. Firth gained wide public attention in the 1990s for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice...

 in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice (1995 TV serial)

Pride and Prejudice is a six-episode 1995 British television drama, adapted by Andrew Davies from Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth starred as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Produced by Sue Birtwistle and directed by Simon Langton, the serial was a BBC...

, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined.

Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen—or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It’s all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?

Literary significance and reception

Ella Taylor of the Los Angeles Times described the novel as "some lit lite to see you through a day at the beach". Another reviewer summed the work up as "an utterly enjoyable tribute" to the work of Jane Austen.
Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight series, declared that the novel was "Adorable! The best tribute to obsessed Austen freaks (like me) that I've ever read."

Awards and nominations

• Book Sense pick for June 2007
• Wall Street Journal "notable book" for summer 2007

Publication history

• 2007, USA, Bloomsbury USA ISBN 1596912855, Pub date 29 May 2007, Hardback
• 2007, USA, Audio Renaissance ISBN 1427201412, Pub date 29 May 2007, Audiobook

External links

• Books: austenland on the author's official website
• NPR: Flirting with Fiction and Fantasy in 'Austenland'