What do readers love about Jane Austen’s books, 200 years after she wrote them? Wit, warmth, a wry and amused insight into the vagaries of the human condition? Those are also the qualities to be found in Gill Hornby’s sparkling new novel Godmersham Park, which plays with the conventions of the Regency novel as it follows the fortunes of Anne Sharp, a real-life associate of Jane Austen.
Combining intelligence and entertainment in equal measure, Godmersham Park is a real treat. So its author, who could probably charm the pants off wheely bins, and appears on Zoom cutting a tremendous dash in a fabulous bright orange dress and an insouciant Lauren Bacall-esque glamour.
Godmersham Park is Gill’s fourth novel. Her first, 2013’s bestselling The Hive, was one of those watercooler books that got talked about – a delicious contemporary social comedy about yummy mummies that skewered cliquey playground dynamics with humour and insight. Following that she wrote another modern comedy of manners, 2015’s All Together Now. 2020’s Miss Austen, though, was Gill’s first historical novel – and a real breakthrough. Fictionalising the story of why Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra burned Jane’s letters, it was a bestseller and made its way onto ‘best book of 2020’ lists. Godmersham Park, Gill’s second Austen-related title, turns to another minor player in the Austen canon: Jane’s friend Anne Sharp. Gill had been intrigued by her for some time.
‘In all of my research about the Austens, I came across Anne Sharp a lot,’ says Gill. ‘She’s one of the few people whose letters to Jane survived. And she kept them. She knew enough about Jane’s genius and posterity to keep them. So I read those. And my basic policy was that Jane was an extremely shrewd judge of character. She tookshe died – so it shows the value of the friendships.’
