Austen at Sea

About this book

Two pairs of siblings, devotees of Jane Austen, find their lives transformed by a visit to England and Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother and keeper of her memories and surviving artifacts. In Boston, 1865, Charlotte and Henrietta Stevenson, daughters of a Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice, have accomplished as much as women are allowed in those days. Chafing against those restrictions and devoted to the works of Jane Austen, they start a secret correspondence with Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving brother, now in his nineties. He sends them an original letter from his sister and invites them to come visit him in England. In Philadelphia, Nicholas & Haslett Nelson—brothers, veterans of the recent Civil War, and rare book dealers, are also in correspondence with Sir Francis Austen. Bachelors both, they two are invited to visit Sir Francis in England, with the promise of a never-before-seen, rare Austen artifact to be evaluated. The Stevenson sisters sneak away without a chaperone to sail to England. On their ship are Nelson brothers, writer Louisa May Alcott, Sara-Beth Gleason—wealthy daughter of state senator with her eye on the Nelson brothers, and a would-be last-minute chaperone to the Stevenson sisters, Justice Thomas Nash. It's a voyage and trip that transforms each of their lives in ways that are unforeseen, with the transformative spirit of the love of literature and that of Jane Austen herself.