ASHLAND – Framingham State University is pleased to invite the community out to a special talk and signing event featuring President Emerita Helen Heineman and her new book Emma Redux, Happily Ever After.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on Saturday, Sept. 30, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Framingham State’s Warren Conference Center & Inn in Ashland. Guests can register to attend at: www.alumni.framingham.edu/redux
Dr. Heineman’s Emma Redux series, is a continuation of Jane Austen’s Emma, and begins after the marriage of Emma and Knightley and continues through life with Mr. Woodhouse at Hartfield, as an array of Heineman’s new characters interact with Austen’s, including two “real” characters, the sister of Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope. Frank Churchill’s story concludes, and the second novel follows the romantic relationships of Emma’s daughters Hetta and Caroline. The progeny of Emma’s sister Isabella take center stage in Emma Redux 3, and the fourth novel takes place 20 years later, focusing on a new central character, the honorable William Ashley Sundquist, age 30, and his encounter with the 17 year old Celestia, grand-daughter of Isabella Knightley, as a chance event becomes part of an inescapable design. Heineman’s novels conclude with episodes featuring Arabian horses, a scarlet fever outbreak, and the fate of two outsiders: a governess and the illegitimate brother of Lord Sundquist. The last of the Knightley daughters plans a history of the Knightleys, beginning with Emma who, “handsome, clever, and rich” was the start of it all.
The series of novels will include four entries:
EMMA REDUX 1: HAPPILY EVER AFTER
EMMA REDUX 2: FULL CIRCLE
EMMA REDUX 3: FAMILY SECRETS
EMMA REDUX 4: MATCHMAKING MAGIC
Praise for Emma Redux:
“Helen Heineman’s sequels to Emma tidy up some of the loose ends Austen left behind, and then weave a whole new set of adventures for her characters as they make their way through a changing world. Full of lightly-worn learning, and crackling with wit and warmth, these stories show us what might have happened after the ‘happily ever after’ of one of the world’s most popular novels.”
—Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Author and Professor of English Literature at the University of London and a Fellow of Magdalene College. He was historical consultant for the 2009 BBC television serial adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma.
“Heineman writes the Austen dialogue unerringly. These characters are back again, speaking exactly as they would have had Austen been able to continue their story. Her knowledge of the period provides pleasure and instruction. She has the characters absolutely in hand: they are unmistakably themselves, just as we knew them. Her dialogue and description of people’s manners never seems anachronistic, and strikes my ear as authentically Austen-like. She’s clearly the right person for this task. Austen has touched her hand.”
—Alan Feldman
Author of several collections of poetry, Professor and Chair of English at FSU
“If you want a beloved novel never to end, not to worry. Heineman’s spritely written Emma Redux brings back Austen’s characters. Marriage is the theme, and happiness.”
__Miriam Levine
Author of six collections of poetry, Devotion a memoir, and In Paterson, a novel.
“Heineman’s sequel to Emma is stepped in Austen’s sensibility. It’s remarkable how perfectly she captures Austen’s tone of voice through all the new domestic shenanigans, the flirtations, the badinage between characters – but all delivered with a loving tenderness. I was sorry to finish the book. For all its delightful stylistic imitation, Heineman’s novel can stand on its own.
— Robert Ober, a reader review from Amazon
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