Jane Austen News - Issue 119

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is Imogen Hermes Gowar’s first novel, and it's one which has been garnering high praise from readers, publishers and critics. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is a historical novel which is set in the world of Georgian London. The novel was shortlisted for the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers’ Award, and was also a finalist in the Mslexia First Novel Competition, and is said to potentially be featuring on the Women’s Prize long-list (the list will be announced on 6 June). We loved the premise of the book when we first read about it (see below synopsis), but we didn't realise that one of Imogen's inspirations was the work of Austen. In a recent interview Imogen explained what she loves about Austen:

Q. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock seems to have an aura of Jane Austen around it.   A. I like Jane Austen’s novels for their intelligence and keen observation: she is very smart about how pragmatically young women had to think about their marital prospects, and that’s certainly something that informed my own writing. But I I think I got more from her letters and juvenilia. Her teenage works (like Lesley Castle or Jack and Alice) are full of wit and exuberance and respond to the frank and even bawdy 18th-century literature contemporary with the period in which The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock is set. We think of Austen as very decorous and proper, but she was still a product of the 18th century, and she knew what was what. Her letters can be very wicked, and I found her humour, voice and observations very useful in my research.

It's so nice to read that more people are enjoying Austen's less well-known early works, as well as her famous novels. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Synopsis: This voyage is special. It will change everything.... One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah's ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock's marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on...and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course - one on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost. What will be the cost of their ambitions? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?