Bring to book: Alison Leonard takes a prompt
‘I knew I had to be faithful to what she was actually experiencing.’
When the author Hilary Mantel died, her many admirers realised there would be no more magical novels, no more of her incisive commentary, or heartbreaking accounts of topics like women’s illness. Six months later, however, it was revealed that Mantel’s next work would have taken quite a departure. She was preparing to write a novel about the third sister in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, the rather tedious Mary Bennet. It was to be ‘a load of fun, an Austen “mashup’”.
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