Web Site:

http://myjaneausten.com

Books on Amazon:

My first book which came out in 1980, was a work of non-fiction, Getting Even With Getting Old.

In my fiction (under the pseudonym JULIA BARRETT) I have addressed myself to the work of Jane Austen, attempting to pick up Austen's wonderful creations, to extend our encounters with them while keeping with her own themes, speaking in her language, and remaining true to her remarkable wit.

My first attempt (under the pseudonym of Julia Barrett) was Presumption: An Entertainment, a sequel to Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE * (which I undertook with the assistance of Gabrielle Donnelly, an English novelist).

I pursued my fiction altogether by myself subsequently, though given the success of PRESUMPTION kept the pseudonym of JULIA BARRETT (this, at the demand of my publisher). I have done so with each book ever since.

I next turned to Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, a work entitled The Third Sister.**

The third was entitled Jane Austen's Charlotte: Her Fragment of a Last Novel.*** It takes the unfinished manuscript abandoned by the author at her death (a mere seventy-odd sheets) and brings it to its conclusion. This novel was to answer the recurring fictional question left unanswered in her lifetime, one that has plagued scholars over generations: Where might she have gone next?

And currently, I have completed a new work which is to be entitled, MARY CRAWFORD: REVISITING AT MANSFIELD PARK and which awaits publication.


* This work was called by THE LONDON TELEGRAPH "the next best thing to discovering a hitherto lost novel by Jane Austen "and THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote of it "energetically and often delightfully handled, evoking the spirit of PRIDE & PREJUDICE" while BRITISH HERITAGE added, "a glittering gem. The title gives fair warning of (Barrett's) approach: respect and common sense with a strong dose of humor."

** Of this new book, THE NEW YORK TIMES said, "...a good story, tight writing and a heroine with brains and charm. BRITISH HERITAGE MAGAZINE declared, "Both Barrett and Austen excel at what should be the primary goal of novelists, yet one that so few authors seem to be able to achieve: capturing our imaginations, holding us spellbound, and, even after the story's resolution, leaving us wanting to know more."

*** Of that work, THE WASHINGTON POST said, "Barrett's vision is sound and she brings this very entertaining book to a proper Austen-like conclusion, in which foolishness is chastened, strength of character rewarded and society...hums in equilibrium once more." The LIBRARY JOURNAL tells us too that, "Barrett knows the style and themes of her predecessor thoroughly...it is difficult to know when Austen leaves off and Barrett begins.."

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia by Tim Tsouliadis
  Posted on 23 Jul 2008 in History, Non-Fiction Reviews, Russia
  

  Readers of faint heart beware when embarking upon this superb work of history. So many stories of suffering are here collected, so utterly specific in their brutal details, a strong stomach will be required. Yet, it is worth the pain since one cannot emerge doubting: the epoch is surely one of history’s most vicious; and its revelation of the Twentieth Century’s brutality is dumbfounding.

• The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall
  Posted on 11 Mar 2008 in Biography, Great Britain, Linguistics, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  By the end of that lecture, Roget had concluded that one of the causes of “the slow progress of human knowledge” was “the imperfections of language, both as an instrument of thought and a medium of communication.” It was on that June morning that Dugald Stewart implanted in his disciple a mission which was to occupy him for the rest of his life.

• Murdering Miss Austen
  Posted on 06 Dec 2007 in Essays, Literary Themes, Writers
  

  Jane Austen, whose sharp tongue barely left her cheek during her short lifetime, and, whose caustic satire survived the intervening centuries of industrialization, through revolution and war, as well as the whirligig of literary fashions (whose onslaught took down others as great) may finally be deflated or drowned in the crazy waves of idiot’s delights!

• Fire in the Blood by Irène Némirovsky
  Posted on 15 Oct 2007 in Fiction Reviews, France
  

  Silvio’s tale proceeds to unravel the neighborhood secrets, as he uncovers them with a skill that only an exquisite sensibility like Némirovsky’s commands, revealing shockers — illicit passion, intense jealousy, illegitimate offspring, and … murder! Such untold events have remained long hidden, if gossiped over by villagers, vicious events these country people chose never to acknowledge.

• The House That George Built by Wilfrid Sheed
  Posted on 04 Sep 2007 in Music, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  And in recreating social history, what a star-studded cast he lines up to perform for us! We find retold the lives and careers of preeminents like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington , Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and many more.

• The Orientalist: Solving The Mystery of A Strange and Dangerous Life - by Tom Reiss
  Posted on 22 Apr 2007 in Biography, History, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  Admirers of a haunting gem of a novel called, ALI & NINO, a work that seemed to materialize from nowhere when it was reprinted in 1999, were excited to learn that finally, finally! there is definitive information about its mysterious author.

• All Whom I Have Loved by Aharon Appelfeld
  Posted on 10 Apr 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Historical Fiction
  

  Aharon Appelfeld’s new novel, All Whom I Have Loved is indeed a riveting, if ominous tale, a story we learn from the near-desperate utterances of a child facing not only his own developmental and family struggles, but the turmoil of an unwelcoming world, that of the East Europe of a prospering Nazi party in the late 1930s!