Younger Sister - Volume II.

In the second volume of the three-volume novel, we meet again Mr Watson's four daughters - the eldest, kindly Elizabeth, her beautiful younger sister and our title character Emma, the vain Margaret and the wilful Penelope. After the death of their father, the Reverend Watson, they are forced to move in with their brother Robert and his unkind wife Jane in Croydon. Penelope and Margaret move towards their dream goal - marriage - with a determination that is oblivious to the feelings of those around them, and indeed of themselves. Eventually, Elizabeth meets happiness in the form of the widowed George Millar, while Emma, still reminiscing about Mr Howard, searches in vain for an escape from Robert and Jane Watson's house, which is slowly turning into a sophisticated prison for her. Her sister-in-law Jane is well aware of what a capable and, above all, cheap governess she has found in her daughter Janet and prevents Emma from even thinking of leaving.

But even this cannot prevent the men around Emma from paying homage to her beauty and admiring her intellect. Not only Sir William Gordon (who loves Miss Osborne and eventually becomes her husband), but also the ridiculous flunky Alfred Freemantle and the sly and elegant Dr Morgan enter the scene. It is he who devises a diabolical ruse to break Emma's heart and then leave her, as is his custom in such cases...

Characters, we met in the first episode - Emma's bumbling suitor Lord Osborne, his mother, his sister Rosa, her friend Miss Carr, the unscrupulous Tom Musgrove, whom Margaret considers to be her intended, Emma's secret love, Mr Howard, or his sister and nephew - observe the swarming of characters on stage in the second part from a distance. All the more reason to look forward to seeing how he enters the story in the final part. We must not forget Emma's hitherto unknown brother Sam - meeting him (albeit on the sad occasion of their father's death) makes her very happy and makes up for the coldness and calculatingness of her older brother Robert, under whose protection the orphaned girls must take refuge. Robert, however, is not entirely without feeling...

The response to the first part of Jane Austen and Catherine Austen Hubback's novel has convinced us that the great writer's work, completed by her talented niece, is still alive. We are all the more pleased that our publishing house ČAS is publishing them in the first ever Czech translation. You can look forward to the third and final part in autumn 2011.