THE SISTERS OF SEA VIEW by Julie Klassen

Set in 1819, just after Jane Austen’s death, THE SISTERS OF SEA VIEW takes up where SANDITON left off, with the issue of those increasingly fashionable sea-side resorts. Author Julie Klassen has great fun talking about sea-bathing and we even have one incident where a rogue wave sends a bathing machine tumbling into the sea.

So when the Summers sisters are left impoverished upon the death of their father, it seems extremely sensible for the eldest sister Sarah to open their seaside home in to visitors. However, instead of the elderly invalids they expect, many of their guests are eligible young men. And so begins this series of three novels, in which at least one sister will be taken to the altar. 

I found this novel absolutely charming, and oh, what a wonderful idea Ms. Klassen had of resurrecting the odious Mrs Elton from Jane Austen’s Emma. In this volume, Mrs. Elton becomes one of those tiresome guests with a never-ending stream of “special requests” including an expensive dinner for all of the notables of Sidmouth, the village in Devon where the novel is set. 

But what is so delicious is the way in which Mrs E. is exposed as a fraud. Emily Summers, the budding writer, actually contacts a woman in Surrey, where the Eltons reside. Imagine my astonishment on being told that this lady – I believe her name is Mrs Jane Lewis – lives at Hinchley Wood near Esher, Surrey!

Why am I surprised? Because it is an obscure corner of Surrey, where I happened to live during my teens. The Hinchley Wood I knew in the 1970s was a compact suburb adjacent to the much older (and prettier) village of Esher. Of course, Hinchley Wood came into being with the opening of its railway station in 1930, placing it on the Waterloo to Guildford line. After that, the place boomed with (according to Wikipedia) 750 houses being built between 1934-1935. My family lived in the newer part of the village, on a very pleasant housing estate just off the Kingston By-Pass in a four-square house that was built in 1958. 

But in 1819, when the novel was set, I doubt there was much of anything there, certainly no village. Indeed it seems that Hinchley Wood possesses only one listed building, dating to the 16th century. Naturally, it is a farmhouse. 

In any event, Mrs Lewis confirms Emily’s suspicions that the Eltons are not only odious but name-dropping frauds. I am delighted that my modest suburb is involved – however fictitiously – in the come-uppance of the snobbish Mrs. E. 

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