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    • Sep 6, 2019
    • 3 min read

Dream-casting RATIONAL CREATURES

Updated: Sep 16, 2020





Jane Austen: True romantic or rational creature? Her novels transport us back to the Regency, a time when well-mannered gentlemen and finely-bred ladies fell in love as they danced at balls and rode in carriages. Yet her heroines, such as Elizabeth Bennet, Anne Elliot, and Elinor Dashwood, were no swooning, fainthearted damsels in distress. Austen's novels are timeless classics because of their biting wit, honest social commentary - because she wrote of strong women who were ahead of their day. True to their principles and beliefs, they fought through hypocrisy and broke social boundaries to find their happily-ever-after.


With the recent iTv filming of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel Sanditon, directed by Andrew Davies, we could not help but cast our own Rational Creatures—Austen's heroines and their male counterparts as well as some supporting cast. (Scroll through. We want to hear what you think...agree or have a better suggestion?)



Annnnd, as long as we are putting these thoughts out into the universe, I would love to see the entire project as a television series—each story a ninety-minute episode. Let’s meditate on that delicious thought a moment, shall we? (Sample of Joana Starnes’ “Charlotte’s Comforts” HERE.)







Audio retail sample of Jenetta James' "What Strange Creatures" HERE.

Audio sample of Elizabeth Adams’s “An Unnatural Beginning” HERE.

"But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."--Persuasion, Jane Austen




Audio sample of Karen M Cox’s “A Nominal Mistress” HERE.



Audio sample of Jessie Lewis’ “The Edification of Lady Susan” HERE.


The authors of this collection have #dreamcast their own stories... What do you think of their choices? Who would you recast? I would have to cast Henry Cavill as Henry Crawford in Jenetta James' "What Strange Creatures."

Yes, I know Henry Cavill is too handsome to play the plain-looking Henry Crawford but I can overlook that detail.



About Rational Creatures:

In the third romance anthology of The Quill Collective series, 16 celebrated Austenesque authors write the untold histories of Austen's heroines, brave adventuresses, shy maidens, talkative spinsters, and naughty matrons. Peek around the curtain and discover what made Lady Susan so wicked, Mary Crawford so capricious, and Hettie Bates so in need of Emma Woodhouse's pity.


Rational Creatures is a collection of humorous, poignant, and engaging short stories set in Georgian England that complement and pay homage to Austen's great works and great ladies who were, perhaps, the first feminists in an era that was not quite ready for feminism.


"Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will become good wives; that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers." (Mary Wollstonecraft)


Stories by: Elizabeth Adams, Nicole Clarkston, Karen M Cox, J. Marie Croft, Amy D'Orazio, Jenetta James, Jessie Lewis, KaraLynne Mackrory, Lona Manning, Christina Morland, Beau North, Sophia Rose, Anngela Schroeder, Joana Starnes, Brooke West, and Caitlin Williams

Edited by Christina Boyd

Foreword by Devoney Loose

Narrated by Victoria Riley


Follow the 2019 tour via Historical Fiction Virtual Tours


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