It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we are starting with Sanditon by Jane Austen. I haven’t read it – I do like Austen but am not as big a fan as many people are and haven’t yet ventured past her main six novels. However, I do know that Sanditon was unfinished at the time of her death.
Thinking about other unfinished novels, The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens immediately came to mind, but I used that one in another Six Degrees post quite recently, along with another, Elizabeth Gaskell’s unfinished Wives and Daughters. This made me think a bit harder and then I remembered Lord Byron’s Fragment of a Novel (1), his attempt at writing a vampire story which he never completed. I’m particularly pleased with this link because apparently Sanditon was also first published under the title Fragment of a Novel.
The stories of Byron and his fellow Romantic Poets, Keats and Shelley, are told in Passion by Jude Morgan (2). I love Morgan’s writing and I thought this was an excellent book, focusing on the roles women such as Mary Shelley, Caroline Lamb and Augusta Leigh played in the poets’ lives.
Another book about poets is Possession by AS Byatt (3), although the poets in this one – Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte – are fictional. The novel follows two modern day academics as they study the lives of Ash and LaMotte, delving into letters, poems, fairy tales and journal entries, which Byatt presents as if they were authentic Victorian documents.
My copy of Possession has butterflies on the cover. So does The Specimen by Martha Lea (4), a book which had many of the elements I usually enjoy in a book – a mystery to be solved, a Victorian setting, strong female characters – yet it turned out to be disappointing. You can’t love every book you read, I suppose.
The main character in The Specimen is a young woman called Gwen who travels to Brazil to study and draw plants and insects. Another book about a woman trying to break into the male-dominated field of natural sciences is Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull (5), set in Portugal and the Berlengas islands in the middle of the 18th century. I did love that book!
For my final link, I’m taking the word ‘song’ in the title. I had a few books to choose from here, but decided on The Song of Achilles (6), Madeline Miller’s beautiful retelling of the Iliad, told from the perspective of Patroclus, who is portrayed in the novel as Achilles’ lover.
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Well, that’s my chain for this month. My links included unfinished novels, poets, butterflies and songs. In January, we’ll be starting with Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid which, coincidentally, I just started to read yesterday.
She Reads Novels 
I had no idea Wives and Daughters was unfinished – I’m about to read it for the Classics Club, feel a bit of a dunce. . .
I hope you enjoy Wives and Daughters. The fact that it’s unfinished isn’t really a problem as the book ends at a point where it’s quite easy to see how she was planning to finish it.
Great chain. I’m impressed how you got to your first link! I also didn’t know that Eliabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters was an unfinished work.
Yvonne, I didn’t know that, either. I read it so long ago that I hardly remember the story. Later, I saw a BBC/Masterpiece Theatre production of WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, but all I recall are beautiful gowns. Oh, well.
Thanks, Yvonne! Wives and Daughters doesn’t really feel unfinished as the plot is nearly complete; I think it just needed a few more chapters to tie things up at the end.
By the way, SANDITION is appearing in a PBS Masterpiece series beginning January 2020. I hope to read it before then. Maybe I’ll find a copy in my stocking? or under the tree?
I hope you get your wish! That would be a lovely Christmas present.
Is that the new Andrew Davies series? I tried it but didn’t much like it – its had mixed reviews
Nicely done! Thanks for sharing your chain:)
Thank you!
Well, there you go then. Lots of great ways to connect books on this one. I LOVED Daisy Jones, and I already have my post ready for next month! This month’s chain is here http://tcl-bookreviews.com/2019/12/07/6degrees-of-separation-for-december-7-2019/
Yes, I think Sanditon was a great starting point for this month’s chain. I’m enjoying Daisy Jones so far. 🙂
I love the fact that everyone who has taken the ‘unfinished manuscript’ path has found a different link 🙂
Hope you enjoy Daisy Jones – I think you’ll see that it’s a book that offers loads of #6degrees starting points.
I’ve enjoyed the little I’ve read of Daisy Jones so far and am already thinking about next month’s chain!
That cover of Possession is really something! I hope you enjoy Daisy Jones. I will be reading Frankenstein soon so that’s my Mary Shelley connection for today.
It’s a beautiful cover, isn’t it? I’ll be interested to hear what you think of Frankenstein!
Books about books and poets and writers – what could be lovelier? I really enjoyed these links!
Thank you! I love reading about poets and writers.
I am one those who love Jane Austen but I have not read Sandition and I am not reading it. I have a mindblock against unfinished novels and well, same reason, why Wives and Daughters has been lying in my collection for so long and well, still unread. I too loved Song of the Sea Maid! Great post as well Helen!
I think Wives and Daughters is worth reading even though it’s unfinished. I did get frustrated with The Mystery of Edwin Drood, though – I really wanted to know what happened next! I’m glad you loved Song of the Sea Maid too. 🙂
The Specimen is going on my list. Have you read Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures? Goes well with Specimen.
Yes, I have read Remarkable Creatures and enjoyed it – and I did think of linking it to The Specimen, but I already included it in an earlier Six Degrees post and have been trying not to repeat the same books. I’m finding it hard to come up with six different books every time, though!
I really bombed this month’s 6 Degrees! lol.
That was clever of you to find a title with the word ‘fragment’. I admire your integrity too in not using books you’ve featured before!
Thank you – although I have to admit, the fragment link was more of a lucky coincidence than a deliberate choice!
Lucky coincidences don’t happen that often so celebrate when they do…..
Ooh, thanks for the reminder about Jude Morgan! I loved his book about Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and meant to read more of his stuff but somehow he then slipped from my radar. This one sounds great, as is your Fragment of a Novel link… 😀
Jude Morgan’s book about the Bronte sisters, A Taste of Sorrow, is my favourite, but I did like the Romantic Poet and Shakespeare ones as well.