Joan Aiken has won a devoted following in this country and abroad for her children's books and for her many acclaimed novels for adults. In 1985, she brought her readers a special treat: Mansfield Revisited, a sequel to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, was at once a loving tribute to Austen's art and an inventive recreation of her fictional world.

Now, with Jane Fairfax, Aiken once again calls on the Austen library, in a faithful and wonderfully imaginative new telling of one of Austen's most celebrated works, Emma. Jane Fairfax was the outsider in Austen's novel of manners, who arrived in Highbury and Emma Woodhouse's circle, became her friend, but threatened to stand in her light. With engaging style and consumate skill, Joan Aiken brings us Jane in a different light: not simply as Emma's rival, but a charming and complex woman with her own desires and emotional life. Imbued with all the sparkling wit and romance intrigue of the original, Jane Fairfax is a worthy companion to a classic of English literature.