From a modernist and feminist perspective "Pride and Prejudice" is arguably the best of Jane Austen's novels because of the self-possession and wit of the deliciously articulate Lizzie living in a world in which women were at enormous disadvantage.

However a further fundamental message of P&P derives from the disaster arising because of Lizzie and Jane failing to reveal cad Wickham's misdeeds i.e. history ignored yields history repeated.

Thus British academic historians have whitewashed British colonial atrocities out of history, most recently and most notoriously the 1942-1945 WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which the British (with White Australian complicity) deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death (see my book "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History": http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/2008/09/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-... ).

In the late 20th and 21st century Britain has been involved in an Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide in 1990-2011 (4.6 million war-related deaths, 2.0 million under-5 infant deaths, 5-6 million refugees), an Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide in 2011-2011 (5.6 million war-related deaths, 2,9 million under-5 infant deaths, 3-4 million refugees) and in 2011 a Libyan Genocide (50,000 dead, 50,000 wounded, ethnic cleansing applied to Black Libyans and 1.1 million refugees including 1 million sub-Saharan African refugees)(see "Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide": http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).

Britain's crimes today under Blair, Brown and Cameron match those of Jane Austen's connection Warren Hastings, the out-of-wedlock father of her cousin and sister-in-law Eliza Hancock (the model for Mary Crawford in "Mansfield Park") and impeached for immense crimes against humanity in India after the British-caused 1769-1770 Bengal Famine that killed 10 million Bengalis. History ignored yields history repeated.

OTOH Graham-Smith at least had a faintly original idea - it's almost convincing enough to make you believe that it was only later editing that removed the extra text; although I grant you that his additions are hardly brilliant prose, they are fun and that's surely the point?

I agree with you that it is extraordinary how obsessed people get with fiddling with Austen though. Maybe it's because she is so effortless that everyone thinks it ought to be easy? Messing with Shakespeare is much harder work.

The Bengal Famine was a matter of fact, and the finger of suspicion definitely points to London, and not elsewhere. And yet again the British authorities have tried to bury the truth. Satyajit Ray made a very moving film about the famine.
Dotted through Austen's novels are instances of colonial rapacity, whether its the plantations in the West Indies or India. The uncofortable truth really needs to be told and I don't think Jane was too happy with what was going on in the name of Empire.

I find it strange that an NS columnist would admit to having this work as their favourite. After all there is little difference between the world portrayed in it, and the forced marriage systems found in some societies today frowned upon by all right thinking lefties. PS Re: KK, oh so bitchy, honestly Helen.

On yes, the first concentration camps...hum, no the Egyptians got there before us, well that what the religious looms would have us believe. what 3000 + plus years ago. A whole race subjected to slave labour and imprisoned. sounds like one to me.
Its bloody words, no crematoria in SA, no mass murder of Boers ,

Just as ridiculous as saying Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer...total nonsense.

I agree, swatantra. Jane Austen was an utterly truthful writer and though her significant characters were confined to the top few percent of British society living in their fine homes, the Empire that helped fund these lifestyles is necessarily mentioned in her novels e.g. the French wars (Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, the unfinished novel The Watsons), slave plantations (Emma, Mansfield Park) and the East India Company (Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, the unfinished Catherine or The Bower).

Indeed Sense and Sensibility and the unfinished Catherine or The Bower both tell, with characters disguised, the story of Jane Austen's aunt Philadelphia Austen going out to India and making an unproductive marriage. S&S picks up the story with numerous parallels between Colonel Brandon(quasi anagram for nabob) and Warren Hastings, the affair of Brandon/Hastings with Eliza I/Philadelphia leading to the birth if Eliza II/Eliza Hancock (Jane Austen's cousin). In the end Brandon takes Marianne as wife back to Delaford just as Warren Hastings took his last wife Marian back to Daylesford (for accounts see "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" : http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ and my contribution to the anthology "Jane Austen Antipodean Views", edited by Susannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers).

I was introduced to Jane Austen by a dear Indian friend who explained that the "mohr" of the East Indies in Jane Austen's "Indian" novel S&S was exampled by my friend's British gold sovereign necklace. The brilliant Satyajit Ray movie "Distant Thunder" introduced me to the "forgotten" man-made WW2 Bengal Famine (it concludes with text referring to 5 million Bengali famine deaths).

However it was Henry Tilney's castigation of Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey that solidified an indignant interest in English holocaust commission and holocaust denial (e.g. they ethnically cleansed my Western Highland Scots forebears in Jane Austen's lifetime) : "Remember that we are English, that we are Christians ... Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Could they be perpetrated without being known , in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing , where every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies , and where roads and newspapers lay everything open?" YES!!!

What rubbish, would love to have have seen Gandhi deal with the Japanese (or Mr Hitler or Stalin) Firstly Churchill controlled the climate? Then he prevented the movement of rice from Burma the traditional source of supply in times of low harvest in Bengal.

mr Gandhi was no angel, strange how we forget what we want to forget.

And JA's work just shows life as it was with a slant her own bias. Just like modern day India, caste systems, corruption through the entire system . I see the similarities.

Please,the poor Mr Gandi, with his very privileged upbringing... did he stay and fight the system in SA, no he got out when things got hot. Did he collude with the Japanese, thereby in all likely hood sabotage the rice resupply situation in India.. He was no angel. Yes we have corruption here, but nothing on the scale of "missing" PDS rice or certain telecom problems. we even send a few to jail. Oh Mandela, the bomber you mean...Gandhi would have disappeared in days under any other regime and the masses would have been leaderless.

I agree with you Helen.

Ian the British Empire is responsible for more torture,theft,and outright murder than Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin combined. You are typical of those Brits that figure "Tha Empiah" was some sort of benevolent institution bringing enlightenment to the great unwashed. You obviously don't even know your own history. As recently as the 1950's thousands of Kenyans were starved and tortured to death.

Thank you very very much Helen.

I spent the first three years in Aintree Lane right next to the racecourse. What's the Aintree Iron?

Again thank you very much Helen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjnkmNyArNg

Us scousers!

Have you got any of that Black Forest Gateau? Cut a piece put it to the screen and I'll reach out and get it. What you don't believe me? Look if you haven't the gateau a bicky will do. I'm feeling a bit peckish. I'll be hanging around I'll be able to see it and get it. Put it near the screen. And wait and watch in wonder.

I wanted a chocolate one.

I'm just messin with you Helen. How the hell am I supposed to do that! I'm on the other side of the world. My arms are quite long but they're not that long. Besides I can't get my fingers through the wiring. I've got these stubbly fingers you see. Can you see them? i'll put them next to the screen. Look closely. You've got good eyesight.

See ya

Been thinking about Alan. I kind of seeing him drawing furiously. Perhaps a pill to calm him down. There's no rush. You can go into overdrive and come off the rails. take him out for a walk or something.