 While rewriting An
Unlikely Missionary prior to publication, I felt compelled to remove a
number of subplots I felt detracted from the novel's main focus and that, while a great
deal of fun, were perhaps too frivolous for the novel in question. It was a painful
amputation, but a necessary one, and yet these severed limbs seemed to have taken on a
life very much their own. I have regenerated them, therefore, into stand-alone short
stories, which I present to the reader in this collection. The title story is
something of a novelette, and it tells of Anne de Bourgh's strange fate, as well as her
cousin's attempts to rescue her from it. Will Mr. Darcy succeed? The next story,
"A Battle of Wits," consists of an exchange of letters between Mr. and Mrs.
Darcy, and "Mr. Darcy's Homecoming" relates the gentleman's return to Pemberley
after a long absence. |