| 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 and his insistence that he
"claim his prize" for winning the battle. |