Triumph of entertainment in PD James meets Austen

Death comes to Pemberly

A WRITER of distinction all her career and now at 91 nowhere near the end, PD James throws a kind of literary lasso around a herd of characters from Jane Austen’s novels in what is really no more, but no less, than a divertissement.

Elizabeth Bennet has married her Mr Darcy and lives in greater serenity than readers of Pride and Prejudice might have expected from their distinctly combative personalities. Their placid contentment has a lot to do with the management of Pemberly, Darcy’s magnificent house which had such a constructive role in the original novel.