Lady Catherine’s Necklace

In Lady Catherine’s Necklace we are reintroduced to that monster of unfeeling snobbery Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her toadying curate Mr Collins, familiar to all from Pride and Prejudice. When a carriage accident brings Priscilla Delaval and her brother Ralph to the door of Rosings, Lady Catherine’s residence in Kent, a chain of events is set in train which includes, among other things, a brush both with death and with the lower orders for Lady Catherine (in which she discovers a surprising talent for culinary improvisation), and the belated discovery of a skeleton in the cupboard of Lady Catherine’s late husband Sir Lewis. A beautifully written and supremely entertaining “Jane Austen Entertainment”.