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Read a Q&A with author Laurie Viera Rigler about Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Q. What inspired you to write this book?

It sprang from writing Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, my first novel, in which a twenty-first-century Austen fan named Courtney Stone inexplicably awakens in the body and life of a gentleman's daughter in Jane Austen's England. The opening scene of that book, with Courtney awakening in that four-poster bed, simply popped into my head one day while I was standing in my kitchen. That such an idea would appear in my head is not all that surprising, because I, like Courtney, had often fantasized about what it would be like to live in the world of my favorite author.

While writing Confessions I knew that as Courtney was taking over the life of this lady in 1813 England, the lady from 1813 England was of course taking over Courtney's life in twenty-first-century Los Angeles. But it just didn't feel right to make her story part of the same book. They were two very different journeys and had to be two separate books.

Q. Do you consider yourself a Jane Austen addict?

At the moment I have two Jane Austen action figures lined up on my desk, am about to watch the Colin Firth five-hour Pride and Prejudice mini for the bazillion time, have read Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice around 25 times, and each of the other four Austen novels at least a dozen times. So that would be a big yes.

Q. Why do you think Jane Austen is still so popular today, almost 200 years after her works were originally published?

One of the most appealing things about Austen is her keen, funny, and sometimes painfully familiar observations of human nature. Wrap up that particular brand of genius in a story that involves self-discovery, romantic love, and a happy ending, and you've got timeless appeal, because human nature—in all its flawed glory— is the same as it was 200 years ago.

Q. Did you have more fun writing about a 20th century woman stuck in the 1800s, or a 19th century woman stuck in the high-tech world of today?

Each was a blast in its own way. In Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, I got to live out, vicariously, my fantasy of living in Austen's world. It was tremendous fun to explore all those little details of daily life, which, by the way, cured me of my wish to buy a one-way ticket to Regency England. Round trip, please. Much as I'd love to dance in the Assembly Rooms in Bath with an Austen hero, I wouldn't want to deal with all the restrictions that women had to live with in those days. Or consider a pitcher and basin a morning shower or a chamber pot the bathroom. Or worse, fall ill and have to deal with quack doctors wielding unsterilized scalpels before the advent of antibiotics. Not what we think about when we read Jane Austen or watch those sumptuous Hollywood movies!

In Rude Awakenings, I had a marvelous opportunity to view the things I take for granted in my daily life through the awestruck (and sometimes horrified) eyes of my nineteenth-century heroine. First there are all the technological wonders: Cars. Airplanes. Computers. iPhones. Even the mundane things we don't pause to think about, like electric lights, are a revelation. Then there's all the boundless freedom we have. If you were a single woman of a certain class in Jane Austen's England you could not travel alone, live alone, or earn a living. Your sole career option was to marry and bear children, unless you were from a poor but genteel family, in which case you could be a governess or a paid companion. Imagine being someone from that world and experiencing the freedom to be anything you want to be, go anywhere you want to go. And then imagine the shock you'd feel in our world if you were a 30-year-old virgin to whom the sight of a couple kissing in public is scandalous. Imagine how confused you'd be if you inherited the life of a woman who was far from inexperienced with men. Imagine if you began to develop feelings for someone in this bewildering future world. What are the rules of courtship in such a place? Are there any? This is something even people from our own time cannot answer.

Q. What kind of research did do to write both of your novels?

I read stacks of books and journals on life in Jane Austen's world, traveled to England, attended lectures by Austen scholars, studied the minutiae of Austen's language in her texts, and made constant use of my online subscription to the OED, which is an indispensable tool for anyone writing in period language. Although I couldn't actually travel back in time myself, I did manage some experiential research in the form of taking English country dance lessons. This was important not only for Confessions, which has an important scene that takes place in the Assembly Rooms in Bath, but also for Rude Awakenings, in which my protagonist experiences dancing in a club in Los Angeles. It helped me to understand the degree of contrast between the two worlds, both in terms of dance itself and in terms of courtship rituals, of which dancing played a huge part in Regency England. There's all this gazing into your partner's eyes and displaying the grace of your figure and touching hands—basically sanctioned sexual tension. English country dance is also tremendous fun and a bit of a workout, even though from the outside it looks like people are sort of just walking about and posing.