The Watsons Revisited

Four girls each with their own ‘take’ on 18th century social restrictions conditioning life in a village with an ailing, widowed father: Emma, arrived back into the family after being brought up by an aunt in a rather more social, sophisticated atmosphere; Elizabeth, facing the burden of running a household and caring for an ailing father after a failed romance; dotty Margaret the youngest; selfish Penelope ‘escaped’ to friends in London. Their two brothers, one married into money, one struggling to make a living as a doctor, know they have a responsibility for the girls’ futures.

And then there’s the young unmarried Vicar, and the Castle family - widowed dowager, young Lord, his sister and wayward brother, and hangers on - whose lives intertwine with the Watsons. And the village gossips who play their part in the dramas that unfold after a dramatic event has long reaching results.

Celia Andrews spent her working life as a journalist, including theatre critic, with ‘free time’ as vicar’s wife, both of which she fictionalised in her three published novels and short story collection. She is also a published poet.

Her BA in English Literature further deepened her love of Jane Austen’s works and, unable to bear not knowing what happened to the characters in the unfinished The Watsons, she has written this for the benefit of others wanting to know.

Her own life began dramatically as a foundling in a park, then very happily adopted.