"What I was thinking was that Charlotte Lucas might be gay.


'Are you saying that Austen meant her to be gay?' Sylvia asked. 'Or that she's gay and Austen doesn't know it?'


Sylvia preferred the latter. There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned, to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face.


If Sylvia were a character in a book, that's the kind of character she'd want to be."

- The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler