The Stage and the Company

Synopsis

The title of the book leads one to expect a story of theatricals, it quickly appears, however, that "stage" denotes a stage-coach, and that Mrs. Hubback had designed to lay her story in the old coaching times. The stage and its four insides with one passenger on the coach-box are the germ out of which the story comes. Young woman Sydney Elliott is disgusted by finding ground to believe a lugubrious passenger her step-father. His claim occasions a lawsuit, conducted with great ingenuity, and in a manner calculated to keep the reader in suspense from the first to the last. The novel was published in 1858, Mrs. Hubback's style is lively and even vigorous.


The Author

Catherine-Anne Hubback, née Austen (1818-1877), was the eighth child and fourth daughter of Francis Austen, one of Jane Austen’s brothers. Born in 1818, Catherine never knew her Aunt Jane (1775-1817). However, Jane Austen’s elder sister Cassandra was introducing Frank’s children to the works of their Aunt Jane, to the history of her life, and also to her unpublished writings. Cassandra not only read Jane Austen’s novels aloud her nieces, but that she also took with her the untitled manuscripts of what have come to be known as The Watsons and Sanditon. 


In 1842 Catherine married the barrister John Hubback. They had three children, but in 1847 her husband suffered a mental breakdown and after three years he was committed to an asylum, and Catherine consequently returned to her parents’ house. In order to support herself and her three boys, she started writing fiction. In 1850 Catherine-Anne Hubback published from memory the first completed continuation of Jane Austen’s novels, The Younger Sister. In the next thirteen she published nine more novels, among them The Wife’s Sister, The Rival Suitors, and The Stage and the Company.


Following her second son, who had left England to seek his fortune in California, she emigrated to America in 1870. In the autumn of 1876 she removed to Gainesville, Prince William Co, Virginia and died there on February 25, 1877.


Contemporary Reviews (1858)

"Nearly allied by genius as by blood to the first of English female novelists, Miss Austen."—Saturday Review.

"Will amuse and satisfy the reader."—Examiner. 

"A good novel, likely to be highly popular."—News of the World. 

"In this novel the author has even excelled herself."—Messenger.

"It will be a great favourite."—Sunday Times.