Meet the Author: Catherine Cliff
Discussing Miss Bates: A Novel inspired by Jane Austen
Tuesday, August 18 from 6:30 – 7:30 PM
In-Person & on Zoom:
Registration is required to attend In-Person.
Zoom link active at our website at the time of this event.
In a debut that is by turns comedic, tragic, and startling, MISS BATES is a daring re-imagining of an Austen classic from the unflinching viewpoint of the misunderstood Miss Bates.
Henrietta Bates, the iconic bore of Austen’s Emma. An unmarried woman who is an object of scorn and pity, whose survival depends upon the generosity of her neighbors which she barters for with an unrelenting shower of banal and grateful chatter.
But what if the woman we see in Emma was actually deliberately assuming a role, donning a mask? What if there was a world of difference between her inward and outward voice?
MISS BATES imagines answers to these questions as it chronicles Henrietta Bates’s unexpected and, at times, violent life, navigating a world with no ready-made opportunities, where the stakes are of the highest order. Cliff turns Austen’s poignant and ridiculous side character into a feminist force who understands innately the life she has been dealt and how to slyly play it to her advantage.
About the author:
Catherine Cliff grew up in NYC. She has a BA in Classics and English from Harvard and a doctorate in English Literature from Yale, specializing in English Renaissance poetry. She lived in London and Basel for many years and is now settled in western Massachusetts. This is her first novel.
Oliver Wolcott Library
160 south Street
Litchfield, CT 06759
2026-08-18
