Published 22nd October 2026 by Pegasus Books.
From the cover of the book:
Miss Bates, creepy, funny, and heartbreaking, is a daring reimagining of the world of Jane Austen's Emma. But make no mistake, this is no marriage plot; it is a spinster plot. Or maybe, it is the spinster’s plot.
Henrietta Bates, the iconic bore of Emma, is the opposite of handsome, clever, and rich Emma: she is plain, ill-educated, and impoverished. An unmarried woman of quite a different order from that novel's proudly single heroine, she is an object of scorn and pity, whose survival depends upon the generosity of her neighbours which she barters for with an unrelenting shower of banal and grateful chatter.
But what if the woman we see in Emma were actually deliberately assuming a role, donning a mask, as a means of managing an untenable situation? What if there was a world of difference between her inward and outward voice? What would the Woodhouses’s Highbury look like from her perspective?
Miss Bates by Catherine Cliff 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. In a debut that is by turns comedic, tragic, startling, and altogether brilliant, Miss Bates 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.
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Emma by Jane Austen was published in 1815, and is a romance and comedy of manners set in the fictional village of Highbury. The story centres around Emma Woodhouse, the eponymous heroine of the novel, but the story includes many other characters of note - including plain, impoverished Miss Bates, with a never-ending line in inane chatter.
In this novel, Catherine Cliff reimagines Austen's story from the point of view of the much maligned Miss Henrietta Bates, giving an alternative view of events - as well as providing her with a backstory,.. and a glimpse of her future.
I have to confess that I rarely venture in the pages of an Austen retelling, because I am not a fan of liberties being taken with my beloved Miss A. However, I was drawn to this one because Miss Bates is something of an oddity in the Austen canon. Yes, she is ridiculous, and often an object of Austen's sharp wit, but she is also a person Austen goes to pains to point out is more than that - hence My Knightley's pivotal scolding of Emma after she publicly humiliates her at the Box Hill picnic. I was curious to see what Cliff would make of her...
Cliff begins with Henrie's childhood, in a family scarred by tragedy. Once happy, Henrie adopts a defence mechanism - endless chatter - which hides the dark, intrusive thoughts that have begun to pop into her mind. It is a habit that grows out of all proportion as she ages into a woman who has to suffer more than her fair share of hardship.
Once we get into the part of the novel, that runs in parallel to Austen's original, it is fascinating to fill in the parts of the story in the Bates' household that you can only imagine in Emma. This was my favourite part of the book, as I know Austen's novel so well, and I really enjoyed the way cliff adds layers to Henrie's character with her need to act with humility and gratitude while inwardly seething with hatred - especially for Miss Woodhouse!
It is the ending of the novel that really gives me pause for thought. This is where the story diverges into the realms of dark fairy tale, in keeping with the complementary themes of spinsterhood and witchcraft that run through the story. I really enjoyed what Cliff does with this idea, but found it quite hard to reconcile this direction with my beloved Austen - especially when it comes to the fate of some of the characters. Definitely thought-provoking!
This is an intriguing novel. It is bold, and inventive, and does an excellent job of examining the role women of reduced circumstances were expected to play in Regency society, how they are viewed by others, and the real feelings they must bury deep inside. It really is a novel of spinsterhood, rather than one of marriage, which makes it stand out of the Regency novel crowd. And it is worth reading alone just for the inner voice Cliff imagines for Miss Bates. She is not always easy to like, but the evolution of her character will make you think very differently about the voluble Miss Henrietta Bates in Austen's novel.
Miss Bates is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Pegasus Books for sending me a review copy of this book.
About the author:
Catherine Cliff grew up in New York City. 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.
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