Dances and debutantes: I test-drive the online Jane Austen role-playing game

Jane Austen's works have been given the World of Warcraft treatment, but with dinner parties instead of dungeons - and gossip instead of guns. Our writer ties on her virtual bonnet and goes hunting for a suitor

I had been travelling for two days with my aunt Amelia in her private carriage when upon arrival at the Fleckcot Glebe Inn, an establishment of some ill repute, Aunt Amelia received a letter that so altered our plans it leaves me in a whirlwind of mortification. My name is Flopsy McCanada, a Regency era girl of large oval face and low social standing. My aim? To find my way through the confusing customs and daily rituals of Jane Austen's age without committing a major social transgression over tea.

I'm playing Ever, Jane, a virtual roleplaying game by Judy L Tyrer, formerly of Linden Labs, which created the seminal online world Second Life. As avid fans of Jane Austen, Tyrer and her team at 3 Turn Productions have worked to unify the worlds of Austen's writing, from Lady Susan to Sense and Sensibility, turning them into Tyrehampton, a place where women in bonnets lounge about in day rooms and dissect their rivals.