Synopses & Reviews
Now in Penguin Classicsa treasure trove of Jane Austen's novels Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Here in one volume are her seven great novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, Austen vividly portrays English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close and the nineteenth century began. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriagemarriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not romances; ironic, comic, and wise, they are masterly evocations of the society Jane Austen observed. This beautiful volume covers the literary career of one of England's finest prose stylists of any century.
"These modern editions are to be strongly recommended."
Brian Southam, The Jane Austen Society
Synopsis
Jane Austen wrote in the eighteenth century, but her novels are timeless. This complete anthology is unique among single-volume editions of her workbecause it includes the obscure but delightful Lady Susan, along with the six better-known novels and thirty of Hugh Thomson's irresistible drawings.
All of Jane Austen's novels are love stories, all are stories of country gentry, and all end happily, one way or another. Her plots have the complexity of life and her characters are described with inimitable style and witwhether caustic or warmly affectionate. The novels contained in this anthology are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. The nineteenth-century illustrations of Hugh Thomson capture the flavor of Jane Austen's characters and enhance this extraordinary collection of the complete works of one of the greatest novelists of all time.
About the Author
Jane Austen (1775 &1817) lived in and wrote about Regency, England. Four of her novels were published during her lifetime.
Karen Joy Fowler, a PEN/Faulkner and Dublin IMPAC nominee, is the author of The Jane Austen Book Club and other novels.
Table of Contents
Sense and sensibility -- Pride and prejudice -- Mansfield Park -- Emma -- Northanger Abbey -- Persuasion -- Lady Susan.