Jane Austens Greatest Novels, Jane Austen
Jane Austens Greatest Novels, Jane Austen
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Jane Austen's Greatest Novels
Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion

Author: Jane Austen

Narrator: PJ Roscoe, Kate Redding

Unabridged: 76 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/19/2021

Categories: Fiction, Anthologies


Synopsis

Delve into the romanticism and imagination of Jane Austen in this collection of Austen’s greatest novels. Covering the span of her career, these five novels are just as charming now as they were two centuries ago in their first publications.

Sense and Sensibility – Austen’s first novel tells the story of the Dashwood ladies – Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret – as their family is forced to move to a new estate. Elinor and Marianne, the oldest of the trio, come of age in a tumultuous time, and the novel focuses on their romances, tribulations, and relationships with one another as they grow up.

Pride and Prejudice – Perhaps the most well-known and beloved of Austen’s novels, Pride and Prejudice is a story of love, redemption, and opening one’s heart and mind to something unknown. Elizabeth Bennet is part of family of girls in pursuit of husbands, but when she is approached by a man she views as prideful, she refuses his advances. Through a story full of comedic and heartbreaking moments, Elizabeth learns to look past prejudice to find something more.

Mansfield Park – When Fanny Price is very young, she is sent away to live with her aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park, a large estate filled with all of Fanny’s insufferable cousins and family members. The novel follows her life from childhood to adulthood at Mansfield Park as she grows up surrounded by cruelty and winds up in the middle of the dramatic romantic entanglements her family develops.

Emma - Emma Woodhouse has successfully played matchmaker for her friend and discovers that she has a taste for setting up romances. The matchmaking quickly gets out of Emma’s hands, and though she means well, each new connection creates difficulties and confusion.

Northanger Abbey - Catherine Moreland is an avid reader, a lover of sports and an imaginative young woman. She loves to read gothic fiction, a romanticized, dark and mysterious genre. As Catherine grows older her imagination begins to get the better of her. Everyday scenarios become romanticized and dramatic, natural deaths become mysterious, and innocent motives are questioned as Catherine fancies herself a character in a Gothic drama.

Persuasion - Persuasion follows Anne Elliot, a strong young woman, as she is reacquainted with her once-fiancé Frederick Wentworth. The story follows the duo and their families as they face financial troubles, the strong emotions of jealousy and unrequited affection, and the societal pressures of the age. This is a story of the power of being true to one’s self and the power of love above societal struggles.

About Jane Austen

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775, to the Reverend George Austen and his wife, Cassandra Leigh Austen, in the village of Steventon in Hampshire, England. Though her mother was from a family of gentry, Jane's father was not well off, and the large family had to take in school boarders to make ends meet. The second youngest of the Austens' eight children, Jane was very close to her elder, and only, sister, Cassandra, and neither sister ever married. Both girls were educated at home, as many were at that time.

From a young age Jane wrote satires and read them aloud to her appreciative family. Though she completed the manuscripts of two full-length novels while living at Steventon, these were not published. Later, these novels were revised into the form under which they were published, as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, respectively.

In 1801, George Austen retired from the clergy, and Jane, Cassandra, and their parents took up residence in Bath, a fashionable town Jane liked far less than her native village. Jane seems to have written little during this period. When Mr. Austen died in 1805, the three women, Mrs. Austen and her daughters, moved first to Southampton and then, partly subsidized by Jane's brothers, occupied a house in Chawton, a village not unlike Jane's first home. There she began to work on writing and pursued publishing once more, leading to the anonymous publication of Sense and Sensibility in 1811 and Pride and Prejudice in 1813, to modestly good reviews.

Known for her cheerful, modest, and witty character, Jane Austen had a busy family and social life but very little direct romantic experience. Her last years were quiet and devoted to family, friends, and writing her final novels. In 1817 she had to interrupt work on her last and unfinished novel, Sanditon, because she fell ill. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, where she had been taken for medical treatment. After her death, her novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published, together with a biographical notice, due to the efforts of her brother Henry. Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral.


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