Persuasion and Poems, Jane Austen
Persuasion and Poems, Jane Austen
4 Rating(s)
List: $24.95 | Sale: $17.47
Club: $12.47

Persuasion and Poems

Author: Jane Austen

Narrator: Alison Larkin

Unabridged: 10 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/11/2016


Synopsis

200 years since Jane Austen completed her last novel, Alison Larkin, a witty and always original voice, brings Persuasion and a selection of lesser known poems by Jane Austen to a new audience.

Seven years after Anne Elliot rejects the man she loves after a family friend persuades her that he isn't a good enough match for her, Frederick Wentworth returns to England looking for a wife.

Austen did not take herself seriously as a poet but she did write delightful, mostly comic verses to entertain family and friends.

Selected and introduced by award winning narrator Alison Larkin, the poems range from lines found on a piece of paper inside a tiny bag Austen gave to her niece in 1792, to her very last piece of writing - When Winchester Races - written three days before she died in July 1817.

"Raised in England by adoptive parents, Alison Larkin was actually born in America. She herself is a comic writer and performer—and she approaches Austen as a satirist—she has genuine theatrical skill... sustained comic creations. The voice reveals all." — The New Yorker

"There's a vintage feel to Alison Larkin's narration.. The bell-like quality of her sweetly accented voice harkens back to another, quieter, time. However, her delivery ... is contemporary and easy to hear..." - AudioFile Magazine

"As narrator, Larkin's voice is both commanding and sweet as she portrays the characters in Austen's final completed novel, PERSUASION.... Larkin's voice echoes the author's artistry."--Audiofile Magazine

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.


Reviews

There are currently no user reviews for this audiobook.