Jane Austen

Emma stands a little apart from Jane Austen's other novels. It is perhaps the most self-aware, socially critical and ironic of all her works. Her protagonist, Emma Woodhouse, is a beautiful, rich girl who is also spoiled, proud and blinded by her own situation in life. She begins to understand herself and life a little better when her romantic schemes - charitable good works to those around her - become entangled in tensions of class and of the heart...

Mr and Mrs Bennet have five unmarried daughters. When the amiable Mr Bingly moves into the neighbourhood, Mrs Bennet therefore feels entirely sure that he is meant for one of her girls. Her eldest Miss Bennet captures his attention, but Mr Bingley's proud friend Mr Darcy does not approve the match and takes his friend away to London. Though not before losing his own heart to the second eldest, Lizzie. With an indolent father on one side and a nervous, ignorant mother on the other...

When Mr. Dashwood dies, he leaves his second wife and her three daughters at the mercy of his son and heir, John. John's wife convinces him to turn his step-mother and half-sisters out, and they move to a country cottage, rented to them by a distant relative. In their newly reduced circumstances Elinor and Marianne, the two eldest daughters, wrestle with ideas of romance and reality and their apparent opposition to each other. Elinor struggles in silent propriety...

Catherine, a seventeen year old girl, travels with her family to Bath and makes many new acquaintance, including two young men who pursue her. She is invited to visit the country estate of one, and makes the journey with high expectations of Gothic drama, her head being full of Mrs Radcliffe's The Mystery of Udolpho . This was the first novel completed by Austen, but was only published posthumously. It is a delightful, light-hearted comment by Austen on the reading and writing...

When she was young and beautiful Anne Elliot fell in love with a dashing, but poor naval officer. Her family considered him beneath her and persuaded her to break off the match. Eight years later, when the novel begins, Anne is well past the bloom of her youth. Until Wentworth, now a celebrated captain, returns to the area to court her young neighour. Anne begins to slowly bloom a second time, though she hardly dares hope that he will return to her...

Fanny Price is born to a poor family, but is sent to her mother's rich relations to be brought up with her cousins. There she is treated as an inferior by all except her cousin Edmund, whose kindness towards her earns him her steadfast love. Fanny is quiet and obedient and does not come into her own until her elder cousins leave the estate following a scandalous play put on in their father's absence. Fanny's loyalty and love is tested by the beautiful Crawford siblings...

Lady Susan is the only full novel written by Jane Austen that was not published in her lifetime. Composed in the epistolary form that was popular at the time, the novel is a series of letters primarily between Lady Susan, Mrs Vernon, Mrs Vernon's mother (Lady de Courcy), Lady Susan and Mrs Johnson. The central character is remarkable in Austenian terms as she has nearly no redeeming features. A gorgeous, clever and witty woman, Lady Susan uses her talents for thoroughly selfish...