Recently widowed, the unscrupulous and beautiful Lady Susan Vernon is determined to scheme her way through high society in the hope of a profitable new match - all while trying to marry off her unfortunate daughter. Told through a series of letters, Jane Austen''s magnificent first novel is as subversive as it is charming.>
Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others.
The Penguin English Library Edition of Persuasion by Jane Austen 'Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth; and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect' Persuasion , Jane Austen's last novel, is a moving, masterly and elegiac love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities. It tells the story of Anne Elliot, who, persuaded to break off her engagement to the man she loved because he was not successful enough, has never forgotten him. When he returns, he brings with him a tantalizing second chance of happiness ... The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, aware of her humble rank and with her cousin Edmund as her sole ally. During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a taste for flirtation.
A new Penguin English Library edition of Jane Austen's tantalizing final work - set to be a major Andrew Davies ITV adaptation this autumn Written in the last months of Austen's life, Sanditon features a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and speculators in a newly established seaside resort, and shows the author contemplating a changing society with scepticism and amusement. It tells the story of Charlotte Heywood, who is transported by a chance accident from her rural hometown to Sanditon, where she is exposed to the intrigues and dalliances of a small town determined to reinvent itself - and encounters the intriguingly handsome Sidney Parker. This edition also includes the early epistolary novel Lady Susan and the delightful fragment The Watsons.
Tells the story of Marianne Dashwood, who wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo.
Jane Austen's masterworks in a single beautiful Penguin English Library volume Few novelists have observed their society with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. This volume brings together her seven great novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion and Lady Susan . Ironic, comic and wise, these stories of irrepressible heroines, of love found, lost and regained, and of human nature in all its complexity, are among the most enduring works in the English language. The Penguin English Library - collectable general readers' editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War.