Novels and other works by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Excitement fizzes through the Bennet household at Longbourn in Hertfordshire when young, eligible Mr. Charles Bingley rents the fine house nearby. He may have sisters, but he also has male friends, and one of these, the haughty, and even wealthier, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy—irks the vivacious Elizabeth Bennet, the second of the girls.
Sense and Sensibility: When Mr Dashwood dies, the Dashwood women are left in reduced circumstances. The novel follows the Dashwood sisters Elinor, Marianne and Margaret to their new home, a cottage on a distant relative's property, where they experience both romance and heartbreak. The contrast between the sisters' characters is eventually resolved as they each find love and lasting happiness.
Mansfield Park: Fanny Price is raised by her rich uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, at Mansfield Park. She grows up with her four cousins, Tom Bertram, Edmund Bertram, Maria Bertram and Julia, but only Edmund shows her real kindness. When the children have grown up, the stern patriarch Sir Thomas leaves for two years for Antigua. In the absence of his strict rule, the moral weaknesses of the family begin to show, and Fanny alone stands steadfast, a candle of honour in a stormy atmosphere of selfishness and licence.
Emma: Emma Woodhouse is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. She lives on an estate in Surrey in the village of Highbury with her father. Emma's friend and only critic is the gentlemanly George Knightley, her neighbour from the adjacent estate of Donwell, and brother of her elder sister Isabella's husband. Emma decides that she rather likes matchmaking, and forges ahead with her new interest, falling in and out of scrapes, and finally understanding her own heart.
Northanger Abbey: The story's heroine, 17-year-old Catherine Morland, is invited by her neighbours in Fullerton, the Allens, to accompany them to visit Bath for a number of weeks. She is soon introduced to an intriguing young gentleman named Henry Tilney. The Tilneys (Henry, his sister Eleanor, and their father General Tilney) invite Catherine to stay with them for a few weeks at their home, Northanger Abbey. Catherine, who has read many Gothic novels, expects ghosts and monsters around every corner, but when the monster finally appears, it takes a totally unexpected form.
Persuasion: More than seven years prior to the events in the novel, Anne Elliot fell in love with a handsome and ambitious, but poor, young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth. The Elliots were dissatisfied with her choice, feeling he was not distinguished enough for their family. Her older friend and mentor, Lady Russell, persuaded her to break off the match. At 27, Anne re-encounters her former fiancé as he associates with the Musgrove family. Now Wentworth is an early captain and wealthy from wartime victories in the Royal Navy and from prize-money for capturing enemy ships. But he hasn't forgiven Anne for her rejection of him.
Lady Susan: Lady Susan is a selfish, attractive woman, who tries to trap the best possible husband while maintaining a relationship with a married man. She subverts all the standards of the romantic novel: she has an active role, she's not only beautiful but intelligent and witty, and her suitors are significantly younger than she is. Although the ending includes a traditional reward for morality, Lady Susan herself is treated much more mildly than the adulteress in Mansfield Park, who is severely punished.
The Watsons: Mr. Watson is a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters. The youngest daughter, Emma, has been brought up by a wealthy aunt and is consequently better educated and more refined than her sisters. But when her aunt contracts a foolish second marriage, Emma is obliged to return to her father's house. Living near the Watsons are the Osbornes, a great titled family. Emma attracts some notice from the boorish and awkward young Lord Osborne, but finds his tutor far more attractive.
Sanditon: In her last completed novel, Persuasion, Austen had depicted how men of merit and small means could rise to affluence and position by means of service in the British navy. Sanditon builds on this theme, depicting the commercial development of a small watering place and the social confusion of its society (one character is a mulatto heiress from the West Indies).
Juvenilia
Love and Freindship: This tale, in epistolary form, is one of Jane Austen's Juvenilia. Love and Freindship (which is usually cited in Jane Austen's original spelling) is an exuberant parody of the cult of sensibility, which she later criticized in a more serious way in her novel Sense and Sensibility. For the main characters in Love and Freindship, including the narrator Laura, violent and overt emotion substitutes for morality and common sense. Characters who have this "sensibility" fall into each other's arms weeping the first time they ever meet, and on suffering any misfortune are too preoccupied with indulging their emotions to take any effective action. They use their fine feelings as the excuse for any misdeeds, and despise characters without such feelings.
History of England: The History of England is a 1791 work by Jane Austen, written when the author was fifteen. In this burlesque, Austen mockingly imitates the style of textbook histories of English monarchs, while ridiculing historians' pretensions to objectivity. Her History cites as sources fictional works such as the plays of Shakespeare and Sheridan, a novel by Charlotte Turner Smith and the opinions of Austen's family and friends.
Frederic & Elfrida: In this short piece, probably one of the earliest of her surviving Juvenilia, written in her early teens, Jane Austen exuberantly parodies some of the silly sentimental and "heroick" literature and literary conventions of her day. Fortunately, one doesn't have to be intimately familiar with 18th-century grade B novels to appreciate much of the humor.
The Three Sisters: This short story, written in epistolary form about 1792, is one of Jane Austen's Juvenilia. It includes some of the irony characteristic of Jane Austen, but is perhaps less typical in being a rather brutal work. It is interesting that Jane Austen probably wrote this rather raw portrayal of "marriage as prostitution" when she was herself seventeen years old, and therefore only just entering onto the marriage market.
Henry and Eliza: This is a playful and somewhat unsophisticated short piece from Jane Austen's Juvenilia (it was probably written in her early teenage years). The names "Henry" and "Eliza" come from her favorite brother Henry Austen, and his cousin and future wife Eliza de Feuillide (though at the time Jane Austen wrote this, Eliza was still married to her first husband).
Lesley Castle an unfinished Novel in Letters: From the dates given to the letters, Lesley Castle was probably written in early 1792 (when she was 16). It contains some amusing bits, but may be slightly confusing overall, since Jane Austen introduces a number of separate sub-plots and supporting characters.
Sir William Mountague: "an unfinished performance dedicated to Charles John Austen Esqre., by his most obedient humble Servant"
Jack & Alice: This short piece from Jane Austen's Juvenilia is fun to read because it's much less decorous and restrained than Jane Austen's later published novels, since she wrote it in her early teens. As in others of her Juvenilia, she parodies some of the literature and literary conventions of her day -- but much of the humor can fortunately still be appreciated without having read the specific 18th-century novels she satirizes.
Jane Austen's Juvenilia: Miscellaneous Scraps
More Writings Here
Interesting links:
The Republic of Pemberley - for all things Austen
http://www.pemberley.com/
The home of the Derbyshire Writers' Guild, one of the oldest and largest archives of Jane Austen fan fiction on the internet.
http://www.austen.com/
