Austen Library (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Known for her cheerful, modest, and witty character, Austen had a busy family and social life, but as far as we know very little direct romantic experience. There were early flirtations, a quickly retracted agreement to marry the wealthy brother of a friend, and a rumored short-lived attachment —while she was traveling— that has not been verified. Despite that, she bequeathed the world Pride & Prejudice, one of the most delightful and engrossingly readable courtships known to literature, written by precocious Austen when she was just twenty-one years old. In the words of Eudora Welty, Pride & Prejudice is as "irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be."

Our new paperback Austen Library, culled from the Barnes & Noble Classics series, brings together all six of her published novels:

• Sense & Sensibility, 1811
• Pride & Prejudice, 1813
• Mansfield Park, 1814
• Emma, 1815
• Northanger Abbey, 1817
• Persuasion, 1817

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate