Includes:
•Charles River Editors original biography of Jane Austen
•Austen’s most famous works, including Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey
“Which brings us again, after this long way about, to Jane Austen and her novels, and that troublesome question about them. She was great and they were beautiful, because she and they were honest, and dealt with nature nearly a hundred years ago as realism deals with it to-day. Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material, and Jane Austen was the first and the last of the English novelists to treat material with entire truthfulness. Because she did this, she remains the most artistic of the English novelists, and alone worthy to be matched with the great Scandinavian and Slavic and Latin artists.” – William Dean Howells
As has happened with many of history’s greatest writers, Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) did not earn the credit she was due until well after her death. Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, has earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature over the last 150 years.
Austen’s romantic fiction was an interesting genre that belied the fact her writing was laden with realism and a scathing critique on society and the role women played in it during her life. Austen tried several different types of literary styles before settling on writing novels from 1811-1817, releasing Sense and Sensibility (1811), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). The novels highlighted the dependence of women on marrying high to reach a better social status and financial security.
The Jane Austen Collection looks at the life, works, and influence the famous British novelist had over her contemporaries and successors. Along with an original biography, this collection Austen’s most famous classics. It also includes pictures, a bibliography and a Table of Contents.
