The Complete Novels

• with illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Jane Austen wrote in the eighteenth century, but her novels are timeless. This complete anthology is unique among single-volume editions of her work because it includes the obscure but delightful Lady Susan, in addition to the six better-known novels, as well as thirty of Hugh Thomson’s irresistible drawings.

All Jane Austen’s novels are love stories, all are stories of country gentry, and all end happily, one way or another. Her plots have the complexity of life and her characters are described with inimitable style and wit – whether caustic warmly affectionate.

Pride and Prejudice, the best known and st loved of Jane Austen’s novels, is a brilliant story which centres on the economics of love in a late-eighteenth- century village. It is the tale of love and romance between the beautiful and spirited, but impoverished, Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy, the priggish, snobbish but fascinating aristocrat.

Sense and Sensibility tells of two loves: the great passion of young, idealistic Marianne for Willoughby, dashing and handsome but ultimately unprincipled, and the contrasting quieter, more sensible love of her sister Elinor for Edward Ferrars, a sedate and seemingly unremarkable man.

In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price, the poor relation brought up in the home of a wealthy family, competes with a brilliantly witty and dazzlingly lovely woman for the man she loves.

Many critics feel Emma is Austen’s finest novel. The plot has a strong element of suspense as the beautiful and confident young heiress tries to manage her life and the lives of those around her with all the wisdom of her twenty-one years.

Northanger Abbey, is a literary satire on the Gothic novels popular during Jane Austen’s time as well as a highly amusing tale of romance.

In Persuasion, a tender, autumnal love story, Anne Eliot, one of Jane Austen’s most appealing characters, makes a difficult but, she believes, prudent decision to spurn her sailor lover. She spends seven years regretting this. When he returns he chooses another, only to have Anne vie for his affections anew.

Lady Susan is a novel that consists entirely of letters, and the action moves swiftly. This story of the wicked, adulterous Lady Susan – who is ruthlessly cruel to her daughter, yet beautiful and fascinating in her deviousness has vitality, ribald realism, and great humour.

The nineteenth-century illustrations of Hugh Thomson capture the flavour of Jane Austen’s characters and enhance this extraordinary collection of the complete works of one of the greatest novelists of all time.