Ocean State Libraries

"In the final months of Jane Austen's life, she began work on a new novel about social drama in the small seaside town of Sanditon, once a small fishing village and now a bustling spa town. In the story of Charlotte Heywood, a new arrival, Austen contemplated a changing society with a mixture of skepticism and amusement, and notably crafted her only character of color in the mixed-race heiress Miss Lambe. Though unfinished at the time of her death,...

Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend La.

After their father dies, leaving them to a life of genteel poverty, sensible Elinor and romantic Marianne Dashwood must rely on making good marriages as their means of support.

At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. There she accepts her lowly status, and gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund. When the dazzling and sophisticated Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Fanny watches as her cousins become embroiled in rivalry and sexual jealousy, she struggles to retain her...

"Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed. An epistolary novel in 18th century style, it tells the story of the recently-widowed Lady Susan Vernon, intelligent but highly manipulative, who is intent on gaining financially secure relationships for herself and her wayward but shy teenage daughter Frederica"--Cover.

These three short works show Jane Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary stayles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Young Charlotte Heywood arrives in Sanditon, a newly established seaside resort, with the Parkers: patrons and enthusiastic promoters of the town. Just as the town seeks to reinvent itself as a fashionable destination, Charlotte Heywood attempts to begin anew amongst its residents. As she begins to settle into Sanditon society, with the Parkers and the rich...