Showing results by author "Jane Austen" in All Categories

Welcome to Austen Chat, the podcast of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA). Join us each month as we interview scholars, authors, and subject experts on a wide range of topics related to Austen’s writings, her life and times, and more. There is always more to learn and enjoy about Jane!

Northanger Abbey tells the story of a young girl, Catherine Morland who leaves her sheltered, rural home to enter the busy, sophisticated world of Bath in the late 1790s. Austen observes with insight and humour the interaction between Catherine and the various characters whom she meets there, and tracks her growing understanding of the world about her.

Persuasion follows Anne Elliot, a strong young woman, as she is reacquainted with her once-fiance, Frederick Wentworth. In Austen’s beloved witty writing, the story follows the duo and their families as they face financial troubles, crisscrossed relationships, the strong emotions of jealousy and unrequited affection, and the societal pressures of the age.

In Jane Austen's unfinished novel, young Emma Watson returns to her father's house after being raised by her wealthy and refined uncle. As she gets to know her family, she finds that her father is reclusive and sickly, her sisters are crude and shallow, and her eldest brother has a petulance that is matched only by his wife's.

BBC Audio presents Emma, Jane Austen's engaging and infuriating tale. Austen famously challenged her readers with 'heroine whom no one but myself will much like', yet this dramatisation brings Emma to life with romantic meddling, social climbing and perfect happiness. Emma Woodhouse is equal parts witty, spoilt and vain, and sets her mind on matchmaking. She coaches her long suffering friend Harriet through social interactions and proposals, with disastrous consequences. Can Emma fix her flaws in time to mend her relationships?

Love and Freindship [sic] is a juvenile story by Jane Austen, dated 1790, when Austen was 14 years old. Love and Freindship (the misspelling is one of many in the story) is clearly a parody of romantic novels Austen read as a child. This is clear even from the subtitle, "Deceived in Freindship and Betrayed in Love," which neatly undercuts the title. Written in epistolary form, it resembles a fairy tale as much as anything else, featuring wild coincidences and turns of fortune, but Austen is determined to lampoon the conventions of romantic stories.

"Emma" is the fourth book by celebrated British author Jane Austen and the final book to be published during her lifetime. The story concerns Emma Woodhouse, a precocious young lady who fancies herself a matchmaker and thus intrudes upon the love lives of her friends and relations to find them suitable mates. When she attempts to cement the romance between her cousin Harriet (a girl of modest means) and a wealthy suitor, Emma is admonished by her brother-in-law, Mr. Knightley, for her meddling and a series of romantic entanglements soon ensues.

In this BBC radio full-cast dramatisation of one of Jane Austen's most beloved works, the devoted Dashwood sisters are forced by tragic circumstances to set about the delicate task of finding suitable husbands. John Willoughby quickly and seemingly irreversibly captures Marianne's heart. Her sister, Elinor, finds few suitors and even fewer reasons to open up in a society fuelled by social status....

Rediscover one of the greatest love stories of all time with this new audio edition of Pride and Prejudice, masterfully narrated by actress Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton, Doctor Who). Pride and Prejudice's prolific status as a beloved story is thanks to its dynamic, ever-evolving central characters, as well as the strength of the wit and satire wielded by Austen. It is a love story, yes, but it is also a profound critique of Georgian high society and the plight of women. Without a male heir, the Bennet daughters risk losing their home and their income when their father, Mr Bennet, passes.

The plot follows the usual trajectory of a young girl falling in love and the relationship becoming compromised by unforeseen circumstances. In this case, Austen’s heroine is a naïve country girl, Catherine Morland, who has an addiction to reading the Gothic horror novels which were so popular in the Regency period. When she is invited to stay at the family seat of her love interest and discovers it to be a vast and ancient castle, her romantic imagination runs riot. What secrets lie hidden in this vast pile over which the widowed head of the house exercises an iron control?

Jane Austen's first novel - published posthumously in 1818 - tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen's fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature. The satirical novel pokes fun at the gothic novel while earnestly emphasizing caution to the female sex.

Emma is a novel about youthful hubris and romantic misunderstandings. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian—Regency England. Emma is a comedy of manners, and depicts issues of marriage, sex, age, and social status.

Jane Austen's Persuasion focuses on the regret and loneliness of Anne Elliot, who had rejected a proposal of marriage upon advice of a dear friend, from the one man she truly loved. The story takes place less than a decade after the proposal, following her simultaneous anticipation and dread of the rejected lover's return to the community. She struggles between the validity of the reasons for the old rejection and the flittering hope that their love had persevered. Persuasion is about a lost love re-kindled.

Emma, a comic novel by Jane Austen, was published in December 1815. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as "handsome, clever, and rich" but is also rather spoiled. Emma schemes to find a suitable husband for her pliant friend Harriet, only to discover that she understands the feelings of others as little as she does her own heart.

Lady Susan was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed. Less known than Austen's six great later novels, it demonstrates the wit and sharp observations of Jane Austen - and is shown at its best in audiobook form, with different actresses presenting real characters as they read their letters.

Following her critically acclaimed narration of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with Songs from Regency England, Emma, Persuasion & Poems and Northanger Abbey & The History of England, award-winning narrator Alison Larkin is back, bringing depth and a light comedic touch in this Earphones award-winning recording of Austen's first published novel.

Publicada póstumamente en 1818, presenta un cuadro de familia sumamente austeniano: un viudo pomposo que sólo lee el baronetario, una hija soltera llena de pretensiones, una hija casada hipocondríaca y caprichosa, una multitud ruidosa de parientes y vecinos que aparecen por todas partes… y, al fondo, en el último rincón, una heroína sensible, paciente y menospreciada.

In this delightful double bill, narrator Alison Larkin's AudioFile Earphones award-winning recording of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice are followed by songs from Regency England to give listeners a sense of what after dinner family entertainment might have sounded like in Jane Austen's time.

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's first novel, is an entertaining tale of flirtation and folly that revolves around two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Elinor is thoughtful, considerate, and calm; Marianne is emotional and wildly romantic. Both are looking for a husband, but neither Elinor's reason nor Marianne's passion can lead them to happiness - as Marianne falls for an unscrupulous rascal and Elinor becomes attached to a man who's already engaged.

Sense and Sensibility is a sharply detailed portrait of the decorum surrounding courtship and the importance of marriage for women in early 19th-century upper-class English society. The story revolves around Elinor and Marianne Dashwood who, as members of the upper class, cannot "work" for a living and must therefore make a suitable marriage to ensure their livelihood. Elinor is a sensible, rational creature, while her younger sister, Marianne, is wildly romantic - a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion.