The terror of Northanger Abbey had no name, no shape -- yet it menaced Catherine Morland in the dead of night Published posthumously. Show Excerpt s but the high feathers of some of the ladies. Still they moved on -- something better was yet in view; and by a continued exertion of strength and ingenuity they found themselves at last in the passage behind the highest bench. Here there was something less of crowd than below; and hence Miss Morland had a comprehensive view of all the company beneath her, and of all the dangers of her late passage through them. It was a splendid sight, and she...

Persuasion was Jane Austen's last work. Its mellow character and autumnal tone have long made it a favorite with Austen readers. Set in Somersetshire and Bath, the novel revolves around the lives and love affair of Sir Walter Elliot, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and various in-laws, friends, suitors, and other characters, In Anne Elliot, the author created perhaps her sweetest, most appealing heroine.

This story revolves around the Dashwood sisters: where Elinor is a sensible, rational creature, her younger sister Marianne is wildly romantic--a characteristic that offers Austen plenty of scope for both satire and compassion. (With an introduction by Austin Dobson.} Show Excerpt And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and...

Thought Catalog Books is bringing back the classic Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The story takes place in 18th century Britain and follows the Bennet girls as they traverse love, marriage, and high society. The book has transfixed generations of readers and kindled a desire in many a young lady to search for her Mr. Darcy. Pride and Prejudice has inspired numerous literary and film adaptations and appears here in its original form with a new cover.

Persuasion opens with a brief history of the Elliot family as recorded in Sir Walter Elliot's favorite book, The Baronetcy. We learn that the Elliots are a respected, titled, landowning family. Lady Elliot, Sir Walter's wife died fourteen years ago and left him with three daughters: Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary. Both Elizabeth and Anne are single, but Mary, the youngest is married to a wealthy man named Charles Musgrove; they live close by. Sir Walter, who lavishly overspends, has brought the family into great debt. When Lady Russell, a trusted family advisor, suggests that the Elliots reduce...

The Elliots of Kellynch Hall, a family of minor nobility, are in financial trouble. Their sense of how important they are has long been larger than their bank account allows. The duct-tape patching job they've been doing on their finances is finally falling apart, so they come up with a last-ditch plan: move out of the ancestral mansion and rent out the place to someone else to increase their income. And so the Elliots move out, and the newly rich Admiral Croft and his wife move in. While the Crofts are total strangers to the Elliots, it turns out Mrs. Croft's brother, Captain Wentworth, is...

Incomplete records make it impossible to know for certain when Jane Austen originally wrote Lady Susan, but the novel was published in 1871 - over 50 years after her death. The novel is different than Jane Austen's typical work in a couple ways. First, it is epistolary novel, which means it is written as a series of letters. Second, unlike many of Jane Austen's more popular works, the main character, Lady Susan, is quite unlikeable. She has no redeeming qualities and while she seems to do well for herself in the novel by manipulating the other people in her life, the end of the novel...

This epistolary novel, an early complete work that the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the main character-the widowed Lady Susan-as she seeks a new husband for herself and one for her daughter. Although the theme, together with the focus on character study and moral issues, is close to Austen's published work (Sense and Sensibility was also originally written in the epistolary form), its outlook is very different, and the heroine has few parallels in 19th-century literature. Lady Susan is a selfish, unscrupulous and scheming woman, highly attractive to men,...

Youthful Emma Woodhouse, whose long-time governess and friend Miss Taylor has just married Mr. Weston, takes some solace in being left alone with her aging father by claiming that she made the match herself. An old friend of the family, Mr. George Knightley, does not believe her, but in her certainty she decides that she must also marry off the young rector, Mr. Elton. Among her friends and acquaintances in the large and populous village of Highbury, she begins to notice young Harriet Smith, the pretty illegitimate seventeen-year-old who lives at Mrs. Goddard's boarding school. Determining...