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...

Emma, by Jane Austen, is a comic novel about the perils of misconstrued romance. The novel was first published in December 1815. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England; she also creates a lively 'comedy of manners' among her characters. Before she began the novel, Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." 1] In the very first sentence she introduces the title character as "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich." Emma, however, is also rather spoiled; she greatly...

Set in England in the late 18th century, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's five unmarried daughters after two gentlemen have moved into their neighbourhood: the rich and eligible Mr. Bingley, and his status-conscious friend, the even richer and more eligible Mr. Darcy. While Bingley takes an immediate liking to the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, Darcy is disdainful of local society and repeatedly clashes with the Bennets' lively second daughter, Elizabeth. Pride and Prejudice is a novel of manners by Jane Austen, first published in 1813. The story follows the main...

A 17 ans, Catherine Morland est invitee par ses voisins les Allen a passer quelques semaines a Bath. Entre bals, promenades et boutiques, elle se lie tout d'abord d'amitie avec Isabelle Thorpe, qui frequente son frere, puis avec Eleanor Tilney, la soeur du charmant Henry Tilney. Lorsque les Tilney lui proposent de sejourner chez eux a Northanger Abbey, celle-ci est aux anges Cette somptueuse et antique demeure exerce un puissant pouvoir sur l'imagination de Catherine, ferue de romans gothiques. Tandis qu'elle echafaude les hypotheses les plus folles, elle ne se doute pas du sort qui...

The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as ''handsome, clever, and rich'' but is also rather spoiled. As a result of the recent marriage of her former governess, Emma prides herself on her ability to matchmake, and proceeds to take under her wing an illegitimate orphan, Harriet Smith, whom she hopes to marry off to the vicar, Mr Elton. So confident is she that she persuades Harriet to reject a proposal from a young farmer who is a much more suitable partner for the girl. Show Excerpt sly." "Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton You like Mr....

Packaged in handsome and affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. From the musings of literary geniuses like Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the striking personal narrative of Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our literary history through the words of the exceptional few.
Originally published in 1813, the novel Pride and Prejudice has been a favorite of literature readers for more than two centuries. Set in...