Three of Jane Austen's six novels were written, at least in their first
versions, before 1800, while the other three were not started until after
Sense
and Sensibility was accepted for publication in 1811. Jane Austen published
four of the novels in her lifetime, and the two others were published together
soon after her death in 1817; none of the books had her name on the title
page (though the two posthumous works were published together with a short
biographical preface by her brother Henry identifying her as the author
for the first time). Her various minor works were not fully published until
the 20th century.
In addition to
the locations linked to here, the Project Gutenberg e-texts of the novels
are also available from various mirror sites; for more information (or
in case you should, unaccountably, want e-texts of books not by Jane Austen),
the best place to start is The On-line Books Page.
An early version of the book was written under the title Susan (in 1798-99 according to Cassandra). It was actually the first of Jane Austen's novels sold to a publisher (a publisher named Crosby bought it in 1803 for £10). He advertised it as forthcoming, but never issued it. Jane Austen had the manuscript bought back more than ten years later, after several of her other novels had been published, and apparently made some revisions, but finally "put it on the shel[f]" (letter of March 13, 1816). It was only after her death in 1817 that her brother Henry finally had it published (together with Persuasion). The title "Northanger Abbey" was not chosen by Jane Austen (she referred to the book in her letter as "Miss Catherine").
The most famous quote from
Northanger Abbey is probably Henry Tilney's
pseudo-gothic satire (see also Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland on marriage
vs. dancing, the "Defense of the Novel", the walk to Beechen Cliff (Henry
and Eleanor Tilney with Catherine Morland), and quotes on the opposition
between the "heroic" and the "natural"). (By the way, in this novel Jane
Austen usesthe word "baseball" -- the first person, as far as is known,
to use this word in writing by over fifty years.)
Plain ASCII e-text
of Northanger Abbey at U. of Maryland (divided into chapters).
Plain ASCII e-texts
of Northanger Abbey (WARNING: long!) -- at Wiretap, Gutenberg, Gutenberg
(compressed in binary ".zip" format).
C. E. Brock illustrations
for Northanger Abbey.
Summary of Northanger
Abbey (with *spoilers*).
Chronology of
Northanger
Abbey (Ellen Moody)
Silly cover of
a printing of Northanger Abbey which was marketed as a gothic novel
(USA, 1965) <JPEG>; Equally silly inside blurb; compare the puffed-up
cover blurb with the original quote
Handy map of Bath
ca. 1800
It was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be published, and appeared
without her name on the title page (only "By a Lady"). It was advertised
as an `Interesting Novel', which meant (in the jargon of the day) that
it was a love story. Jane Austen pledged herself to cover her publisher's
losses, if necessary, but actually realized £140 in profit. It was
one of only two novels that Jane Austen revised after publication, when
a second edition came out in 1813. The first and second editions were probably
not more than a thousand copies each, but the readership would have been
very much larger, due to the institution of"circulating libraries" (book
rental shops), and also the fact that the novel was published in three
separately-bound volumes (as was the usual practice).
Pride and prejudice
First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has consistently been Jane Austen's most popular novel. It portrays the initial misunderstandings and later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet (whose liveliness and quick wit have often attracted readers) and the haughty Darcy. Jane Austen wrote in a letter about Elizabeth, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a character as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know". The title Pride and Prejudice refers (among other things) to the ways in which Elizabeth and Darcy first view each other. The original version of the novel was written in 1796-1797 under the title First Impressions, and was probably in the form of an exchange of letters; First Impressions was actually the first of Jane Austen's works to be offered to a publisher, in 1797 by Jane Austen's father, but the publisher turned it down without even looking at the manuscript.
The latest
version of my plain ASCII e-text of Pride and Prejudice, compressed
in binary .zip format <260571 bytes> [See explanation of ".zip" here.]
Plain ASCII e-text
of Pride and Prejudice at U. of Maryland (divided into chapters).
The new TV version
of Pride and Prejudice
Penguin's Reader's
Guide to Pride and Prejudice
Readers have a wide variety of reactions to Mansfield Park -- most of which already appear in the Opinions of Mansfield Park collected by Jane Austen herself soon after the novel's publication. Some dislike the character of Fanny as "priggish" (however, it is Edmund who sets the moral tone here), or have no sympathy for her forced inaction (doubtless, those are people who have never lacked confidence, or been without a date on Friday night!). Mansfield Park has also been used to draw connections between the "genteel" rural English society that Jane Austen describes and the outside world, since Fanny's uncle is a slave-owner (with an estate in Antigua in the Caribbean; slavery was not abolished in the British empire until 1833). Like a number of other topics, Jane Austen only chose to allude glancingly to the slave trade and slavery in her novels, though she was aware of contemporary debates on the subject. Mansfield Park was one of only two of Jane Austen's novels to be revised by her after its first publication, when a second edition came out in 1816 (this second edition was a failure in terms of sales).
Notes on some customs of the society of Jane Austen's day, which are part of the background to Mansfield Park, but which may not be intuitively obvious to modern readers:
See some
further notes on the proprieties (and modern misconceptions thereof).
N.B. --
Fanny Price is not in line to become the new Lady Bertram at the end of
Mansfield
Park, despite what some noted critics have said, unless there is some
new unforseen occurrence that bumps off Tom Bertram: -- towards the end
of the novel, Tom is recovering from his illness (and still marriageable),
and Edmund and Fanny's move to Mansfield Parsonage a few years after their
marriage (as reported in the last paragraph of the novel) probably indicates
that Tom is then still alive.
Plain ASCII e-text
of Mansfield Park at U. of Maryland (divided into chapters).
Plain ASCII e-texts
of Mansfield Park (WARNING: long!) -- at Wiretap, Gutenberg, Gutenberg
(compressed in binary ".zip" format).
Opinions of
Mansfield Park, collected by Jane Austen
A dialogue on
the custom of girls' coming "Out"
Passages from
Mansfield
Park that detail Fanny Price's endearing imperfections
A Men-only dialogue
in Mansfield Park
Genealogical Charts
for Mansfield Park
A chronology for
Mansfield
Park
A comparison between
the characters Henry Crawford of Mansfield Park and Darcy of Pride
and Prejudice
C. E. Brock illustrations
for Mansfield Park (in color)
Program of a recent
conference on
Mansfield Park
Ellen Moody in
defense of Edmund Bertram (from the AUSTEN-L discussion list)
Comments and illustrations
of harp-playing Regency ladies, in relation to chapter 7 of Mansfield
Park
.gif image of
funny cover illustration for a Spanish translation (`El Parque de Mansfield')
[Courtesy Goucher College]
The definitive
Fanny-bashing (if you can't top this, don't even bother trying to insult
Fanny Price!)
What Fanny Price
would have to do for some people not to find her "insipid"!
A concept illustration
for a possible alternative ending to Mansfield Park (one that many
people may find just as believable as Fanny getting together with Henry
C.! )
Emma
Emma, published in 1815, has been described as a "mystery story without a murder". The eponymous heroine is the charming (but perhaps too clever for her own good) Emma Woodhouse, who manages to deceive herself in a number of ways (including as to who is really the object of her own affections), even though she (and the reader) are often in possession of evidence pointing toward the truth. Like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, she overcomes self-delusion during the course of her novel. The book describes a year in the life of the village of Highbury and its vicinity, portraying many of the various inhabitants.
Emma was dedicated to thedissolute Prince Regent (George Augustus Frederick),
at his request; he was the uncle of Victoria, and was Prince Regent from
1811-1820 and later king George IV (1820-1830). Jane Austen was apparently
not especially pleased by this honour (seeher letter on the infidelities
of the Prince and his wife). This episode was productive of her amusing
correspondence with Mr. Clarke.
Plain ASCII e-text
of Emma at U. of Maryland (divided into chapters).
Plain ASCII e-texts
of Emma (WARNING: long!) -- at Wiretap, Gutenberg, Gutenberg (compressed
in binary ".zip" format).
Emma on Old-maidhood
A sensual scene
from Emma
The charades and
riddle in Emma (with answers)
Genealogy charts
for the characters in Emma
Kali's Emma
page
The new TV version
of Emma
Clueless,
the Movie.
After she had finished the first version of
Persuasion, Jane Austen
was dissatisfied with the chapter in which Anne Elliot and the "unconsciously
constant" Captain Wentworth are reconciled; she then wrote two replacement
chapters which are universally considered much better than the first attempt.
The manuscript of the cancelled chapter is the only original manuscript
of any part of Jane Austen's published novels which has survived.
Plain ASCII e-texts
of Persuasion (WARNING: long!) -- at Wiretap, Gutenberg, Gutenberg
(compressed in binary ".zip" format).
The "cancelled
chapters" of Persuasion
A list of all
the occurences of the words "persuade"/"persuasion" in the novel
Advertisement
for Gowlands' Lotion, from Ackermann's Repository 1809 (for ladies
who want to carry away their freckles)
Genealogy charts
for the characters in Persuasion
Penguin's Reader's
Guide to Perusasion
C. E. Brock illustrations
for Persuasion.
Pandy map of Bath
ca. 1800
Persuasion,
the movie
It is interesting that Jane Austen allows herself a broader range of topics in the Juvenilia than in her novels; for example, in Jack and Alice she deals tragicomically with alcoholism, a fairly common vice of the day, but one which she only tangentially alludes to in her novels. The Juvenilia are not merely humorous; a few, like Catharine, or the Bower look forward to her novels. The Three Sisters is a downright brutal character sketch, as raw a portrayal of the sordid side of the "marriage market" as a feminist could wish. And what feminist couldn't find material in the story of Miss Jane in the Collection of Letters, whose husband dies while her marriage is still a secret, and who then, unable to bear the thought of assuming her husband's name only after his death, and "conscious of having no right to" her father's name, "dropped all thoughts of either", and made a point of bearing only her first name?
I can't resist giving one more quote from the Juvenilia, a character's
description of her niece fromLesley Castle: "The dear creature is
just turned of two years old -- as handsome as though two and twenty, as
sensible as though two and thirty, and as prudent as though two and forty.
To convince you of this, I must inform you that she has a very fine complexion
and very pretty features, that she already knows the first two letters
of the alphabet, and that she never tears her frocks. -- If I have not
now convinced you of her Beauty, Sense, and Prudence, I have nothing more
to urge in support of my assertion."
E-text of Henry
and Eliza
E-text of Sir
William Mountague
Miscellaneous
fragments of splendid nonsense from the Juvenilia
See also another
site with e-texts of some of the Juvenilia.
"They said he was sensible, well informed, and agreeable; we did not pretend to judge of such trifles, but ... we were convinced he had no soul [because] he had never read The Sorrows of Werter [by Goethe]."There are also parodies of such novelistic conventions as unlikely meetings between long-lost relatives, true love thwarted by parental opposition, the low-ranking character who is actually of noble birth, etc. Probably the most famous quote from Love and Freindship is the following last words of the dying Sophia, who relates the disadvantages of her method of reacting to a previous catastrophe:
"My beloved Laura, take warning from my unhappy End, and avoid the imprudent conduct which had occasioned it... Beware of fainting-fits... Though at the time they may be refreshing and agreeable, yet believe me they will in the end, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove destructive to your constitution... One fatal swoon has cost me my Life... Beware of swoons, dear Laura... A frenzy-fit is not one quarter so pernicious; it is an exercise to the Body and if not too violent, is I dare say conducive to Health in its consequences -- Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint --"Annotated Hypertext of Love and Freindship
E-text of Light Verse
On Reading in the Newspapers the Marriage of Mr. Gell to Miss Gill, of Eastbourne
At Eastbourne Mr.
Gell, From being perfectly well,
Became dreadfully
ill, For love of Miss Gill.
So he said with
some sighs, I'm the slave of your iis;
Oh, restore, if
you please, By accepting my ees.
Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend
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