Jane Austen's Novels
Northanger Abbey
This playful short novel is the one which most resembles
Jane Austen's Juvenilia. It is the story of the unsophisticated and sincere
Catherine Morland on her first trip away from home, for a stay in Bath.
There she meets the entertaining Henry Tilney; later, on a visit to his
family's house (the "Northanger Abbey" of the title) she learns to distinguish
between the highly charged calamities of Gothic fiction and the realities
of ordinary life (which can also be distressing in their way). Like Jane
Austen's Love and Freindship, this book makes fun of the conventions
of many late 18th century literary works, with their highly wrought and
unnatural emotions; some of this humor derives from the contrast between
Catherine Morland and the conventional heroines of novels of the day.
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").
Sense and Sensibility
This novel contrasts two sisters: Marianne, who,
with her doctrines of love at first sight, fervent emotions overtly expressed,
and admiration of the grotesque "picturesque", represents the cult of "sensibility";
and Elinor, who has much more "sense", but is still not immune from disappointments.
Despite some amusing characters and true Jane Austen touches, it is not
generally considered to be her best novel. According to Cassandra, it was
probably the first of the novels to be started (sometime before 1797, under
the early name Elinor and Marianne); it was worked on in 1797, and
probably again heavily revised before publication in 1811.
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.
Mansfield Park
This novel, originally published in 1814, is the
first of Jane Austen's novels not to be a revised version of one of her
pre-1800 writings. Mansfield Park has sometimes been considered
atypical of Jane Austen, as being solemn and moralistic, especially when
contrasted with the immediately preceding Pride and Prejudice and
the immediately following Emma. Poor Fanny Price is brought up at
Mansfield Park with her rich uncle and aunt, where only her cousin Edmund
helps her with the difficulties she suffers from the rest of the family,
and from her own fearfulness and timidity. When the sophisticated Crawfords
(Henry and Mary), visit the Mansfield neighbourhood, the moral sense of
each marriageable member of the Mansfield family is tested in various ways,
but Fanny emerges more or less unscathed. The well-ordered (if somewhat
vacuous) house at Mansfield Park, and its country setting, play an important
role in the novel, and are contrasted with the squalour of Fanny's own
birth family's home at Portsmouth, and with the decadence of London.
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.
Persuasion
This relatively short novel, her last, was written
in the last few years of Jane Austen's life, and published only after her
death in 1817 (though she described it, in a letter of March 13 1816, as
"a something ready for publication", she probably would have revised it
further, if she had not already been ill with her eventually fatal disease
by the time she stopped working on it). It involves an older heroine than
any of her other novels do (Anne Elliot is 27), and is also the only novel
whose events are explicitly dated to a specific year (1814-1815). Eight
years before the novel begins, Anne Elliot (whom Jane Austen described
in one of her letters as a "heroine [who] is almost too good for me") had
been persuaded by an older friend of the family, whom she respects, to
give up her engagement to the then-poor Captain Wentworth. Like Mansfield
Park, this novel has a number of characters who are in the navy (two
of Jane Austen's brothers were sailors), and several warm-hearted naval
families are attractively depicted; these contrast favorably with Anne's
own family, in which she is overlooked by her vain and rank-proud Baronet
father and her cold and selfish elder sister. In its autumnal mood, this
novel is more serious in tone than most of Jane Austen's other works, and
perhaps is the most conventionally "romantic" of them (and thus the one
which has given rise to the most speculation about her own affairs of the
heart -- for example, by Kipling); however, there is still plenty of Jane
Austen irony. Persuasion also contains more description of background
and natural beauty than the previous novels. In her admiration for the
seaside town of Lyme and dislike of Bath, Anne Elliot reflects her creator's
preferences.
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