When Mrs Dashwood is forced by an avaricious daughter-in-law to leave the family home in Sussex, she takes her three daughters to live in a modest cottage in Devon. For Elinor, the eldest daughter, the move means a painful separation from the man she loves, but her sister Marianne finds in Devon the romance and excitement which she longs for. The contrasting fortunes and temperaments of the two girls as they struggle to cope in their different ways with the cruel events which fate has in store for them are portrayed by Jane Austen with her usual irony, humour and profound sensibility.

Juliet Stevenson is acknowledged one of the finest interpreters of Jane Austen.

Jane Austen

1775–1817

One of the greatest English novelists, Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775, at Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, her home for twenty-five years. She was the seventh of eight children, six of them boys, of whom, two rose to be admirals. Her father, who took pupils, gave her a better education than was common, then, for girls; she learned French and Italian and had a good acquaintance with English literature, her favourite authors being Richardson, Johnson, Crabbe, Cowper, and, later, Scott. She sang a few old ballads with much sweetness and was very dexterous with her needle. She grew up tall and remarkably graceful in person, with bright hazel eyes, fine features, rich colouring and beautiful brown curly hair. Her disposition was very sweet and charming, and she was an especial favourite with children, whom she used to delight with her long improvised stories. In her life there is a hint of an affection for a lover who died suddenly, but there is no trace of such a tragedy in her books, which are cheerful and wholesome throughout, free from anything morbid or bitter. In 1801 she went with her family to Bath, and after her father’s death in 1805, removed to Southampton, and later (1809) to Chawton near Alton. She had written stories from her childhood, but it was at Chawton that she first gave anything to the world. Four stories were published anonymously during her lifetime – Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). The first two works were written before she was more than two-and-twenty. Early in 1816 her health began to give way. In the May of 1817 she came for medical advice to Winchester, and here she died, July 18. She was buried in the cathedral. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published in 1818, when the authorship of the whole six was first acknowledged. Love and Friendship was published with other juvenilia in 1922; Sanditon, (unfinished) in 1925.