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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A 'nice' collection of early Austen and a few out-takes, May 23, 2005
This book brings together Austen's earliest novel, Northanger Abbey (although it was not published for many years after completion), with some of her earlier works and her final, unfinished, piece Sanditon.
This edition also has a fine introduction, which gives an interesting view of Austen's works and fleshes out some of the details surrounding the three lesser known works.
Northanger Abbey is, of course, the best known of these works, and a review follows below. Of the other three pieces, Lady Susan is the only completed one.
It follows the epistolary format that Austen experimented with extensively in her early career, but ultimately abandons the format, a little disappointingly.
It is an engaging piece, and the Lady Susan of the title is a vivacious, although reprehensible, character. Lady Susan has by far the strongest voice of the piece, but it is unclear whether she is truly intended as the heroine, or whether our sympathies should lie with her hapless daughter Frederica. Lady Susan is certainly a much more determined flirt than any of Austen's other major characters, and much older too (although perhaps not wiser).
The Watsons is a much shorter fragment, also dating from Austen's earlier career. It is darker in tone than her other works, and seems to tend more towards realism. It seems that this may be one of the reasons she chose not to finish the piece, although it seems that she ultimately intended for the piece to have a happy ending.
Sanditon is Austen's final work, begun shortly before her death and, sadly, never finished. The piece appears to have had a great deal of scope, describing the life and a times of the seaside resort of Sanditon. The tone and outlook of the piece are surprisingly upbeat, given the poor state of Austen's health as she was writing.
I hear that authors never like people to pick their early works as their best, but I've always had a sneaking fondness for Northanger Abbey. Luckily, Jane Austen is unlikely to complain about me liking one of her earliest works.
The novel's appeal is its extremely likeable anti-heroine, Catherine Morland. Catherine's appeal is her innocence and above all her fallibility. Of course, none of Austen's heroines are perfect, but Catherine has a charm that Austen's more self-possessed characters like Emma Woodhouse and Lizzie Bennett lack.
For this reason, I would say that Northanger Abbey can be a good introduction to Jane Austen, especially for younger readers, who may identify more readily with Catherine's naivete than with some of Austen's more mature characters.
As ever, Austen is in fine satirical form, but she and her characters stop short of outright mocking the fanciful Catherine and her unfortunate novel-reading habits. As one might expect, the novel ends with Catherine's reform, redemption would perhaps be too strong a term to use here, and Austen allows the imperfect Catherine to shine among a sea of other imperfect characters. (Naturally, some are more imperfect than others.)
One of the novel's stated objects is to satirise the gothic novels of Mrs. Radcliffe and her imitators. For the most part, Austen succeeds admirably, but once again her treatment of the subject is rather gentle. Although not many people these days will read the original gothic novels, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there addicted to contemporary fantastical horror that would crack a wry smile at the story, and be able to identify with 'poor' Catherine.
Perhaps at times the characters do seem to be a little overstated, maybe a little too black and white, but this is a very creditable early effort from Austen, and perhaps some of her characterisation issues can be traced back to her use of the gothic novel as inspiration.
All in all, a fine book, and certainly one for all of those 'almost pretty' girls out there who have their heads stuck inside books at every opportunity.
Overall, this edition makes a good addition to any Austen fan's bookshelf, the inclusion of the lesser known pieces makes an interesting companion to Northanger Abbey.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very informative, August 25, 2008
I've always been a little hesitant to read any Austen novels, because I didn't think I was going to get anything out of them, and they would be hard to understand due to the different jargon involved. This book solves that problem. They give Austen's back story, have a timeline of important events that were going on at different parts in her life, so you can get a sense of what kind of world she was living in. Another great point is the glossary of terms in the back of the book. They even describe real places that are mentioned in the storyline, such as shop names. It's quite a good read and I believe it's the first time I've actually been taught something by a fictional novel. The only downside is that the characters they use to show you which terms in the story are in the glossary detract from the reading experience. They're kind of difficult to get past if you already know your stuff. SUGGESTION: If you're new to 19th century literature and are bad with geography, this book is going to be great for you. If you already know Jane Austen and are looking to add to your book collection, I wouldn't pick this one up.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Austen is brilliant!, May 17, 2008
I have been a Jane Austen fan for years, admiring her subtle, clever humor and sharp observations. I had never read any of the tales contained in this volume -- in fact, I had never heard of three of them -- but I found myself delighted by The Watsons and Sanditon, wishing that Jane Austen had lived to complete these two lively stories.
I found Northanger Abbey rather tame; in fact, as I finished reading it, I realized that my flat response was based on the fact that the story's main conflicts were not based on romantic tension, but on the inability of the heroine to understand some of the ancillary characters' true motivations. Because there was little doubt of the hero's interest in her, there was little suspense surrounding the eventual "happily ever after" that Austen always provides.
The big surprise in this small anthology was the complex, fascinating epistolary novel Lady Susan. The title character is a self-serving, self-righteous, manipulative and very attractive widow with a teenage daughter. The plot unfolds through the letters written by Lady Susan and those in her orbit, and I found myself almost gasping at Austen's ability to create a character so believably evil in motivation and action. Most of her villains are either somewhat foolish and bumbling incompetents or nasty, petty characters that help drive the plot, but Lady Susan is central, purposeful and actually vicious - she knows what she's about, and she doesn't hesitate to do whatever it takes to achieve her ends. It was a pleasant surprise to find myself genuinely concerned about the young men under Lady Susan's seductive influence, as well as the well-being of her hapless daughter, and to realize that I couldn't guess at how the resolution would be achieved. When Austen steps out of the letter-writing mode to wrap up the story, I found myself slightly disappointed, but she apologizes handsomely for depriving the British postal service of the revenue that her characters' letters had been generating. Amusing, tongue-in-cheek, and probably much less awkward than having each of the various letter-writers send each other congratulatory "All's well that ends well" notes at the conclusion of the story.
I highly recommend this book, not just for the novelty of reading some lesser-known Austen gems, but also because of the helpful historical and literary notes provided in this Oxford edition.
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