Showing results by author "Jane Austen" in Romance

This timeless collection brings together three of the finest works in the literary canon, read in full by some of the very best audiobook narrators. With over 38 hours of unmissable storytelling, tracked by chapter so you can easily find your place, this is the ideal way to enjoy these classic masterpieces.

From the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes a new tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

For Elinor Dashwood, sensible and sensitive, and her romantic, impetuous younger sister Marianne, the prospect of marrying the men they love appears remote. In a world ruled by money and self-interest, the Dashwood sisters have neither fortune nor connections. Concerned for others and for social proprieties, Elinor is ill-equipped to compete with self-centered fortune-hunters like Lucy Steele, while Marianne's unswerving belief in the truth of her own feelings makes her more dangerously susceptible to the designs of unscrupulous men.

The last novel completed by Jane Austen before she died at 41, Persuasion is often thought to be the story of the author's own lost love. Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall has three daughters: Elizabeth, who shares his haughty vanity and, at 28 has found no one good enough to marry; Mary, who has, with some condescension, married the son of the local squire; and admirable Anne, who "was nobody with either father or sister".

Had Jane Austen lived to complete Sanditon, it would have been as treasured as her other novels. In the half-finished masterpiece, Austen fashions one of her classic heroines: Charlotte Heywood. The surviving fragment also sets the story well on its path as Charlotte begins an adventure to Sanditon where a full cast of characters becomes intertwined in various intrigues.

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank, and with her cousin Edmund Bertram as her sole ally. When her uncle Sir Thomas Birtram travels to Antigua, siblings Mary and Henry Crawford arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation.

Lady Susan has just arrived uninvited at the country home of her brother-in-law, Charles, and his unwelcoming wife, Catherine. Susan’s reputation as an accomplished coquette precedes her, and Catherine will not allow her own brother, Reginald, to fall prey to Susan’s amorous games. Despite warnings, the besotted young man finds himself falling - all to the conniving lady’s delight. And in Austen’s unfinished work, The Watsons, a family reunion sparks the passionate pursuits of four sisters.

One abandoned, one unfinished, these short works show Austen equally at home with romance (a widowed clergyman with four daughters must needs be in search of a husband or two in The Watsons) and with social change (a new, commercial seaside resort in Sanditon). Typically touching, funny, charming and sharp.

In this classic 19th-century story of love battling pride, we meet Elizabeth Bennet. Elizabeth is a smart, well-rounded woman, and she is one of five unmarried daughters of Mr. Bennet, a country gentleman. Marriage is at the forefront Mrs. Bennet's mind, especially since her elderly husband's estate will not pass down to any of their daughters. The Bennets' small town is in an uproar when two highborn, eligible gentlemen, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy, come to stay.

Beautiful, clever, rich and single, Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégé Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.

Introduction and Notes by Dr Ian Littlewood, University of Sussex. Pride and Prejudice, which opens with one of the most famous sentences in English Literature, is an ironic novel of manners. In it the garrulous and empty-headed Mrs Bennet has only one aim - that of finding a good match for each of her five daughters. In this she is mocked by her cynical and indolent husband.

In this terrifying and hilarious prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early 19th-century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a nave young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry.

Of all Jane Austen's books, Pride and Prejudice has earned a special place in the hearts of the reading public as her best-loved and most intimately known novel. From its famous opening sentence, the story of Elizabeth and Darcy, told with a wit that its author feared might prove "rather too light and bright, and sparkling," delights its most familiar readers as thoroughly as it does those who encounter it for the first time.

Penguin Classics presents Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Joanna David. “No sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes ...”

A comic novel, first published in December 1815, Emma tells of the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character Emma Woodhouse is a well-to-do young woman in a small English town who is a self-appointed matchmaker. The story explores the nature of these orchestrated matches coming to life through the hilarious characters including arguably Austen's two greatest comic creations - the eccentric Mr. Woodhouse and the quintessential bore, Miss Bates.

Award-winning narrator and internationally acclaimed writer/comedienne Alison Larkin brings depth and wit to this rich, hugely entertaining audio production of Jane Austen's last two great novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The novels are followed by The History of England, a short satirical piece in which the teenage Austen writes about the kings and queens of England with less respect (and more wit) than any British newspaper, and Poems, a selection of lesser known, mostly comic verses that Austen wrote to entertain family and friends.

A lo largo de una trama que discurre con la precisión de un mecanismo de relojería, Jane Austen perfila una galería de personajes que conforman un perfecto y sutil retrato de la época: las peripecias de una dama empeñada en casar a sus hijas con el mejor partido de la región, los vaivenes sentimentales de las hermanas, el oportunismo de un clérigo adulador...

Emma Woodhouse is a twenty-year-old, wealthy lady living with her father near the provincial town of Highbury. Despite believing that she herself will never marry, she perceives a talent for matchmaking. After the wedding of her governess and a local widower, Mr. Weston, which she treats as her personal success, she decides to find a worthy husband for her new friend, Harriet Smith. Although Harriet's parents are unknown, Emma is convinced that the girl deserves a relationship with a gentleman and makes her not follow her own heart, but submit to her patronage.

Arguably Jane Austen's most popular novel, Emma is a vivid, captivating, and irresistibly witty classic about love and marriage.

Here is Jane Austen's classic tale of romantic entanglement, read by Kate Winslet. The reduced cirmcumstances of the Dashwood family cast a shadow over the romantic aspirations of daughters Elinor and Marianne, who must learn to mix sense with sensibility in approaching their problems with both money and men.