There's a Book For That: Jane Austen's Birthday!
“Never did any novelist make more use of an impeccable sense of human values.”
—Virginia Woolf
A truth universally acknowledged: It’s high time to celebrate Jane Austen! Her 250th birthday is Tuesday, December 16th and Penguin Random House has been joining in the fanfare all year! To mark this momentous occasion, we’re highlighting classic and gift editions from our All Things Austen site/catalog. Jane Austen appeals to a broad readership – her wit and wisdom are, indeed, ageless and timeless. Shop the collection and celebrate the legacy! Happy Birthday, Jane!
THE COMPLETE NOVELS by Jane Austen; Foreword by Karen Joy Fowler
Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Here in one volume are her seven great novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, and Lady Susan. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, Austen vividly portrays English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close and the nineteenth century began. Each of the novels is a love story and a story about marriage—marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not romances; ironic, comic, and wise, they are masterly evocations of the society Jane Austen observed. This beautiful volume covers the literary career of one of England’s finest prose stylists of any century.
EMMA: A NOVEL by Jane Austen; Intorduction by Jennifer Egan
Twenty-one-year-old Emma Woodhouse comfortably dominates the social order in the village of Highbury, convinced that she has both the understanding and the right to manage other people’s lives—for their own good, of course. Her well-meant interfering centers on the aloof Jane Fairfax, the dangerously attractive Frank Churchill, the foolish but sweet Harriet Smith, and the ambitious young vicar Mr. Elton—and ends with her complacency shattered, her mind awakened to some of life’s more intractable dilemmas, and her happiness assured. Austen’s comic imagination was so deft and beautifully fluent that she could use it to probe the deepest human ironies while setting before us a dazzling gallery of characters—some pretentious or ridiculous, some admirable and moving, all utterly true.
A JANE AUSTEN YEAR by Jane Austen’s House curators
This beautifully illustrated book charts the life of one of the world’s most beloved authors through the letters, objects, and manuscripts that shaped her life. Published in partnership with the curators of Jane Austen’s House, the enchanting Hampshire cottage where Jane Austen’s genius flourished and which attracts thousands of visitors every year.
Arranged over the course of a calendar year, from snowy scenes in January to festive recipes in December, specially commissioned photography of Austen’s home and possessions are brought together with extracts from her books, reproductions of her letters, and stories of her life throughout the seasons. Highlights include the first time Austen read a published copy of Pride and Prejudice to an enraptured audience in her drawing room, affectionate letters to her sister Cassandra reproduced in full and an exquisite miniature portrait of Tom Lefroy, the man she nearly married.
JANE AUSTEN: THE COMPLETE WORKS by Jane Austen; Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith
A beautiful, boxed set of seven Hardcover Classics by Jane Austen, including Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Love and Friendship.
Few novelists have conveyed the subtleties and nuances of their own social milieu with the wit and insight of Jane Austen. Through her vivacious and spirited heroines and their circle, she painted vivid portraits of English middle-class life as the eighteenth century came to a close. Each of these novels is a love story and a story about marriage—marriage for love, for financial security, for social status. But they are not mere romances. Ironic, comic, and wise, they are masterly studies of the society Austen observed.
LADY SUSAN; THE WATSONS; SANDITON by Jane Austen; Foreword by Margaret Drabble
A Penguin Classics edition of three lesser-known Austen works, including Lady Susan, the basis for Whit Stillman’s feature film Love and Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny. These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette, toying with the affections of several men. In contrast, The Watsons is a delightful fragment, whose spirited heroine -¬ Emma -¬ finds her marriage opportunities limited by poverty and pride. Meanwhile Sanditon, set in a seaside resort, offers a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and spectators, treated by Austen with both amusement and scepticism.
MANSFIELD PARK: A NOVEL by Jane Austen; Introduction by Lauren Groff
Mansfield Park encompasses not only Jane Austen’s great comedic gifts and her genius as a historian of the human animal, but her personal credo as well—her faith in a social order that combats chaos through civil grace, decency, and wit.
Fanny Price, the classic “poor cousin,” is brought as a child to Mansfield Park by the rich Sir Thomas Bertram and his wife as an act of charity. Over time, Fanny comes to demonstrate forcibly those virtues Austen most admired: modesty, firm principles, and a loving heart. As Fanny watches her cousins Maria and Julia cast aside their scruples in dangerous flirtations (and worse), and as she herself resolutely resists the advantages of marriage to the fascinating but morally unsteady Henry Crawford, her seeming austerity grows in appeal and makes clear to us why she was Austen’s own favorite among her heroines.
NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen, Patricia A. Matthew
Jane Austen’s witty exploration of the perils of mistaking fiction for reality, now in a collectible Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the author’s birth.
During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences fashionable society for the first time, both its pleasures and its pitfalls. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine’s love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, Cather learns the danger of an active imagination. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen’s works.
PERSUASION by Jane Austen, Uzma Jalaluddin
Jane Austen’s last completed novel, a brilliantly insightful story of regret, second chances, and the courage to follow our hearts.
Anne Elliot is twenty-seven and unmarried—by all accounts a spinster in her time—seemingly doomed to spend the rest of her life waiting on her image-obsessed father and extravagant older sister; attempting to maintain their once lavish, now dwindling family estate; and occasionally babysitting the children of her married younger sister.
It wasn’t always this way, though. When Anne was nineteen, she was in love with and engaged to Frederick Wentworth, a man with no money and few prospects. Anne’s well-meaning family and friends convinced her that a young heiress like herself could do better, so she broke off the engagement. But when chance brings Wentworth and Anne together again eight years later, he is now an accomplished naval captain with an impressive fortune, and Anne must face her feelings for him that remain and consider how different her life could have been if only she hadn’t been so easily persuaded by others.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen; Foreword by Patricia A. Matthew
Austen’s most popular novel, the unforgettable story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, now in a collectible Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the author’s birth.
Generations of readers have fallen in love with Jane Austen’s beloved classic Pride and Prejudice. The sparkling Elizabeth Bennet, the taciturn Fitzwilliam Darcy, and an array of characters that range from irrepressible to almost irredeemable, move through this comedy of manners about the danger of first impressions. Set in a provincial world away from London, Austen’s novel pokes fun at the machinations of courtship rituals while celebrating the importance of friendship and sisterhood.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: A NOVEL IN THREE VOLUMES by Jane Austen, Catriona Gourlay
Published in association with The British Library on the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, this beautiful and authoritative package showcases the first edition as it was originally published in 1813 by T. Egerton in London; designed to be the clearest and finest expression of the art of bookmaking at the time of its first publication in the early nineteenth century. Presented in a distinctive clamshell case, each volume features marbled paper, deckled edges, and other decorative flourishes. Included in a special compartment in the clamshell are reproductions of handwritten letters, documents, and other ephemera from Austen’s archive and personal effects, as well as a booklet containing an expert introduction by the collection’s head curator. This publication invites Austen fans to forever own this iconic novel in its original form.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (DK Classics) by Jane Austen
A beautiful deluxe gift edition of Jane Austen’s masterpiece with foiled covers, marbled endpapers, sprayed edges, and a silk ribbon bookmark.
Originally published in 1813, Jane Austen’s classic romance novel remains as engaging and entertaining as ever.
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY: A NOVEL by Jane Austen; Introduction by Sandra Cisneros
In its marvelously perceptive portrayal of two young lovestruck women, Sense and Sensibility proves that Jane Austen’s novels, along with their perfection of form and tone, are full of strong feeling. Its two heroines—so utterly unlike each other—both undergo the most violent passions when they are separated from the men they love. What differentiates them, and gives this extraordinary book its complexity and brilliance, is the way each expresses her suffering: Marianne–young, impetuous, ardent–falls into paroxysms of grief when she is rejected by the dashing John Willoughby; while her sister, Elinor—wiser, more sensible, more self-controlled—masks her despair when it appears that Edward Ferrars is to marry the mean-spirited and cunning Lucy Steele. All, of course, ends happily—but not until Elinor’s “sense” and Marianne’s “sensibility” have equally worked to reveal the profound emotional life that runs beneath the surface of Austen’s immaculate and irresistible art.
FOR YOUNGER READERS
THE JANE AUSTEN GIFT SET: A PUFFIN IN BLOOM 3-BOOK COLLECTION: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, EMMA, AND SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Rifle Paper Co. x Jane Austen classics in a beautiful 3-book boxed set, just in time for the holidays! Beloved regency romance author Jane Austen’s three seminal classics in one gorgeous gift box, with covers and slipcase all beautifully illustrated by Rifle Paper Co.’s Anna Bond! Box includes: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility.
JANE AUSTEN’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: A BOOK-TO-TABLE CLASSIC
A deluxe, full-color hardback edition of the perennial Jane Austen classic featuring a selection of recipes for tea-time treats by the one and only Martha Stewart!
Have your book and eat it, too, with this clever edition of a classic novel, featuring delicious recipes from celebrity chefs. In this edition of Jane Austen’s regency classic Pride and Prejudice, plan a fancy tea party or book club gathering with recipes for sweet confections and pastries. From maple glazed scones and delicate sugar and spice cake, to berry tartlets and French macaroons. Bring your friends and family together with a good meal and a good book! The Book includes full, unabridged text of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, interspersed with recipes, food photography, and special food artwork.
For more on Jane Austen titles visit: Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday
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