Author(s): Jane Austen

Classics

Three Books In One! In one, beautifully laid-out volume, three of Jane Austen's most beloved novels: 

• Sense and Sensibility


• Pride and Prejudice


• Persuasion

Pride and Prejudice is a comedy of manners centered around the Bennet family, a family of five daughters where the parents are desperate for at least one of them to make a wealthy match and save the next generation from destitution. Austen's story engages with the tension between marrying for love, rather than wealth or social prestige, and the pressure to assure financial security. Originally published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is one of the best-loved and best-selling novels in English literature of all time.

Sense and Sensibility is centered around the romantic adventures of the Dashwood sisters after they are cast out from the family home after the death of their father. The sensible and reserved eldest sister, Elinor, is the "sense" half of the novel's title, while the younger and more emotionally expressive Marianne is the "sensibility" half. The tensions and contrasts between these characters form the dramatic arch and moral focus on the story. It is because of these remarkably well-drawn and realistic characters that Sense and Sensibility, originally published in 1811, is still so widely read and beloved today and has been the subject of multiple successful TV and movie adaptations.

Originally published in 1818, Persuasion is one of Jane Austen's most beloved novels - featuring her trademark humor and style and memorable characters, including Anne Elliot, one of her most appealing heroines. Set in Somersetshire and Bath, the novel centers on the adventures in life and love of Sir Walter Elliot, his daughters Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary, and various in-laws, friends, and suitors. 

The focus of the novel is Anne's thwarted romance with Captain Frederick Wentworth, who Anne originally met and fell in love with when she was 19, but whom she ultimately rejected because he was deemed too poor. They meet again eight years later - Captain Wentworth has made his fortune in the navy, but now Anne is the one insecure about his feelings for her. 

In Persuasion, like in Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma, Austen tells the stories of young women straining against the obligations and expectations of family and social convention. Yet, at the same time, Persuasion offers romance and optimism, crafting a story that is sure to appeal to not only admirers of Jane Austen, but readers who appreciate finely drawn characterizations, social satire, and the world of 19th century England.  

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was born in Hampshire, England, to George Austen, a rector, and his wife, Cassandra. Her novels include Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together posthumously in 1818.  A short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and another unfinished work, The Watsons, were publish posthumously in 1871, and a final unfinished novel, Sanditon, was eventually published in 1925. Her works are considered to be among the finest examples of early 19th century British literature, hallmarks of the transition to 19th century literary realism.