[Gutenberg 17797] • Memoir of Jane Austen

ANNOTATED:

* Contains literary critiques, detailed biographies, and detailed historical context

OVERVIEW:

Sanditon (1817) is an unfinished novel by the British novelist Jane Austen. In Sanditon, Austen explored her interest in the verbal construction of a society by means of a town – and a set of families – that is still in the process of being formed. Austen began work on the novel in January 1817 and abandoned it on March 18, 1817. The manuscript for Sanditon was originally titled "The Brothers," likely after the Parker brothers in the story. After her death, her family renamed it "Sanditon."

Austen was seriously ill when she wrote the opening chapters of Sanditon; she had less than six months to live. It is thus remarkable that the book is so fresh, innovative, and original. In her last completed novel, Persuasion, Austen had depicted how men of merit and small means could rise to affluence and position by means of service in the British navy. Sanditon builds on this theme, depicting the commercial development of a small watering place and the social confusion of its society (one character is a mulatto heiress from the West Indies).

Sanditon is bitingly witty. One character, in a manner reminiscent of Austen's much earlier novel Northanger Abbey, has read so many Gothic novels that he has convinced himself "that he was formed to be a dangerous Man." Austen's satire of the hypochondriac Parker sisters (who project their hypochondria on to their brother Arthur as well) is poignant in light of her own serious illness at the time.

This Special Critical Edition of SANDITON (Cambridge World Classics) is the only volume which contains the complete unfinished novel along with A MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN, a comprehensive biography of Jane Austen by Jane Austen's nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. A Memoir of Jane Austen, the first major biography of the novelist Jane Austen (1775–1817), was published in 1869 by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. A family project, the biography was written by James Edward Austen-Leigh but owed much to the recollections of Jane Austen's many relatives.

SPECIAL KINDLE ENABLED FEATURES:

This edition contains special Kindle enabled features, including interactive table of contents, text-to-speech capabilities which enable audiobook features, as well as words that can be looked up on the Kindle supplied built in dictionary.

The volume also employs PerfectLink (TM) technology which allows Amazon Kindle readers to enjoy not only a fully interactive table of contents, but also the ability to click through to each section in the novel.