Jane Austen, página 19 de 83

Emma Woodhouse dominates this novel as she believed herself to dominate her little world of Highbury. Her progress through the mismanagement of other people's affairs to the crisis and resolution of her own, is a whole comedy of self-deceit and self-discovery.

Jane Austen's witty novel is set in the early 1800s. It is a light-hearted account of the difficulties a pretty young woman encounters in her search for a rich and handsome husband!

"In this dramatisation of Jane Austen's earliest novel, the heroine, Catherine Morland, is taken by her aunt to Bath, where she encounters the social whirl denied her at home. She befriends Isabella Thorpe and her boorish brother John. She meets the charming but eccentric Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor. And all the time her head is full of the Gothic fantasies of Mrs Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho, scenes from which will keep intruding into the daily life of Bath society." "When Catherine accepts an invitation to the Tilney's country seat at Northanger Abbey, lurid images of Udolpho threaten to overwhelm her. Until, as in all the best Jane Austen, Catherine finally gets her man." This adaptation was first seen at York Theatre Royal.

"Pride and Prejudice" is a masterpiece of wit and perception, perfectly exposing the mannered social scene of Jane Austen's England. This was an era when young ladies were carefully groomed for matrimony and little else ...so Mrs Bennet is eager to see at least some of her five daughters married off. But the varying temperaments and spirits of our heroine Elizabeth and her sisters, not to mention their precarious social standing, means the quest for love and happiness is not without setback. Meeting snobbery, prejudice and the likes of Mr Collins, Mr Wickham and a certain Mr Darcy along the way, the listener too will be swept up in a joyous tide of romance, desire and satire as relevant and entertaining today as when first published. Joanna Lumley's career has ranged from her early days as her model to her award-winning status as a fine comedy actress in "Absolutely Fabulous". The ever-glamorous favourite narrates with much measure, style and humour.

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 prob

Orgullo y Prejuicio se teje alrededor de las relaciones que se establecen entre dos grupos familiares en la Inglaterra rural: por una parte el matrimonio Bennet con sus cinco hijas -entre las que destaca especialmente Elizabeth, despierta y vivaz-, y por otra el rico Charles Bingley y sus dos hermanas, junto con su aun mas rico amigo Fitzwilliam Darcy. Marcados en un principio por los prejuicios y los malos entendidos, los vinculos sociales y sentimentales entre los mienbros de una y otra parte van madurando y matizandose a lo largo de la novela.

« Alors que vers la fin du XVIIe siècle le roman noir semait ses naïves terreurs dans les foyers anglais, Jane Austen, née en 1775 et qui écrit depuis l'âge de douze ans, ne s'intéresse ni à l'histoire ni à la politique ni aux fantômes. Elle n'a de goût que pour la vie - la vie telle qu'un œil acéré peut en surprendre les manèges dans un salon, voire une salle de bal où les jeunes gens dansent, tandis que leurs parents évaluent rentes et dots. [...] Dans ce chef-d'œuvre, qu'elle a remanié en 1815, Jane Austen, sans doute l'un des esprits les plus implacablement satiriques de toute la littérature, traite sa protagoniste non comme une créature de chair et d'os, à l'instar de tous les romanciers, mais bel et bien comme une héroïne de roman égarée au milieu de conjonctures qui, par rapport aux habitudes du genre, la rabaissent aux yeux du lecteur. Et c'est avec une allégresse féroce que Jane Austen nous la montre se comportant, à la moindre occasion, en référence à son livre de chevet, Les Mystères d'Udolphe d'Ann Radcliffe, publiés en 1794, juste avant qu'elle ne commence elle-même L'Abbaye de Northanger. Ainsi parodiait-elle le roman gothique et ses candides lecteurs, promis aux mêmes déboires que Don Quichotte intoxiqué par les ouvrages à la gloire de la chevalerie. Et ainsi, du même coup, annonçait-elle et énonçait-elle l'idée qui serait plus tard au cœur de la modernité, et selon laquelle la vie finit toujours par imiter l'art. » Hector Bianciotti.

Originally titled "Elinor and Marianne", "Sense and Sensibility" was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be published. The contrasting personalities of two sisters are the centre of the story, supported by a wealth of satirically portrayed minor characters.

Three of the author's most popular works -- widely admired for their satiric wit, subtlety, and perfection of style -- brilliantly re-create the provincial world of the early-19th-century English

Mansfield Park is one of Austens more sophisticated novels - together with the gently satirical depiction of polite society it exposes the ills of class prejudice, and before achieving the requisite happy ending, the people of Mansfield Park must cope with adultery, betrayal and social ruin.

Seny i sentiment es la historia de dues germanes angleses de temperaments totalment oposats, que viuen en un poblet d'Anglaterra a finals del segle XVIII. Elinor, tranquil·la i pacient, es el paradigma de la prudencia i l'autocontrol, i la seva germana petita, Marianne, es molt emocional, impulsiva i sensible. Tot i ser tan diferents, comparteixen les mateixes penes amoroses: totes dues perden l'afecte dels seus pretendents. Elinor desitja un home que es compromet amb una altra, i Marianne perd el cor per un pocavergonya que la deixa plantada. El seu patiment mutu les fara ajudar-se a comprendre's l'una a l'altra: l'amor de debo arriba finalment quan el seny deixa pas al sentiment, i el sentiment cedeix davant el seny.Una satira molt intel·ligent sobre els excessos de les emocions que van caracteritzar l'epoca del romanticisme que va viure Jane Austen, fidel retratista de les virtuts i miseries britaniques.

"És una veritat universalment coneguda que un home solter, en possessió d’una gran fortuna, cal que desitgi tenir muller." Així, amb una sentència d’impacte, comença Orgull i prejudici, de totes les