Later Manuscripts

Gathering together all the unpublished mature work of Jane Austen, this volume comprises poems, a novella, unfinished novels, literary spoofs and a series of letters giving advice on how to write fiction. Written between her childhood tales and published novels, 'Lady Susan' is the most complete portrait of clever, charming malice Austen ever penned. With its special bleak atmosphere, 'The Watsons' is a powerful satire of claustrophobic middle-class life, while 'Sanditon', the work she was writing when she died, is an experimental novel exchanging Austen's usual country-house setting for a speculative seaside resort. Along with the poems (the last written just three days before her death), the letters and comic pieces, the novel fragments are beguiling on their own; they also provide a fascinating companion to the published novels. Prefaces and explanatory endnotes supplied by Janet Todd illuminate the cultural, historical and literary context, bringing Jane Austen's world to life.