Showing results by narrator "Catherine Bilson" in All Categories

Sense and Sensibility follows the fortunes of sensible Elinor and her volatile younger sister, Marianne, as each searches for a spouse—a quest made urgent by the family’s financial embarrassment. While Elinor pursues the heart of clergyman, Edward Ferrars, Marianne impulsively falls in love...

Emma was written after the publication of Pride and Prejudice and was the last novel of Jane Austen to be published in her lifetime. Of the title character, Austen wrote: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” Emma is a vivacious twenty-year-old, who has spent...

Antonio, a wealthy and popular merchant, is in financial difficulty. He approaches a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who agrees to provide 3000 ducats, with a very curious bond – a pound of the merchant’s flesh, to be levied if Antonio fails to make a timely repayment. Feeling confident that...

The unlikely heroine of this novel is the bashful and unadventurous Fanny Price, who occupies a Cinderella-like position in the residence of her wealthy cousins, the Bertrams, at Mansfield Park. Fanny is the butt of ridicule for the young Bertram sisters (Maria and Julia), and is relentlessly...

Jane Austen probably commenced writing The Watsons in 1803 and discontinued it after her father’s death in 1805. The original text contains no chapter divisions. It was first published in 1871 as an appendix to A Memoir of Jane Austen, by the novelist’s nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. The...

The world we know has turned upside-down. Everything we've taken for granted changed before there was time to take stock. We have to adjust. To adapt. To survive. For some this brings a sense of helplessness. Others feel grief and anger. All of us are affected. Simple Words for Troubled Times is written from the heart to help you find comfort and relief from the challenges of modern times.

Persuasion was the last novel completed by Jane Austen and was first published posthumously in December, 1817. The story represents an interesting configuration of Austen’s characteristic narrative patterns. The heroine, Anne Eliot, is something of an old maid—she is twenty-seven years old...

Much Ado About Nothing appears to have been written around 1599, shortly before As You Like It and Twelfth Night. The action combines two narrative threads: the spirited comedy of the courtship of Benedick and Beatrice, and the sombre tale of confused love between Hero and Claudio. The first is...

Northanger Abbey is the earliest of Jane Austen’s mature novels. Although scholarly opinion is that the book was actually completed in the late 1790s, it was not published until after the author’s death in 1817. The plot follows the usual trajectory of a young girl falling in love and the...

First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is the most polished of Jane Austen’s novels, with a humorous and upbeat mood. It was written at a time when the author’s narrative powers were fully developed and the story flows with an ease that conceals the skill of its construction. The plot...

Lady Charlotte Hastings - already branded a hellion by polite society - is in a terrible scrape courtesy of London’s most notorious blackguard. One thing is certain: Her name cannot appear in the gossip rags...again. However, Charlie’s bold attempt to extricate herself from the fine pickle she’s in takes an unexpected turn when the devilishly handsome Maximilian, the Duke of Exmoor - the rakehell she’s secretly loved for years - comes to her aid. Only he soon realizes he’s also mired in deep trouble when an entirely inconvenient desire for Charlie sparks to life.

This epistolary novel was probably written in 1794, but was not published until 1871. Lady Susan Vernon, middle-aged and recently widowed, has retained her looks and appealing vivacity. She makes use of her bereavement and her loss of wealth by imposing herself on the hospitality of relatives...

February 1816. Fabien, Comte de Mont Clair, once a highly decorated officer of the exiled Napoleon, cuts a dashing swathe through a London society ball, his eyes only for the glittering ladies of the ton. His heart jolts at the sight of a woman sitting in a shadowed corner. Not just any woman, but one he would have once given the world for.

In January 1817, Jane Austen commenced work on a new novel, to which she never assigned a name. By mid-March, she had completed twelve chapters, at which time she ceased working due to illness. The unfinished work was eventually published in 1925 under its working title: Fragment of a Novel...

Jane Austen commenced writing in her adolescence and continued right up to her untimely death in 1817. Her novels are reflections of the socially constricted world in which she lived, and the plots are built around the search of one or more young women for a suitable spouse. Austen’s works are...