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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 noted for the perceptive elegance of her prose and for vigor and detail of characterization. Celebrated critic F. R. Leavis considered Austen as one of the four great English novelists, along with George Eliot, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad.

This full cast presentation includes Part 1 and Part 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Late one snowy Christmas Eve, ten-year-old Penny is wide awake, worrying if Santa will come. The house is silent and still, but something miraculous is about to happen. A sleigh crash lands in a cove by the cottage and Penny meets a mysterious being known as the Winterman.

Redcliffe Park, Northumberland, 1819. Dominic Thorne, Earl of Redcliffe, arrives in Redcliffe village in the far north of England to view his inheritance. The estate, Redcliffe Park, is miles from a decent town and in need of extensive renovation. The former earl, Dominic's uncle, was disliked for his failure to pay his debts, and it’s suspected he distrusted banks and stashed his wealth in a secret place on the estate. It’s assumed Dominic is cut from the same cloth as his uncle—or even worse.

After her father dies, Caroline Leeming’s younger brother and sister are made the wards of Nicholas, Marquess of Pennington. About to embark on her first season, Carrie must first spend a month at the marquess’s home, Elm Park. Determined to dislike him, Carrie finds the handsome marquess is not what she expects. When he proves to be a kind and capable guardian for Arabella and Jeremy, Carrie fears she is falling in love with him. As the days pass into weeks, she finds it unbearable to leave Elm Park for London and a life away from her family.

Both Lady Nellie Dountry and Charles, His Grace, Duke of Shewsbury, have had their hearts broken in the past. Neither is prepared to chance love again. When they are compelled to marry because of an agreement made long ago by their fathers, they are both determined to resist falling in love. Convinced that it’s mere desire which draws them together, both are surprised by their jealousy. Nellie finds Charles irresistibly attractive, but other women do too. They circle like sharks.

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, still single and is considered by family and friends to have lost her youthful beauty. Several years earlier, her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth had been broken off, due to the insistence of her family that the Captain lacked the wealth and status needed for a suitable husband.

This collection of 35 short poems was first published in 1927, and is a sequel to When We Were Very Young, which was the first anthology of verse dealing with the domestic adventures of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.

The story concerns the young and vivacious Emma Watson, one of six children of a widowed clergyman. Emma has spent most of her life under the care of a wealthy aunt of liberal views, and has received a good education. However, when her aunt enters into a second marriage, Emma is forced to return to the family home, where she is affronted by the crass hunting for husbands undertaken her sisters, Penelope and Margaret.

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 bullied by her manipulative and penny-pinching aunt, the widowed Mrs Norris.

The novel opens with Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s visit to Sanditon, a village on the coast of Sussex. Sanditon is being developed into a bathing-place under the patronage of the two principal proprietors of the parish, Mr. Parker and Lady Denham. Mr. Parker suffers an injury and receives assistance from a local farmer, Mr. Heywood. The latter’s daughter, Charlotte, is of marriageable age and has three eligible suitors: Lady Denham’s foppish son, Sir Edward; Mr. Parker’s devil-may care brother, Sydney; and Arthur, who is an unemployed hypochondriac.