List $47.98

Written by Jane Austen - Audio book performed by Juliet Stevenson - Unabridged Fiction - 7 COMPACT DISCS - 8 hours, 44 minutes

Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (May 2007)

Listen to an MP3 audio clip.

Anne Elliot has grieved for seven years over the loss of her first and only love, Captain Frederick Wentworth. When their paths finally cross again, Anne finds herself slighted and all traces of their former intimacy gone. As the pair continue to share the same social circle, dramatic events in Lyme Regis, and later in Bath, conspire to unravel the knots of deceit and misunderstanding in this beguiling and gently comic story of love and fidelity.

Juliet Stevenson reads this unabridged recording with her customary clarity and particular understanding for the words and world of Jane Austen.

About the Author: (1775–1817) - One of the greatest English novelists, Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775, at Steventon Rectory, Hampshire, her home for twenty-five years. She was the seventh of eight children, six of them boys, of whom, two rose to be admirals. Her father, who took pupils, gave her a better education than was common, then, for girls; she learned French and Italian and had a good acquaintance with English literature, her favourite authors being Richardson, Johnson, Crabbe, Cowper, and, later, Scott. She sang a few old ballads with much sweetness and was very dexterous with her needle. She grew up tall and remarkably graceful in person, with bright hazel eyes, fine features, rich colouring and beautiful brown curly hair. Her disposition was very sweet and charming, and she was an especial favourite with children, whom she used to delight with her long improvised stories. In her life there is a hint of an affection for a lover who died suddenly, but there is no trace of such a tragedy in her books, which are cheerful and wholesome throughout, free from anything morbid or bitter. In 1801 she went with her family to Bath, and after her father’s death in 1805, removed to Southampton, and later (1809) to Chawton near Alton. She had written stories from her childhood, but it was at Chawton that she first gave anything to the world. Four stories were published anonymously during her lifetime – Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). The first two works were written before she was more than two-and-twenty. Early in 1816 her health began to give way. In the May of 1817 she came for medical advice to Winchester, and here she died, July 18. She was buried in the cathedral. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published in 1818, when the authorship of the whole six was first acknowledged. Love and Friendship was published with other juvenilia in 1922; Sanditon, (unfinished) in 1925.

About the Performer: Listen to an MP3 audio interview with Juliet Stevenson.

Juliette Stevenson has worked extensively for the RSC, and the Royal National Theatre. She won an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court, and a number of other awards for her work in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply. Other film credits include The Trial, Drowning by Numbers, and Emma.