Jane Austen's classic tale of romantic entanglement, read by Kate Winslet
Jane Austen was born in 1775, in Steventon, Hampshire, where her father was rector. When she was 25 the family moved to Bath till her father's death in 1805, then to Chawton in Hampshire where Jane lived with her mother and sister. She wrote six novels. Sense and Sensibility was first in 1811, then Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma(1816). Northanger Abbey and Persusaion were both published posthumously, in 1817. Jane Austen died in 1817. Well-received during her lifetime, since her death she has become known as not just one of the greatest writers of English fiction, but one of the most beloved.
Austen's novels (e.g., Pride and Prejudice, Audio Reviews, LJ 11/1/92) have lately received so much well-deserved media attention that another version of her first novel, in yet another format, may appear redundant to persons not sufficiently acquainted with the author's charms. However, for her many admirers, both present and future, this new audiobook is a treasure, thanks to a superb reading by actress Susannah Harker. The talented narrator is an ideal interpreter of Austen's delightful paean to the virtue of sense as she traces the struggles of her young heroines to achieve happiness. Harker skillfully captures each character's personality through subtle inflection, and she keenly, yet unobtrusively, underscores the author's delicious irony. With a reading of such quality, the romantic predicaments of the Miss Dashwoods become all-absorbing and the hours fly by too quickly. Most highly recommended for all libraries.-Sister M. Anna Falbo, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo, N.Y.
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