With Mr. Dashwood's death, his wife and two daughters, Elinor and Marianne, must accustom themselves to genteel poverty. When Marianne meets the man of her dreams, everyone expects a marriage; unaccountably, he rejects her, with devastating effect. It falls to Elinor, the sensible elder sister, to pick up the pieces, while harboring a secret longing of her own. In Sense and Sensibility, the warmth between two very different sisters contrasts with...

Emma's opening sentence, which describes the titular heroine's many advantages, is loaded with foreboding. Discomfort and vexation lie on the horizon, triggered by her penchant for matchmaking. Emma's latest scheme involves finding a suitable husband for ingenue Harriet Smith, and to that end she persuades the latter to reject good-natured farmer Robert Martin, despite a mutual attraction. Harriet must set her sights higher, she exhorts, fixing on...

Mansfield Park is a study of three families-the Bertrams, the Crawfords, and the Prices-with the isolated figure of the heroine, Fanny Price, at its center. Fanny's quiet passivity, her steadfast loyalty and love for the son of the family who regard her as the poor relation, and who have taken her under their roof, are not appreciated until they are tried against the brilliant and witty Mary and Henry Crawford, the unfortunate consequences of whose...

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is pursued by the rough-mannered, slovenly John Thorpe, as well as the more refined Henry Tilney

As a mysterious plague falls upon the village of Meryton and zombies start rising from the dead, Elizabeth Bennett is determined to destroy the evil menace, but becomes distracted by the arrival of the dashing and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife". So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's perfect comedy of manners - one of the most popular novels of all time - that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues.