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From the age of eleven, Jane Austen was writing short pieces of fiction, poetry and drama, often parodying contemporary novels and often violent and risqué. She copied some of these stories into notebooks – ‘Volumes’ – for family and friends to read. This book presents a photographic facsimile of the first of the three surviving notebooks, offering a rare and sometimes quite shocking introduction to the young Austen, along with an introduction, ‘A Writer’s Apprenticeship’, by Kathryn Sutherland.

Clever, self-satisfied and interfering, Emma Woodhouse is determined to arrange marriages for her friends, while avoiding one for herself; but the matchmaking finds both Emma and her protégé, poor Harriet, caught in a web of misunderstandings. Abridged.

Anna Bentinck reads two short works: the abandoned story of Mr Watson, a widowed clergyman with two sons and four daughters; and Austen’s last, unfinished novel about society in a new, commercial seaside town, Sanditon. Unabridged.

Jenny Agutter reads this abridgement of Jane Austen’s ingenious tale of the five Bennet girls, single men in possession of good fortunes and misunderstandings all round.

Jenny Agutter reads a condensed version of Austen’s best-loved story of the five Bennett girls and single men in possession of good fortunes. This Young Adult Classics set includes a CD-ROM study guide.

This volume includes the humorous stories ‘Evelyn’, in which a gentleman travelling to a village in Sussex finds himself offered food, wine…and a bride, and ‘Kitty, or the Bower’, starring an independent, witty and outspoken heroine not unlike Elizabeth Bennet.

Austen’s second notebook contains some of her funniest pieces, including the epistolary stories ‘Love and Friendship’ and ‘Lesley Castle’, a young lady’s guide to behaving badly, and her hilarious parody ‘The History of England’, illustrated with watercolour portraits by her sister Cassandra.

Jane Austen explores the psychology of romantic love as she tells the story of Mrs Dashwood and her daughters Elinor and Marianne – one full of good sense, the other prone to romantic notions.

Mr and Mrs Bennet have five daughters, no sons and a property entailed to a male cousin. At least one ‘good marriage’ is necessary, but with Elizabeth’s hasty judgements, Mr D’Arcy’s prideful demeanour and misunderstandings all round – can it ever be achieved?

The first of Jane Austen's major novels follows the Dashwood sisters, Elinor full of good sense, Marianne capricious and emotional, as they search for romantic fulfilment within the confines of Georgian society.

Jane Austen's first novel, Lady Susan is written in epistolary style and tells the story of the recently widowed Lady Susan Vernon, an intelligent and highly manipulative woman intent on procuring financially secure matches for herself and her daughter. The novel is read here by a full cast led by Harriet Walter.