Jane Austen's Unfinished Novels

BBC Audio presents Lady Susan, Jane Austen's early novel not published until after her death. Widowed Lady Susan is an outrageous flirt and a dreadful mother, constantly controlling and embarrassing the people around her. When Lady Susan remarries, she attempts to push her daughter into a bleak marriage with a man she despises. Deceit slowly spreads through a series of letters exchanged between Lady Susan, her daughter, friends, family and arch enemies. Will the truth be unravelled in time?

Written in the then fashionable style form of letters between the characters in the book, Jane Austen tells the story of the beautiful widow Lady Susan. Lady Susan has an eye toward re-marrying well, and marrying off her teenage daughter. To achieve her objectives, she spins a tale of Victorian humor and manipulation. In the end, she outsmarts even herself. Jane Austen's earliest known serious work, Lady Susan is a short, epistolary novel that portrays a woman bent on the exercise of her own powerful mind and personality to the point of social self-destruction.

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 Watsons" is a story about a family of four sisters and their relationships and interactions with each other and with the people in their community. The main character is Emma Watson, who has been raised by a wealthy aunt and is now returning home to live with her father and stepmother. The novel explores themes of social class, family dynamics, and courtship. Although the novel is unfinished, it still offers valuable insights into Austen's writing style and the themes that are present in her completed works.

Written only months before Austen's death in 1817, Sanditon tells the story of the joyously impulsive, spirited, and unconventional Charlotte Heywood and her spiky relationship with the humorous, charming (and slightly wild!) Sidney Parker. When a chance accident transports her from her rural hometown of Willingden to the would-be coastal resort of the eponymous title, it exposes Charlotte to the intrigues and dalliances of a seaside town on the make, and the characters whose fortunes depend on its commercial success.