Miss Austen
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Miss Austen
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Narrated by:
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Juliet Stevenson
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By:
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Gill Hornby
About this listen
The Sunday Times bestselling novel, set to be a major TV drama
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'You can't help feeling that Jane would have approved.' OBSERVER
'So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining - I adored it.' CLAIRE TOMALIN
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Throughout her lifetime, Jane Austen wrote countless letters to her sister. But why did Cassandra burn them all?
1840: twenty three years after the death of her famous sister Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury, and the home of her family's friends, the Fowles.
She knows that, in some dusty corner of the sprawling vicarage, there is a cache of family letters which hold secrets she can never allow to be revealed.
As Cassandra recalls her youth and her relationship with her brilliant yet complex sister, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history, and her own. And she faces a stark choice: should she act to protect Jane's reputation, or leave the contents of the letters to go unguarded into posterity?
Based on a literary mystery that has long puzzled biographers and academics, Miss Austen is a wonderfully original and emotionally complex novel about the loves and lives of Cassandra and Jane Austen.
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'The perfect book to wrap yourself around on a dark night' STYLIST
'Without romanticising its period setting or underplaying the precariousness of any woman's position in this society, it celebrates unexamined lives, sisterhood and virtues such as kindness and loyalty' SUNDAY TIMES
'This is a deeply imagined and deeply moving novel. Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts.' KAREN JOY FOWLER, author of The Jane Austen Bookclub
'It won't surprise me if this is one of the books of the year. It's a delight, one of those that you don't want to end.' RTE
'A charming novel... capturing the spirit of the brilliant sardonic Jane, and reminding the reader of how brutal life was for women in Austen's era, it's an ingenious and affecting embroidery on the fact of the author's life.' SUNDAY MIRROR
'Miss Austen is ingenious ... With flashbacks and wonderful domestic detail, Hornby brings to life the Austen family, using the known to speculate on what might have been.' THE TIMES Audio Book of the Week
'Extraordinary and heart-wrenching, Miss Austen transported me from page one. A gift to all Austen lovers.' LARA PRESCOTT, author of The Secrets We Kept
'Gill Hornby ingeniously imagines what Cassandra Austen's own life might have been like, both before and after Jane's untimely death, casting a different light on the familiar biographical picture without in any way distorting it.' DEIRDRE LE FAYE, editor of Jane Austen's Letters
'Tender and touching ... Hornby deftly describes the psychological toll that such uncertainly took on Jane, and movingly celebrates the fortitude of Cassandra whose greatest love was her sister' DAILY MAIL
'Utterly absorbing. The lives of the Austen sisters are recreated with a brilliant sureness of touch that can only be achieved by deep study of the period.' ARTEMIS COOPER
'Delightful... It reads just like an Austen novel so you get the double whammy of being a new book with an old feel' SUE RYAN, founder of Henley Lit Fest
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What listeners say about Miss Austen
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Roisin
- 21-05-21
Insights and interesting
Some insight to what I imagine Jane’s life was like and the narrator was so skilled it kept me listening and interested.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Helen M.
- 26-12-23
Excellent
An excellent read. I enjoyed every minute and felt completely immersed in Austen territory. Thank you.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gabrielle Harvey-Jones
- 22-10-24
Absolutely loved it!
Jane Austen has been my favourite author since I first read her works in my early teens and I had no expectation of liking this book. How wrong I was! Wonderfully written and superbly performed, the whole thing was a complete joy!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carrie-Anne Lavender
- 09-07-20
Austen herself would be proud
What an exquisitely enjoyable book. The writing was beautiful and Austenesque with excellent eccentric characters and believable and realistic portrayals of Jane and Cassandra. Juliet Stevenson's narration was impeccable and gave life to the characters within. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mo Bass
- 03-06-24
Beautiful but melancholy
The guarding of a beloved sister's reputation and the succour of close relatives is the theme of this beautifully written and narrated book.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- G. Walton
- 18-04-21
Brilliant book, brilliantly executed
Loved it.. brought the characters to life and presented a very believable life story and explained clearly why Cassie burnt the letters.. altogether a lovely piece of work.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nicole Andrews
- 25-07-23
Loved it
What started out as an unpromising tale of old biddies turned into a beautiful complex telling. Imagined and written with the reviving of Jane Austen's clever sarcasm, a necessary conversational style when dealing with the Mary's of this world. Lovely accounts of the family's dynamics and a sub plot revealing the woven experience of Jane Austen's life and the inspirations for her novels.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 08-03-20
Pitch Perfect and the private story that rings true to me.
Not as rich and witty a storyteller as Jane Austen, but as Casandra’s story, it rings true. Written with a love and respect that can hold no fears for those who cherish the work and life of Jane Austen.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- sue Sargent
- 01-11-22
great!
this was recommended to me by a Austen fan, as am I, I have read the book of the letters between Cassandra and Jane, it was fascinating to listen to it.
enjoyable, great narration of all the different characters.
I would listen again in case I missed bits.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christina Foden
- 28-05-21
Excellent story
I really loved the performance and the voices, it made the story come to life.
The plot was interesting and a fictional insight to how Jane Austen might have been as a person. An excellent book.
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1 person found this helpful