A wonderfully original, emotionally complex 'reading-group' novel that delves into why Cassandra burned a treasure trove of letters written by her sister, Jane Austen - an act of destruction that has troubled academics for centuries.
Gill Hornby is the author of The Hive and All Together Now, as well
as The Story of Jane Austen, a biography of Austen for younger
readers.
Her subsequent novels, Miss Austen and Godmersham Park were Sunday
Times bestsellers, and Miss Austen is a four-part BBC adaptation
starring Keely Hawes as Cassandra Austen. She is also the President
of the Jane Austen Society.
She lives in West Berkshire with her husband and four children.
A funny, warm and engaging novel
*Queen Camilla, Spectator*
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 the perfect book to wrap yourself around on a dark
night.
*STYLIST*
Miss Austen voices the (hitherto) shadowy figure of Cassandra, the
villainies of the piece, and makes her flesh and blood…. Gill
Hornby is at her best describing the complex bonds between the
“excellent women” of her story. She describes the horrors, but also
the pleasures, of spinsterhood.
*THE TIMES*
So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining – I adored
it.
*CLAIRE TOMALIN*
Hornby's gift to the world of Austen lovers is to return to
Cassandra her rightful recognition as Jane's most intimate and
sustaining relationship, her greatest love. 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 BOOK CLUB and WE ARE
ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES*
Miss Austen is an ingenious imaginary explanationof how so many of
Jane’s letters came to be destroyed… 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 remarkable novel that is wholly original, deeply
moving, and emotionally complex. A gift to all Austen lovers.
*LARA PRESCOTT, author of THE SECRETS WE KEPT*
A delightfully astute re-imagining… A persuasive picture of a
brilliant woman who’s often derailed by her domestic duties but
driven to write regardless.
*WALL STREET JOURNAL*
A cleverly observed fictional account of Jane Austen’s relationship
with a sibling…The great joy of Miss Austen is that the reader
feels immersed in a world that is convincingly Jane’s from the
first page… It’s testament to Hornby’s skill, then, that I had to
turn to the author’s note at the back to check how many of the
letters included here were invented. It’s also extremely funny;
figures in Jane’s life who might well have provided models for some
of her more bumptious, self-important characters are fleshed out
here with a comic relish that feels entirely Austenian… Miss Austen
is a novel of great kindness, often unexpectedly moving, with much
to say about the status of “invisible” older women. Above all, it’s
concerned with the triumph of small acts of goodness; you can’t
help feeling that Jane would have approved.’
*OBSERVER*
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