Austen's last novel is the crowning achievement of her matchless career. Her heroine, Anne Elliot, a woman of integrity, breeding and great depth of emotion, stands in stark contrast to the brutality and hypocrisy of Regency England. Includes a new Introduction by Margaret Drabble, famed novelist and editor of The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." With this famous declaration, Jane Austen launches into the story of the five Bennet sisters, a story that on first reading is full of suspense, surprise and, ultimately, satisfaction, and which on re-reading commands a deeper admiration for the author's remarkable skill in managing a deceptively complex plot to its triumphant conclusion....