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Miss Austen: A Novel of the Austen Sisters Audiobook
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"In a cultured, melodious voice, narrator Juliet Stevenson becomes Miss Cassandra Austen, older sister to Jane and keeper of her memory." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner
For fans of Jo Baker’s Longbourn, a witty, poignant audiobook about Cassandra Austen and her famous sister, Jane.
Whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was?
England, 1840. For the two decades following the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen has lived alone and unwed, spending her days visiting friends and relations and quietly, purposefully working to preserve her sister’s reputation. Now in her 60s and increasingly frail, Cassandra goes to stay with the Fowles of Kintbury, family of her long-dead fiancé, in search of a trove of Jane’s letters. Dodging her hostess and a meddlesome housemaid, Cassandra eventually hunts down the letters and confronts the secrets they hold, secrets not only about Jane but about Cassandra herself. Will Cassandra bare the most private details of her life to the world, or commit her sister’s legacy to the flames?
Moving back and forth between the vicarage and Cassandra’s vibrant memories of her years with Jane, interwoven with Jane’s brilliantly reimagined lost letters, Miss Austen is the untold story of the most important person in Jane’s life. With extraordinary empathy, emotional complexity, and wit, Gill Hornby finally gives Cassandra her due, bringing to life a woman as captivating as any Austen heroine.
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books
"A deeply imagined and deeply moving novel. Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts.” —Karen Joy Fowler
"A delightfully astute reimagining of Jane Austen’s life that offers a shrewd take on Regency gender roles... Ms. Hornby enlivens the exhumation with inspired touches of social comedy and a cast of appealing eccentrics." -- Wall Street Journal
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"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
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“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.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author -
“A romance that could have emerged from an Austen novel.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“You can’t help feeling that Jane would have approved.”
— The Guardian (London) -
“A delightfully astute reimagining of Jane Austen’s life that offers a shrewd take on Regency gender roles…with inspired touches of social comedy and a cast of appealing eccentrics.”
— Wall Street Journal -
Unputdownable. So good, so intelligent, so clever, so entertaining—I adored it.
— Claire Tomalin, author of Jane Austen: A Life -
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 -
Gill Hornby places Cassandra center stage and ingeniously imagines what her own life might have been like—an approach which casts a different light on the familiar biographical picture without in any way distorting it.
— Deirdre Le Faye, editor of Jane Austen’s Letters -
I’ve seldom enjoyed any Austen-centered book so much as this. Affecting and thought-provoking, it makes you think about both the Miss Austens in a new light.
— Helena Kelly, author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical -
A joy from the prologue to the author’s note. Rich in historical detail, family lore, and heart, Miss Austen will wow Janeites and enchant the uninitiated. Upon her sister’s death, Cassandra claimed that she was ‘the sun of my life.’ Now we know why.
— Laurel Ann Nattress, editor of Jane Austen Made Me Do It -
Fans of Austen will rejoice in the chance to enter this fictional world and spend time with the extended Austen family as Cassandra and Jane navigate the demands of her genius and temperament in the face of the many pressures single women have endured throughout history.
— Natalie Jenner, author of The Jane Austen Society
Awards
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A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of Best Books Now in Paperback
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About Gill Hornby
Gill Hornby writes a column for the Telegraph and is the author of several nonfiction books. She lives in Berkshire, England with her husband and their four children.
About Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Stevenson is a narrator who is recipient of the AudioFile Golden Voice Award. She has won the prestigious Audie Award and numerous Earphones Awards for her narrations. She is a British actress on stage and screen and notably a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has also appeared in popular films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Mona Lisa Smile. She was honored as a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She received further recognition when she was nominated for several BAFTA Awards, and she earned an Olivier Award for her role in Death and the Maiden.