In 1807, genteel, Bermuda-born Fanny Palmer (1789-1814) married Jane Austen's youngest brother, Captain Charles Austen, and was thrust into a demanding life within the world of the British navy. Experiencing adventure and adversity in wartime conditions both at sea and onshore, the spirited and resilient Fanny travelled between and lived in Bermuda, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and England. After crossing the Atlantic in 1811, she ingeniously made a home for Charles and their daughters aboard a working naval vessel, and developed a supportive friendship with his sister, Jane. In Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister, Fanny’s articulate and informative letters – transcribed in full for the first time and situated in their meticulously researched historical context – disclose her quest for personal identity and autonomy, her maturation as a wife and mother, and the domestic, cultural, and social milieu she inhabited. Sheila Johnson Kindred also investigates how Fanny was a source of naval knowledge for Jane, and how much she was an inspiration for Austen’s literary invention, especially for the female naval characters in Persuasion. Although she died young, Fanny’s story is a compelling record of female naval life that contributes significantly to our limited knowledge of women’s roles in the Napoleonic Wars. Enhanced by rarely seen illustrations, Fanny’s life story is a rich new source for Jane Austen scholars and fans of her fiction as well as for those interested in biography, women’s letters, and history of the family.

A revealing account of a naval officer's young wife, her life during the Napoleonic Wars, and her influence on Jane Austen's fiction.

Reading Austen in America presents a colorful, compelling account of how an appreciative audience for Austen's novels originated and developed in America, and how American readers contributed to the rise of Austen's international fame. Drawing on a range of sources that have never before come to light, Juliette Wells solves the long-standing bibliographical mystery of how and why the first Austen novel printed in America-the 1816 Philadelphia Emma-came to be. She reveals the responses of this book's varied readers and creates an extended portrait of one: Christian, Countess of Dalhousie, a Scotswoman living in British North America. Through original archival research, Wells establishes the significance to reception history of two transatlantic friendships: the first between ardent Austen enthusiasts in Boston and members of Austen's family in the nineteenth century, and the second between an Austen collector in Baltimore and an aspiring bibliographer in England in the twentieth.

In 1807 genteel, Bermuda-born Fanny Palmer (1789–1814) married Jane Austen's youngest brother, Captain Charles Austen, and was thrust into a demanding life within the world of the British navy. Experiencing adventure and adversity in wartime conditions both at sea and onshore, the spirited and resilient Fanny travelled between Bermuda, Nova Scotia, and England. For just over a year, her home was in the city of Halifax. After crossing the Atlantic in 1811, she ingeniously made a home for Charles and their daughters aboard a working naval vessel and developed a supportive friendship with his sister, Jane. In Jane Austen's Transatlantic Sister Fanny's articulate and informative letters – transcribed in full for the first time and situated in their meticulously researched historical context – disclose her quest for personal identity and autonomy, her maturation as a wife and mother, and the domestic, cultural, and social milieu she inhabited. Sheila Johnson Kindred also investigates how Fanny was a source of naval knowledge for Jane, and how she was an inspiration for Austen's literary invention, especially for the female naval characters in Persuasion. Although she died young, Fanny's story is a compelling record of female naval life that contributes significantly to our limited knowledge of women's roles in the Napoleonic Wars. Enhanced by rarely seen illustrations, Fanny's life story is a rich new source for Jane Austen scholars and fans of her fiction, as well as for those interested in biography, women's letters, and history of the family.

The Watsons is an abandoned novel by Jane Austen, completed by her niece. The story tells about the widowed priest and his six children, four of which are daughters wishing to get married t a rich man. Although one of the daughters, Emma, was raised by their rich childless aunt. As a result, she is better educated than her other three sisters and has different values. The pursuit for love and wealthy admirers and the opposition between sisters lead to mingled affairs, romantic love stories, and exciting adventures.

On the Sofa with Jane Austen is a collection of essays that first appeared in the Regency World magazine. They celebrate the quirkiest corners and cleverest contrivances of Jane Austen's art. The twenty-one topics range from coiffure to crime, from gossip to grandmothers. The title comes from the first essay, but it is also an invitation to spend time with a well-loved author in a relaxed and intimate way. The essays are: On the Sofa; The Hair was Curled; Lady Bertram's Fringe; A Very White World; The Silence of Mr Perry; Plump Cheeks and Thick Ankles; Reading Aloud; Arms and Legs Enough; November in the Novels; Words Overheard; Home Comforts; Shoelaces and Shawls; The Freshest Green; Neighbourhood Spies; She is Pretty Enough; Small World; Devoted Sisters; Theft and Punishment; Heroes and Husbands; Only a Grandmother and finally, Dear Mary. This will be of interest to all Jane Austen enthusiasts, especially undergraduates and those studying English Literature at A-level, as well as History and Economics.

The first American heiresses took Britain by storm in 1816, two generations before the great late Victorian beauties. Marianne, Louisa, Emily and Bess Caton were descended from the first settlers in Maryland, and brought up in Baltimore by their grandfather Charles Carroll, one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.