Three delightful short works from across Jane Austen's career, brought together in one volume with an introduction by Margaret Drabble
These three works show Jane Austen writing in a variety of styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of classes and settings. The early epistolary novel Lady Susan depicts an unscrupulous coquette, toying with several men. The Watsons is a delightful fragment, whose spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities restricted by poverty and pride. Written in the last months of Austen's life, the tantalising incomplete novel Sanditon features a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and speculators in a newly established seaside resort, and shows the author contemplating a changing society with scepticism and amusement.
'In [Sanditon] she exploits her greatest gifts ... The book feels open and modern ... as vigorous and inventive as her earlier work' Carol Shields
If you enjoyed Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon, you may like Charlotte Brontë's Tales of Angria, also available in Penguin Classics.

Jane Austen (Author)
Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously in 1818.
Margaret Drabble (External Editor)
Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and educated at Cambridge. She was awarded a CBE in 1980. Her many novels include The Radiant Way (1987), A Natural Curiosity (1989) and The Gates of Ivory(1991), The Peppered Moth (2000) and The Seven Sisters (2002) all of which are published by Penguin. Margaret Drabble is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London W10.