Publisher's Synopsis
Sanditon (1817) an unfinished novel by Jane Austen
- Synopsis: A gentleman and a lady travelling from Tunbridge towards that part of the Sussex coast which lies between Hastings and Eastbourne, being induced by business to quit the high road and attempt a very rough lane, were overturned in toiling up its long ascent, half rock, half sand. The accident happened just beyond the only gentleman's house near the lane-a house which their driver, on being first required to take that direction, had conceived to be necessarily their object and had with most unwilling looks been constrained to pass by. He had grumbled and shaken his shoulders and pitied and cut his horses so sharply that he might have been open to the suspicion of overturning them on purpose (especially as the carriage was not his master's own) if the road had not indisputably become worse than before, as soon as the premises of the said house were left behind-expressing with a most portentous countenance that, beyond it, no wheels but cart wheels could safely proceed.
- The severity of the fall was broken by their slow pace and the narrowness of the lane; and the gentleman having scrambled out and helped out his companion, they neither of them at first felt more than shaken and bruised.Sanditon (1817) is an unfinished novel by the English writer Jane Austen. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel she called The Brothers, later titled Sanditon, and completed eleven chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably because of her illness.
- R.W. Chapman first published a full transcription of the novel in 1925 under the name Fragment of a Novel.Analysis and background: The people of "modern Sanditon", as Austen calls it, have moved out of the "old house - the house of [their] forefathers" and are busily constructing a new world in the form of a modern seaside commercial town. The town of Sanditon is almost certainly based on Worthing, where Jane Austen stayed in late 1805 when the resort was first being developed, while there is persuasive evidence that the character of Mr Parker was inspired by Edward Ogle, Worthing's early entrepreneur, whom Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra knew.
- Quotes: "My name perhaps... may be unknown at this distance from the coast - but Sanditon itself - everybody has heard of Sanditon, - the favourite - for a young and rising bathing-place, certainly the favourite spot of all that are to be found along the coast of Sussex; - the most favoured by nature, and promising to be the most chosen by man." (Sanditon)
- Jane Austen works also includes: NovelsSense and Sensibility (1811)Pride and Prejudice (1813)Mansfield Park (1814)Emma (1815)Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)Persuasion (1818, posthumous)Lady Susan (1871, posthumous)Unfinished fictionThe Watsons (1804)Sanditon (1817)Other worksSir Charles Grandison (adapted play) (1793, 1800)[p]Plan of a Novel (1815)Poems (1796-1817)Prayers (1796-1817)Letters (1796-1817)Juvenilia - Volume the First (1787-1793)[q]Frederic & ElfridaJack & AliceEdgar & EmmaHenry and ElizaThe Adventures of Mr. HarleySir William MountagueMemoirs of Mr. CliffordThe Beautifull CassandraAmelia WebsterThe VisitThe MysteryThe Three SistersA beautiful descriptionThe generous CurateOde to PityJuvenilia - Volume the Second (1787-1793)Love and FreindshipLesley CastleThe History of EnglandA Collection of LettersThe female philosopherThe first Act of a ComedyA Letter from a Young LadyA Tour through WalesA TaleJuvenilia - Volume the Third (1787-1793)EvelynCatherine, or The Bower
