Sanditon and The Watsons: Austen's Unfinished Novels

These writings first appeared posthumously, when Austen's nephew included the texts in an 1871 memoir of his celebrated relative. The Watsonsunfolds in a familiar domestic milieu, in which a spirited heroine finds her marriage opportunities narrowed by poverty and pride. In contrast, Sanditonventures into markedly different territory. Set at a seaside resort, among a cast of hypochondriacs and speculators, it suggests that Austen's work might have taken some unexpected new directions. Even if these incomplete stories had been of little intrinsic value, they would have been of interest as literary records and curiosities. As it happens, they are of high quality and worthy of reading for their own sake, for pleasure as well as study.