Miss austen, hardcover/gill hornby

A #1 International Bestseller A deeply imagined and deeply moving novel.

Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts.

--Karen Joy Fowler You cant help feeling that Jane would have approved.

-- The Guardian For fans of Jo Bakers Longbourn , a witty, wonderfully original novel about Cassandra Austen and her famous sister, Jane.

Whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was? England, 1840.

Two decades after the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury and the home of her family friends, the Fowles.

In a dusty corner of the vicarage, there is a cache of Janes letters that Cassandra is desperate to find.

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 sisters legacy to the flames? Moving back and forth between the vicarage and Cassandras vibrant memories of her years with Jane, interwoven with Janes brilliantly reimagined lost letters, Miss Austen is the untold story of the most important person in Janes 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.

About the Author Gill Hornby is the author of the novels The Hive and All Together Now , as well as The Story of Jane Austen , a biography of Austen for young readers.

She lives in Kintbury, England, with her husband and their four children.