The Complete Novels : Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Alison Larkin

“…narrating the novels of Jane Austen reminded me that no matter how much the world changes, human nature never does.” (Alison Larkin)

Ever since Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy emerged from the lake in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the novels of Jane Austen have become more popular than ever, delighting millions of fans all over the world. Now, Alison Larkin's critically acclaimed narrations of Austen's six completed novels are brought together in this very special 200th anniversary audio edition. "Alison Larkin's narration will captivate listeners from the first sentence", raves AudioFile magazine about the Earphones Award-winning recording of Sense and Sensibility, which starts the collection.

Hailed by The Times as "marvelously light footed...hugely entertaining," Alison Larkin is the perfect vessel to bring the deft, satirical novels of Jane Austen to sparkling new life.

Alison Larkin is the best-selling author of The English American, a comedienne and the award-winning narrator of over 150 audiobooks. In addition to Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice with Songs from Regency England, Mansfield Park, Persuasion & Poems, Emma and Northanger Abbey and the History of England by Jane Austen, other classic narrations include Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; Fairytales of the Fiercer Sex by the Brothers Grimm, et al; Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (with James Warwick); Peter Pan & the Inconsiderate Waiter; and Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary.

Title and end music: "The Lonely Ash Grove", sung by Alison Larkin.

Public Domain (P)2017 Alison Larkin Presents

Best Buy of Best Performance of Austen

Alison Larkin is for very good reason the American voice of the Jane Austen Society. As a Janeian of 50-years standing who has seen ALL of the film and television productions of Miss Austen’s novels, and heard almost all of the myriad recordings over many years, I can assure you that this is not only the best over-all performance but far and away the best as to interpretation, accents, pacing, and contrasting voices. Larkin is simply amazing. And what a buy!

Absolutely love Jane Austen’s books!

It is so nice to have all of Jane’s books together in one audiobook! I like the narration, however, it was hard to determine who is speaking, because the narrator doesn’t have as much of a voice range as others I have listened to. Despite this she is easy to listen to and I still enjoyed the reading very much. I’ll listen to these again, when I need something light and fluffy. One thing I did NOT like is that in several of the books there is random (yank your earbuds out fast!) piano for several seconds either between a chapter here and there, and also occasionally during. Especially in Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. What made it worse was that it’s s much louder than the reading, thus why I found it necessary to yank my earbuds out as quickly as possible! Added nothing to the reading. However, overall I am happy with this collection!

Delicious

What a treasure trove this collection is! I can’t believe there’s all of Jane Austen, so beautifully narrated, available for the price of a single book. Alison Larkin does a brilliant job bringing the text to life and capturing each character in all their nuances. I binge listened and now I’m sad it’s over!

I see some people have complained that the breaking up of it into parts makes each book hard to find, but there’s a list included that tells you exactly where everything is. And of course the divisions weren’t the narrator/producer’s choice; Audible did that.

Best audiobook I ever bought

Jane Austen people! Enough said about the quality of the writing! Regarding the performance, at first I was a little annoyed by the delivery but soon grew to love it. Now I just listen to it over and over again.

I DO wish audible would figure out a way to add a sequence number to the book icons so that I know which one is next. If you don't know, the book icons for all 6 or 7 parts of this audiobook are all the same which makes it impossible to know, for a certainty, which part to listen to next.

The music

I didn’t like how the music interrupted my listening to this audiobook it had a lot of unnecessary intermissions that I didn’t care for otherwise very much enjoyed having the full collection