Sanditon.

A sleepy fishing village is being remade into a fashionable watering-place by men drunk on ambition and invalids drunk on their own ailments, and into this bustle of speculation Jane Austen sends a clear-eyed young heroine, just as her pen fell silent forever.

What it's about

In the fragment she was writing when illness overtook her, Jane Austen turns her attention to Sanditon, a small coastal spot being aggressively promoted into a seaside resort by the enthusiastic speculator Mr Parker and the wealthy, imperious Lady Denham. The sensible Charlotte Heywood comes to stay and observes the whole comic enterprise, from the fashionable hypochondriacs to the fortune-hunting hangers-on. Austen sets up her characters and satire with brisk assurance before the manuscript breaks off, leaving readers to imagine where it might have gone.

Themes

Even in its opening chapters the work skewers speculation, commercialism and the new culture of health and leisure, alongside Austen's perennial concerns of money, marriage and self-delusion. There is a fresh, almost modern energy here, a satirist sharpening her aim at a changing, money-minded England.

Why it still matters

As the last thing Austen ever wrote, the fragment is precious for the glimpse it gives of where her genius was heading, wittier and more worldly than ever. Its enduring popularity has inspired numerous continuations and adaptations, testament to how much readers long to know how she meant to finish.

Who it's for

Devoted Austen readers who want to complete her canon and savour her final flashes of wit, and anyone intrigued by literary might-have-beens. A fascinating read for those who love her satire and can enjoy a brilliant beginning without a fixed end.