Hugh Thomson Books

Begun in 1811 at the height of Jane Austen's writing powers and published in 1814, Mansfield Park marks a conscious break from the tone of her first three novels, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice, the last of which Austen came to see as "rather too light." Fanny Price is unlike any of Austen's previous heroines, a girl from a poor family brought up in a splendid country house and possessed of a vast reserve of moral fortitude and imperturbability. She is very different from Elizabeth Bennet, but is the product of the same inspired imagination.

"When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited, while he struggles to remain indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever"--Book cover p. [4].

Jane Austen's sparkling and witty novels continue to entrance readers today--as proven by the rapturous reception given the many film and TV adaptations of her work. Pride and Prejudice, Austen's most well-loved story, tells of Lizzy Bennet and her five sisters as they search for true love-a love Lizzy nearly loses because of pride. Fanny, of Mansfield Park, comes to live with her aunt and uncle in their elegant mansion. But she finds herself both out of place and in love with her handsome cousin Edmund. Can shy Fanny win him from the outgoing and charming Miss Crawford? Persuasion, Austen's last final novel, explores the consequences of giving in to the opinions of others, rather than following one's own heart. Delightfully illustrated with delicate line drawings.

In nineteenth-century England, two sisters are drawn into unhappy romances despite the cool judgment of one and the emotional intensity of the other.

When Rosalind is banished by her uncle, who has usurped her father's throne, she flees to the forest of Arden where her exiled father holds court. There, dressed as a boy to avoid discovery, she encounters the man she loves - now a fellow exile - and resolves to remain in disguise to test his feelings for her.

York Notes on Jane Austen's Persuasion. This is a study guide, not the novel.

Based on three Elizabeth Gaskell novels, The Cranford Chronicles follows the small absurdities and major tragedies in the lives of the people of Cranford, a small Cheshire market town, during one extraordinary year. In this witty and poignant story the railway is pushing its way relentlessly towards the town from Manchester, bringing fears of migrant workers and the breakdown of law and order. The arrival of handsome young Doctor Harrisons causes yet further agitation not just because of his revolutionary methods but also because of his effect on the hearts of the ladies. Meanwhile Miss Matty Jenkyns nurses her own broken heart after she was forced to give up the man she loved when she was a young girl.

One man goes in search of the lost cities of the Amazon in the Inca heartland.The lost cities of South America have always exercised a powerful hold on the popular imagination. The ruins of the Incas and other pre-Colombian civilisations are scattered over thousands of miles of still largely uncharted territory, particularly in the Eastern Andes, where the mountains fall away towards the Amazon.Twenty-five years ago, Hugh Thomson set off into the cloud-forest on foot to find a ruin that had been carelessly lost again after its initial discovery. Into his history of the Inca Empire he weaves the story of his adventures as he travelled to the most remote Inca cities. It is also the story of the great explorers in whose footsteps he followed, such as Hiram Bingham and Gene Savoy.

This edition is a new collection of Hugh Thomson illustrations selected from the edition of Pride and prejudice originally published in 1894 by George Allen.