Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year. Read by Samantha Bond.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Read by Samantha Bond

Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4. Show less