It’s infuriating that we never get to know what happens next. A Miss Lambe described as “a young West Indian of large fortune, in delicate health,” who is “about seventeen, half mulatto, chilly and tender.” arrives in Sanditon and is about to take her first sea bathe. There’s also an intriguing character of whom we hear but never get to meet. Eager beaver Mr Parker, grande dame Lady Denham Mr Parker’s hypochondriac siblings Lady Denham’s toadying relatives and the Charlotte Heywood who though young proves to be an astute judge of character. She’s also sharp enough to know when relatives are cosying up to her simply to get a piece of her “many thousands a year to bequeath.” Sanditon’s Unanswered Questionsīy the time Jane Austen writes her final words, the stage is set and the players are in place. She’s a canny woman though, not given to spending money unnecessarily. He has, he thinks a soul mate and financial backer in the form of Lady Denham. He could talk of it for ever.-It had indeed the highest claims -not only those of birth place, property, and home,-it was his mine, his lottery, his speculation and his hobby horse his occupation, his hope, and his futurity. He’s what Jane Austen calls ‘an enthusiast” – a man obsessed by his idea but whose enthusiasm is not equalled by his common sense. His vision is to turn the unpretentious former fishing village of Sanditon into a fashionable spa resort that will rival Brighton and Eastbourne.

He’s a would-be entrepreneur, an energetic man with ambitious plans to cash in on the trend for “seaside cures”. In another departure from past novels, Mr Parker is not your typical aristocratic landowner. Although previous novels had seen characters talk about the seaside (Emma) or visit it for themselves ( Persuasion) Sanditon is the first to be wholly located on the coast. This setting is another first for Jane Austen. As a thank you the Parkers invite the eldest daughter Charlotte Heywood to join them at the seaside resort of Sanditon. The coach passenger, Mr Parker is injured but he and his wife are given shelter by a local family. Instead we begin with a coach accident in a country lane somewhere in Sussex. Gone too is her previous opening gambit of introducing the heroine and her circumstances before moving onto the action. Gone are the villages and the stately homes familiar as settings in her previous six completed novels. Only one paragraph in, we know that Sanditon will be unlike any other novel Austen wrote. Because this is Jane Austen as we have never experienced her before.Īs Oxford professor Kathryn Sutherland writes in her introduction to the new Oxford World Classics edition: Reading what became known as Sandition, is tantalising, frustrating and exciting in equal measures.

Sanditon by Jane Austen