"Pride and Prejudice"-- the story of independent-minded Elizabeth Bennet's journey to a happy marriage and her rousing rebellion against the stultifying and stale social system of 19th-Century England-- is an adrenaline-rush of a book.

As Elizabeth battles the defenders of society (her marriage-obsessed mother, a condescending suitor, and several members of the "upper-class" trying to stem her promising relationship with the affluent and handsome Mr. Darcy) we sample a world where family, money, and class dictate your friends and suitors.

When Elizabeth and Darcy move to his stunning home, they leave the hostility of an uncaring society behind. Through rebellion and stubbornness, they have found Eden.

Our excitement over getting the DVD faded upon loading both the VHS tape and DVD and comparing the images and sound. The widescreen image on the DVD is definitely more clear on our 50" high res screen, and it is a pleasure to see the full images framed as the Director intended.

HOWEVER, the colors are not just washed out. The digital remastering has changed the color tone of the film as if someone used a Photoshop/Premier digital filter without knowing what they were doing. The VHS and original not only had rich color saturation, but also had a warm tone that felt 'right' with the period film. The DVD is not only washed out, but has a strong blue-white tone to it that gives a cold modern feel to the scenes.

To get the image to look close to decent on our TV, I had to turn the color saturation up as far as it would go, bring the contrast down and the brightness up. It then almost matched the VHS images except for the blue-ish rather than warm overall cast.

The sound is tinny, much of the lower frequencies that are on the VHS sound track being chopped off.

There are no subtitles at all (we frequently turn them on for other DVDs when we cannot quite make out the dialog) - much less alternative language tracks.

So, why is this edition 'Special'? The only additions, other than the abysmal digital remastering (digital destruction) are:
(1) an 8-page booklet (that mentions only 3 of the actors)
(2) some text-only biography screens, that mention only 2 of the actors
(3) a 20-some minute 'making of' feature that gives the producer most of the credit (and she did of course put the team together, but the director/editor/actors/choreographer/costumers/etc produced the art) - and which still only visits with 4 of the actors - out of this tremendously talented cast.

What was supposed to be a 'special' Christmas gift, ended up being a tremendous disappointment. We can only hope that A&E and BBC will produce an 'Extra Special' edition that gets the color and sound back to the director's intention (did he even get to review this DVD?). That, and a rebate for all of us who bought this defective edition, would make us happy enough. Adding subtitles, profiles of everyone else involved in the production, and stills of the various homes, heritage buildings and towns used would be (delicious, but optional) gravy.

Some critics have complained that all of Austen's novels have the same plot: a young naive girl learns about herself, others, and the "ways of the world." Granted, these comments may have some merit, but many times readers and critics comment on Austen without having read the majority of her works. They read Pride and Predjudice, perhaps Austen's most well-liked novel, and maybe Sense and Senisbility, Emma, or Persuasion, and then consider themselves authorities on the Austen canon.

Jane Austen: The Collected Novels allows readers and critics alike the opportunity to read all of Austen, not just her more popular works. One sees Austen's growth from a young, aspiring novelist who wrote Lady Susan, Sandition, and The Watsons, to the mature writer so many readers admire.

This collection's importance cannot be stressed enough, because to truly appreciate and understand an author, one must be familiar with his or her canon. Now, with the publication of such a complete compilation, we have the chance to do just that.

While the letters capture the style of Austen's times, they are lightweight and rather brief. Twenty-five letters with at least three blank pages between each letter comes out to about 115 pages of text.

I enjoyed this but was not blown away by it.

However, "Another Lady" managed a perfect transition when she completed the sadly unfinished, though wonderful, Sanditon. I am a rabid Jane Austen fan; I have read and reread her novels. Yet, I maintain that unless you know in advance, it is impossible to tell where Jane Austen left off and "Another Lady" started. The story advances with the same charm, cheerful observation of the silly side of human nature, and the deep kindness that always tempered Jane Austen's sharp wit. The plot flows so logically, it feels as if it could not have been different if Miss Austen herself finished it. And this, of course, is the greatest praise one can give.

I would definately say this book in the Jane Austen Mystery series was more difficult to follow. Others who have read this one have agreed with me in that the characters are introduced briefly and quickly. The setting could be described a bit more too.

Overall, this work of Barron's is fun and interesting to read. I prefer her first novel more, as it seems a little more gentler and subtle. With this, the fourth in the series, one cannot help becoming attached to the main characters.

Stephanie Barron does justice to the time period and the speech of the day. Nothing is worse than to read a period book and find modern day phrases throughout. Let us hope Barron continues her meticulous work and continues to bring forth more of Jane Austen for those of us who can never get enough!

This story takes place near Jane's brother Edward's estate, Godmersham, in Kent, at the time if the Canterbury Races. At first I was disappointed that some of the series' most endearing characters were missing -- Eliza and Sir Harold Trowbridge are only mentioned or appear briefly. I was not as disappointed to have Jane's mother and sister absent, as Cassandra is basically a wet blanket in this series and Mother is very annoying. But I was pleasantly surprised to become better acquainted not only with Jane's brothers Neddie and Henry, but also Neddie's wife Lizzy and daughter Fanny. These characters are a lot of fun, and scenes of the family gathering to try and reason out matters are particularly engaging. I agree with the reviewer who said that Julian Sothey's devotion to Anne Sharpe did not seem justified, but otherwise thought that the characters here were quite engaging and beautifully drawn.

In addition to being historically accurate, Ms. Barron takes pains to incorporate real events from Jane Austen's experience into the story, and if you also have a copy of Jane Austen's Letters, you will be delighted to read those from the same time period and find the correspondence (so to speak) between events real and fictional.

One trusts Miss Jane would approve.

Persuasion's plot is based around the possibility of the rekindling of a romance which burned brightly when the protagonists were younger and which was thwarted because the forces of familiar persuasion made Anne Elliott reject her love for Captain Wentworth. All of Austen's plots are romantic staples revolving around the constant impediments placed between the heroine and her ideal man but unlike the plots of many novels contemporaneous to Austen's these impediments are not Gothic in nature - they are merely the frustrating minutiae of everyday life. To be sure, the denouements are invariably happy but when we think about what would happen (if these people were real) afterwards, we can foresee myriad problems and further barriers to happiness. (For example, in Pride and Prejudice, how is Lizzie going to cope with Darcy's family and in Persuasion, how is Anne, happily ensconced with her paramour, going to cope with her own disfunctional family?) No matter, Jane has done her job and brought the two lovers together.

One of the most entertaining aspects of Austen's technique is her ironic narrative asides. We, as readers, are given access to the feelings of the main protagonists before they reveal them to the world (in Pride and Prejudice we know that Darcy is besotted with Lizzie well before he declares his amour, and in Persuasion we know that Captain Wentworth still carries a torch for Anne Elliott while she is still assuming that all hope of a rekindled romance has been dashed because of her earlier propensity to be persuaded against her emotions).

One of the most curious aspects of Austen's wonderful assortment of characters is the strangely brutal way she portrays families. There is always at least one member of the principle family who is deeply flawed - both Lizzie's parents in Pride and Prejudice, Marianne and Elinor's weak brother and vile sister-in-law in Sense and Sensibility, and Emma's neurasthenic father (a mild critique compared to the sharpness of the other characterizations). Nowhere is this "critique of the family" more keenly delineated than in Persuasion. Anne Elliot's father is a complete fool obsessed with physical appearances above all else, and it is clear that Anne has little respect for him or her own sisters. Austen invested all her idealization of character in her main protagonists - in this case Anne and Captain Wentworth. While not always physically attractive, Austen's heroines are always morally complete (except for the ever-so-slightly capricious Emma) - and Anne Elliot, the heroine of Persuasion, is surely more a portrait of Jane Austen than any of her other heroines. She is no longer young, has lost the full bloom of youthful beauty, and has been disappointed in love because she heeded the wishes of others, and not of her heart and her mind.

We know by reading any of Jane Austen's books of her fierce intelligence, biting wit and brilliant observational powers of familiar human behavior. And she could be deliciously bitchy, as this example from Persuasion shows: "(Anne and Captain Wentworth) were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had most readily made room for him - they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove. It was no insignificant barrier indeed. Mrs Musgrove was of a comfortable substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature to express good cheer and good humour than tenderness and sentiment; and while the agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face, may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for."

Anne Elliott is certainly less ironic than the voice of the narration (Austen herself), but she seems to be a manifestation of what Jane Austen thought of herself, or at least, how she would like to be - intelligent, kind, sensitive to other's feelings, and most importantly, someone who is valued for these qualities rather than for beauty and money. Persuasion is a good read - it's not as cheeky as Emma or as involved as Pride and Prejudice, but there are plenty of the great Austen ironic (and even sarcastic) flourishes. And the intelligence of her writing is a delight.