I Watson

Di Jane Austen

Edizione integrale
Traduzione di Daniela Paladini

La Austen ha saputo ritrarre magistralmente la borghesia provinciale del Settecento inglese, con la sua ossessione per le buone maniere e la sua visione del matrimonio come aspirazione suprema.
Ne I Watson (iniziato nel 1804, e rimasto incompiuto) questo sfondo assume tinte più cupe. La famiglia Watson si ritrova nella situazione – ben nota alla scrittrice, che dopo la morte del padre visse un periodo di ristrettezze economiche – di dover mantenere un certo decoro senza averne i mezzi. Trovare un buon partito, allora, sembra l’unica via di salvezza da un destino altrimenti segnato. Ma l’orgogliosa Emma, a differenza delle sorelle, vuole sottrarsi alla contesa per i pochi scapoli abbienti del paese.

Jane Austen
nacque a Steventon (Hampshire) nel 1775. Condusse una vita tranquilla, tra gli affetti familiari, a Bath e poi a Chawton, sempre nell’Hampshire. Si spense nel 1817 a Winchester. Di Jane Austen la Newton Compton ha pubblicato Mansfield Park, Ragione e sentimento, Persuasione, Orgoglio e pregiudizio, L’abbazia di Northanger, Emma, Lady Susan, Sanditon e il volume unico Tutti i romanzi.

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Newton Compton Editori
• Data di uscita: 17 apr 2014
• ISBN: 9788854169586

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known for six major novels, Pride and Prejudice; Sense and Sensibility; Becoming Jane; Emma; Mansfield Park>; and Northanger Abbey. Her writing style has been widely thought of as a cross between realist and romantic genres. Austen’s prose is poignant, and always features a strong-willed female protagonist. While sparing no detail depicting the lavishness of women in the English upper class, Austen also portrayed the reality of gendered social dynamics in the 19th century. Austen has been hailed as a heroine of her own time, in large part because most of the novels of the day were written by men. Indeed, her literature portrayed a female narrative that was often overlooked in the catalogue of male authors at the time. Austen’s platform gave an important voice to girls and women in literature, and it is for that reason, among countless others, that her works continue to inspire readers today.

Anteprima del libro

494

Titolo originale: The Watsons

Traduzione di Daniela Paladini

Prima edizione ebook: aprile 2014

© 2011, 2014 Newton Compton editori s.r.l.

Roma, Casella postale 6214

ISBN 978-88-541-6958-6

www.newtoncompton.com

Edizione elettronica realizzata da Gag srl

Jane Austen

I Watson

Edizione integrale

Newton Compton editori

Nota biobibliografica

CRONOLOGIA DELLA VITA E DELLE OPERE

1775. Il 16 dicembre, a Steventon nello Hampshire, nasce Jane Austen, settima dei figli del reverendo George Austen, pastore del luogo, e di sua moglie, Cassandra Leigh.

1784-86. Frequenta, insieme alla sorella maggiore Cassandra, la Abbey School di Reading.

1794. Scrive la prima stesura di Lady Susan.

1795. Scrive Elinor and Marianne, prima stesura di Sense and Sensibility.

1796. Scrive First Impressions che diventerà Pride and Prejudice (lo finirà nell’agosto del 1797).

1797. Inizia a scrivere la stesura definitiva di Sense and Sensibility.

1798-99. Scrive Northanger Abbey (inizialmente l’opera è intitolata Susan).

1801. A causa del ritiro del reverendo Austen dalla sua attività ecclesiastica, la famiglia si trasferisce a Bath, dove la scrittrice ambienterà alcuni dei suoi romanzi.

1804. Inizia la stesura del romanzo The Watsons, che resterà incompiuto.

1805. Muore il reverendo George Austen. Jane lavora alla revisione di Lady Susan.

1807. La famiglia Austen si stabilisce, con grande gioia di Jane, che detestava Bath, a Southampton.

1809. La famiglia si trasferisce a Chawton, nello Hampshire, in una casa di proprietà del fratello Edward.

1811. Inizia a scrivere Mansfield Park. Pubblica Sense and Sensibility.

1813. Viene pubblicato Pride and Prejudice. Seconda edizione di Sense and Sensibility.

1814. Inizia a scrivere Emma. Pubblica Mansfield Park.

1815. Inizia a scrivere Persuasion. Pubblica Emma e, in Francia, Sense and Sensibility con il titolo Raison et Sensibilité.

1816. Seconda edizione di Mansfield Park che esce in Francia, nello stesso anno, con il titolo Le Parc de Mansfield. Viene pubblicato in Francia anche Emma, con il titolo La nouvelle Emma.

1817. Inizia a scrivere Sanditon ma, a causa della malattia che la porterà alla morte, non lo terminerà. Il 18 luglio muore a Winchester, dove si era recata, assieme alla sorella Cassandra, per tentare di curare la sua malattia (forse una forma del morbo di Addison). È sepolta nella Cattedrale. In dicembre, il fratello Henry cura la pubblicazione del volume contenente Northanger Abbey e Persuasion, e per la prima volta sul frontespizio compare il nome dell’autrice.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

L’edizione critica delle opere di Jane Austen è quella a cura di R.W. CHAPMAN, The Novels of Jane Austen. The text based on collation of the early edition, with notes, indexes and illustrations from contemporary sources, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1923, 5 voll. Comprende i sei romanzi principali (o canonici) dell’autrice, le cui prime edizioni in volume seguono la cronologia qui indicata:

Sense and Sensibility, London, T. Egerton, 1811.

Pride and Prejudice, London, T. Egerton, 1813.

Mansfield Park, London, T. Egerton, 1814.

Emma, London, John Murray, 1815.

Northanger Abbey, London 1818 (postumo; ma composto negli anni 1798-99).

Persuasion, London, John Murray, 1818 (postumo; ma composto negli anni 1815-16).

Ai cinque volumi sopra citati dell’edizione Chapman, ne fu aggiunto un sesto nel 1954 – Minor Works – che comprende tre quaderni di opere giovanili (Volume the First, Volume the Second, Volume the Third) e i romanzi incompiuti Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon.

Tra le edizioni più recenti si segnalano quella pubblicata dalla Oxford University Press nella collana economica «World’s Classics», curata da John Davie (1971 e 1990) e quella per i «Penguin Classics» in stampa dal 1972.

Tutte le opere di Jane Austen sono state pubblicate in varie edizioni italiane e in ottime traduzioni.

Studi biografici

JAMES EDWARD AUSTEN-LEIGH, A Memoir of Jane Austen, London, Bentley, 1870.

WILLIAM E RICHARD ARTHUR AUSTEN-LEIGH, Jane Austen, her Life and Letters, London, Smith, Helder & Co, 1913, riedito a cura di DEIDRE LE FAYE come Jane Austen, a Family Record, London, The British Library,1989.

R.W. CHAPMAN, Jane Austen: Facts and Problems, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1948.

JANE REES, Jane Austen Woman and Writer, London, Robert Hale & Co, 1976.

GEORGE HOLBERT TUCKER, A Goodly Heritage, A History of Jane Austen’s Family, Manchester University Press, 1983.

JOHN HALPERIN, The Life of Jane Austen, Brighton, Harvester, 1984.

PARK HONAN, Jane Austen, her Life, New York, Fawcett, 1987.

DORA KOTNIK, Jane Austen, ovvero genio e semplicità, Milano, Rusconi, 1996.

CLAIRE TOMALIN, Jane Austen. A Life, New York, Knopf, 1997.

DEIRDRE LE FAYE, Jane Austen. A Family Record, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Studi e saggi critici

MARY LASCELLES, Jane Austen and her Art, Oxford University Press, 1939.

MARVIN MUDRICK, Jane Austen. Irony as Defense and Discovery, Princeton University Press, 1952.

IAN WATT (a cura di), Jane Austen. A Collection of Critical Essays, Englewoods Cliffs (N. Y.), Prentice Hall, 1963.

H. TEN HARMSEL, Jane Austen. A Study in Fictional Convention, The Hague, Mouton & Co, 1964.

FRANK W. BRADBROOK, Jane Austen and her Predecessors, Oxford University Press, 1966.

B.C. SOUTHAM (a cura di), Critical Essays on Jane Austen, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968.

ID., Jane Austen’s Literary Manuscripts. A Study of the Novelist’s Development Through the Surviving Papers, Oxford University Press, 1968.

JOHN HALPERIN (a cura di), Jane Austen. Bicentenary Essays, Cambridge University Press, 1975.

MARILYN BUTLER, Jane Austen and the War of Ideas, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1975.

BARBARA HARDY, A Reading of Jane Austen, London, Peter Owen, 1975.

SANDRA GILBERT-SUSAN GUBAR, Inside the House of Fiction: Jane Austen’s Tenants of Possibility, in eaed., The Madwoman in the Attic, The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979.

MARGARET KIRKHAM, Jane Austen, Feminism and Fiction, Bringhton, Harvester, 1983.

MARY POOVEY, The Proper Lady and the

Recensioni su I Watson

[philsyphe · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

It’s a pity Jane Austen didn’t finish “The Watsons”. The potential is there for a decent novel, and what it there interested me enough to want to read on.We’re introduced to a number of characters early on, which makes it hard at times to remember who’s who, especially when most are a Mr, Mrs, or Miss Somebody.What I admire most about Jane Austen’s works is the eloquent language, which is very much in evidence here.

[evaberry · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

Has all the makings of a good Austen novel, although the fragment that exists does have a slightly flawed, unedited and abrupt quality to it. I received the misguided impression from Amazon's reviews that this version had the ending completed by Kate Atkinson, which is why I wanted to read it (I am a big fan of Atkinson's). But note that this edition is just the incomplete fragment written by Austen (as you can tell as soon as you see the size of the book), with a fairly irrelevant foreword by Atkinson. Such a shame! It would have been fun to have an ending, even if it wasn't Austen's version!

[lisamaria_c · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

The Watsons is an abandoned novel of about 17,500 words written in Austen's largely "silent" period after Sense and Sensibility and Price and Prejudice but before Mansfield Park and Emma and Persuasion. The protagonist in this novel, Emma Watson, is very likable. Like Fanny Price, she's someone who was raised away from her birth family by a rich relation--except she had expectations of being an heiress, which were disappointed by her rich aunt marrying again, throwing her back to her original family. Her family is respected enough to be able to mix with the best families, including a Lord interested in Emma, and comfortable enough to have a servant, but in the circles they run around in are considered "poor." Only nineteen, Emma has a lot more confidence than Fanny Price, and a lot less snobbishness than her namesake Emma Woodhouse. She won my liking when she goes to the rescue of a ten-year-old boy stood up at a dance. I'm only sorry there wasn't more, and we had to leave Emma soon after a ball parting from her brother and his wife. I'm sure that if Jane Austen had been able to complete this novel, I'd be rating it five or four stars as an equal to Pride and Prejudice or Emma. As it is, as an uncompleted novel, this is for hardcore Jane Austen fans only. I guess you can count me as among them.

[jasonlf · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

The Watsons probably would have been an excellent novel. But as a fragment, it is probably of greater interest to scholars and completists than as a book. Everything you expect and want from Jane Austen is there--except a middle and an ending. Not her fault, but also not very satisfying to just read a bunch of exposition that does not develop anywhere.

[bookworm12_1 · Valutazione: 4 su 5 stelle]

This is one of two unfinished books by Austen. There's no ending, but the first half of the story introduces us to Emma Watson, a young woman who was raised by her wealthy uncle and aunt. Her uncle dies and her aunt remarries and she's sent back home to live with her ailing father and siblings. She's been estranged from her family for so long, it's a hard transition. Her two sisters are desperately trying to find husbands. Emma on the other hand realizes the importance of marrying someone you love and respect, instead of someone who just has wealth. It's hard to judge a book that's half finished, but Austen did tell her sister how she intended to end it, so there's that. It reminded me a bit of Mansfield Park, but Emma was a bit easier for me to stomach than Fanny. I would say this one is a must for any true Austen devotee, but definitely not before reading all of her completed works.

[nosajeel · Valutazione: 3 su 5 stelle]

The Watsons probably would have been an excellent novel. But as a fragment, it is probably of greater interest to scholars and completists than as a book. Everything you expect and want from Jane Austen is there--except a middle and an ending. Not her fault, but also not very satisfying to just read a bunch of exposition that does not develop anywhere.