The text of Jane Austen's classic tale is accompanied by an introduction to the author's life and work and explanatory notes discussing the novel's historical context, language, characters, and themes.

"In the final months of Jane Austen's life, she began work on a new novel about social drama in the small seaside town of Sanditon, once a small fishing village and now a bustling spa town. In the story of Charlotte Heywood, a new arrival, Austen contemplated a changing society with a mixture of skepticism and amusement, and notably crafted her only character of color in the mixed-race heiress Miss Lambe. Though unfinished at the time of her death,...