Sanditon

1817
Jane Austen
Sanditon
B+

This novel was the last one Austen started writing before her death.  Ironically or not, one of its subjects is health, with hypochondriacs, one genuinely ill person, and assorted healthy vacationers gathering in a small but ambitious seaside resort.  Austen was still at the top of her game, creating such characters as Lady Denham, stingy but sometimes kind; Mr Parker, with his Shandean "hobbyhorse" of resort plans; his busybody yet "frail" sister Diana; his hearty yet "delicate" brother Arthur; Lovelace wannabe Sir Edward; and sensible heroine Charlotte.  The dry, ironical tone still makes me laugh out loud, and even the last part, about how the portrait of Lady Denham's second husband dominates the sitting room in the home of her first husband, is funny.  Sometimes the burlesque quality echoes the over-the-top feeling of Austen's juvenilia, but with the mature plotting of her later works.

"Another Lady" (the name a compliment to how Austen originally published under the pseudonym "A Lady") did the first of the various completions out there, in 1975, and I've owned it for years, so I will discuss that work in its place.