This has been called Jane Austen's finest work but it is probably the least popular, due to the unsympathetic nature of her heroine, Fanny Price, who, it cannot be denied, is a smug little Goody Two-Shoes. This is the novel in which nasty Aunt Norris commits outrage after outrage and finally gets her come-uppance. But it also contains the incomparable Lady Bertram, idlest woman in fiction, and, in fat ill-tempered Pug, Jane Austen's only dog. Review by Ruth Rendell, whose crime novels include 'The Bridesmaid' (Kirkus UK)