I LOVE Jane Austen- I try to read her once a year. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are true classics, and Emma and Persuasion are also wonderful. I cannot personally stand Fanny Price from Mansfield Park, but even a so-so Jane Austen is better than your average bestseller today.

Austen's ability to expose the foibles of her characters without actually holding them in disdain is what makes her books so enjoyable. Can you eviscerate someone with a fluffy knife? Not a good image, but in probing the psyches of her characters she shows a true understanding of human nature that is as valid today as it was then. There are so many Mrs Norrises in the world, and yet Lizzies and Darcys and Elinors seem to be in short supply. Nevertheless, there's enough wit and comedy and family and sisterhood and loyalty and friendship to keep you happy, if you go for that sort of stuff.

Each one of the novels by Jane Austen are a masterpiece. Not only is the quality of the writing splendid and amazing, but the stories are sensational, and each character comes alive through vibrant descriptions and makes one become really invested with the book!

n  Sense and Sensibilityn-read once (4 stars)
n  Pride and Prejudicen-read thrice (5 stars)
n  Mansfield Parkn-read once (4 stars)
n  Emman-read four times (5 stars)
n  Northanger Abbeyn-read once (5 stars)
n  Persuasionn-read once (4 stars)
n  Lady Susann-read once (4 stars)

As most everyone knows, Jane Austen is the pioneer of romantic comedy. She was adept at writing complex, interesting female characters, and complementing them with equally interesting male love interests. I always find it interesting that she wrote such great romantic comedies in a time when women were not allowed to act out their emotions and desires in the manner of the ladies of 'Sex and the City' (an extreme example) but rather had to charm their way into secure and socially acceptable matches. Ms. Austen liked to imagine more for her female characters than settling for a 'comfortable' marriage if a Mr. Darcy was available.

The first time I came into contact with Jane Austen's work was in December 2007 at age 16. It was shortly after Christmas and I was visiting my bffs - we basically had a big slumber party spanning several days. One of my friends had gotten the 2005 film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice for Christmas and we decided to watch it - not just once but at least twice, maybe even thrice. We couldn't get enough of it! When I got home, I wished for both the DVD and the book for my upcoming birthday in January, which I both got.

I read and enjoyed Pride & Prejudice - back then in German - which was quite unusual it not being the type of book I usually read. I decided to start collecting adaptations and got myself this ginormous book of all her novels. While I did enjoy watching the adaptations (though I mostly stuck to Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility because I wanted to read the others first) and reread my German copy of Pride & Prejudice, it would take me another five years before embarking on the journey of reading all her novels. I set out to tackle this project in September 2013. It would take me five years, until November 2018, to finish them all.

Sense & Sensibility: ★★★★☆
Previously read: no
Previously watched: yes
Adaptations watched: series 2008, film 1995

Sense & Sensibility is after Pride & Prejudice my most watched Jane Austen work. I like the 1995 film, but I adore the 2008 series. I did enjoy reading it a lot, especially finding out about the couple of things that were changed in the adaptation (though at the point of writing this, almost 6 years after reading, I don't remember the details). I really liked the sisters and their very different personalities and therefore approaches to love and the trials and tribulations they have to go through before finding happiness.

Pride & Prejudice: ★★★★★
Previously read: yes, at least twice in German and once in English
Previously watched: yes
Adaptations watched: series 1995, film 2005, Lost in Austen, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

What can I say, this one's my fave! I have a huge crush on Mr. Darcy and simply love all the characters, their stories, and especially the back and forth between Lizzie and Darcy. It's a wonderful love story and simply makes me oh so happy! I have watched the adaptations SO many times, and while the 1995 one is certainly a classic, my favourite - actually one of my all-time favourite films - is the 2005 adaptation. If you want an introduction to Jane Austen, I recommend starting there. It worked for me ...

Mansfield Park: ★☆☆☆☆
Previously read: no
Previously watched: no
Adaptations watched: film 1999, film 2007

I'm sorry, but Mansfield Park just wasn't for me. In the beginning, I thought I would come to like this one as well. I made rather quick progress and the characters were interesting. Then, however, it became rather tedious and boring. Fanny is a quiet person who suffers a lot of injustices at the hands of her family and bows down to their wishes. The topics addressed are all on the serious side of things; it's neither comedic nor romantic. Furthermore, I wasn't really feeling the ship (any of the possible ships that is). The adaptations also weren't able to help me get into it more.

Emma: ★★★★☆
Previously read: no
Previously watched: no
Adaptations watched: series 2009, Clueless, parts of Emma Approved

Though I owned adaptations of Emma (I also own a film I still haven't watched), I actually managed to refrain from watching until I read the book. It was a book club read and I ended up being the only one who liked it. Emma is a really interesting character though she's not necessarily likable. Still, I loved how stuck in her own head she was, not realising what's actually going on around her. Her meddling was fun and I really was into the romance. I'm just a huge fan of anything slow burning and Jane Austen is rather good at the will-they-won't-they game.

Northanger Abbey: ★★★☆☆
Previously read: no
Previously watched: no
Adaptations watched: film 2007

This one also was a rather quick read and while I did enjoy it, it couldn't convince me. The protagonist and her love interest were alright but I didn't grow attached to them - and Catherine might be a tad annoying in her naïveté. The rest of the characters were rather unlikable and oh so manipulative. The story fell a little flat and the gothic horror elements and intertextuality didn't really do it for me. I must say I was a little disappointed in the end. I had hoped for a bit ... more.

Persuasion: ★★★★★
Previously read: no
Previously watched: yes
Adaptations watched: film 1995, film 2007

I tried to stay strong but at some point I caved and watched the 2007 film before reading the book. And what can I say, I loved it. This is just my kind of story! When I finally came to read this book, I therefore knew what was coming. What I didn't know was that I would love it this much. I breezed through it in just two days. After Pride &Prejudice, this one's my second favourite. It's a perfect case of a reasonable protagonist, her awfully annoying and demanding relatives and acquaintances, a love lost, a possibility, lots of tension, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, and sparks flying. I'm totally in love with it!

Lady Susan: ★★★☆☆
Previously read: no
Previously watched: no
Adaptations watched: half of film 2016 (no idea why I stopped there, will finish it eventually)

This one was so very different from the rest. It's very short, it's an epistolary novel, and the protagonist is older (a widowed mother) than Jane Austen's usual protagonists. It was quite enjoyable but it is my second least favourite of her novels. The willy-nilly scheming often going awry and her escapades were quite fun to read, but she’s not a likable protagonist.

I have rather mixed feelings about the resurgence of Austen's popularity in the 1990s. Selfishly, I rather relished that it was my secret that "classics" of the kind that could be assigned in school could be such a pleasure to read, such a winning blend of social satire, humor and romance. I've read a lot of genre novels recently, as well as rereading Austen, and what struck me is what separates classics, why they endure, is rather than quickly feeling dated, they still feel relevant and resonate with our times. Austen's novels could be seen as formulaic. She centered her works on the courtship dance among the landed gentry. Happy endings (more or less) guaranteed and focused mostly from her heroine's point of view, her novels are seen as the forerunners and foundations of both romance and chicklit, although they certainly transcend both. All of the novels in this volume are worth reading, even if not all are favorites.

n  Sense and Sensibilityn is the first novel in this volume. Sisters are usually important in Austen's novels, although they're not always close, and are usually in the background. This novel is unusual in having two contrasting heroines in Elinor and Marianne. Unlike say Elizabeth and Jane of Pride and Prejudice the two Dashwood sisters here both grow and learn from the other and are of equal importance to the story. The novel is interesting in its themes of prudence versus passion for which the sisters make perfect exemplars and foils. If this sounds dry--well, almost no Austen novel is without a large leavening of humor--just look at the second chapter where by degrees, their sister-in-law convinces their half-brother not to help them so that finally she has him convinced their needs are so modest they "will be much more able to give you something." That's typical of Austen. The sharp characterizations that are so funny because they're timeless in their illustrations of human foibles and how being scrupulously polite and socially correct can cover pettiness, cruelty while being of itself at times comic and ridiculous. I'll admit Elinor is my favorite. The one in the family who is sensible in a family of sentimental romantics. Who doesn't have much room to assert her own feelings because someone has to be the grownup. But I feel for Marianne too. I don't, like some, feel she "settled." I think she simply grew through her experiences to appreciate qualities that would have been lost on her earlier. That's the way of the Austen novels and rather why I love them. Love isn't something that solves problems and brings on the happy ending but an experience that, even when you're disappointed, widens and deepens you so you become wiser and so more capable of happiness. At least if you blend a bit of a romantic sensibility with a modicum of sense.

n  Pride and Prejudicen features Austen's most sparkling and witty heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. As for Darcy, the hero, he has a reputation of the perfect romantic hero--which has even discouraged a friend of mine from reading the novel. But what I love so much in this story is that it's far from love at first sight. Darcy is rude when we first meet him and earns every bit of disdain which Elizabeth originally feels for him. And his initial opinion of her? Not pretty enough to tempt him as a dance partner. The original title of the novel is famously "First Impressions" and the way this novel credibly develops the relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth from their initial mutual contempt is a marvel. It's why this is so much more than a love story--it's a novel about perceptions, assumptions and prejudices and how they can be reversed and in the process of which cause characters to grow. That's why I see Austen as the opposite of Emily Bronte--love as a force for and as the result of growth--not destruction. Beyond the central love story this novel has so many wonderfully memorable characters. I love the relationship between Elizabeth Bennet and her father; his own marriage makes an interesting foil for the other pairings in the novel. Mr Collins is a comic marvel--as is his "patroness" Lady Catherine de Bourgh. So much of the novel is laugh-out-laugh funny, so much of the dialogue memorable and quotable.

n  Mansfield Parkn is for me Austen's most problematical novel, and I rather hated it on first read--I found the heroine Fanny Price, a prig and completely unlikeable. A friend of mine who is basing her graduate thesis on the novel urged me to give it another chance, and particularly to look at Fanny's bitterness and the "carefully crafted sense of dissatisfaction in the last chapter." Although on reread I still can't count Mansfield Park a favorite, I can see what she means. Fanny is treated as an unpaid servant in her uncle's household and taught to "know her place," particularly by her aunt Mrs Norris. A very low place. As her rival Miss Crawford notes, Fanny dreads notice the way others dread being ignored. The only person who treats her with any consideration is her cousin Edmund Bertram. He is a prig. But given the circumstances, it's understandable Fanny would mold herself after him--and given her situation, her ability to speak up and act is heavily circumscribed. All in all, she's a more complex character than I first gave her credit and on reread she did gain my sympathy. Another friend of mine said we might more highly esteem Mansfield Park if it weren't by Austen, and she may be right. You can't go into this novel expecting Pride and Prejudice or Emma. There is irony and humor and even wit to be found in it--particularly in the character of Mary Crawford, but it's nevertheless Austen's darkest work--the only one where I don't really like the hero and heroine, but a fascinating study of the enduring damages of childhood and the questions of propriety and principle.

n  Emman is among the lightest in tone and the most comedic of Austen's novels. No one comes close to death or is disastrously spirited away. The closest thing to a tragedy is being snubbed at a dance. I don't remember liking Emma as a character much at first, but she slowly won me over, and she has one of the more interesting arcs of any of Austen's characters. Almost all Austen protagonists grow, but I think she arguably travels the farthest as a result of her comeuppance. One delivered as a result not of her own humiliation but because of words of reproach that make her aware of having hurt someone else. I'm not sure ultimately what to make of her drifting away from Harriet Smith. I think in the end there's still plenty of social snobbery in Emma, and I'm not sure if Austen would in any case disapprove given the class roles of her time. (Although it does seem Mr Knightly, the hero of the tale has no problem having a mere farmer as a friend.) Austen makes you wonder about her characters even after you finish the novel because she creates a whole community within Emma. And so many of the people within it, like the Eltons, are great comedic characters.

n  Northanger Abbeyn is notably a send-up of the popular genre fiction of its day--the Gothic novels by writers we don't generally read these days such as Matthew Lewis' and Ann Radcliffe. I've read only the (cheesy and quite fun) The Monk by Lewis of the works alluded to in Austen's novel, but I didn't feel lost. When Henry Tilney plays off the gothic works in telling a story to Catherine Morland and later Catherine's imagination runs wild in the ancient manse of Northanger Abbey, I get the jokes because we have our own successors to the Gothic tradition in slasher movies, thrillers, horror and "romantic suspense." Moreover, the characterizations still feel real and are often funny. I was particularly taken with a passage where John Thorpe, a puffed up idiot, boasts to Catherine of his horses and carriages. Change all that to automobiles--and well, one is struck the male of the species hasn't changed much in two centuries. Catherine herself is Austen's youngest heroine, only seventeen during the course of the novel. She's unsophisticated, naive, with a head full of lurid novels and away for the first time in a city and for the first time having to make sense of male attentions. Given her flights of fancy, one might be tempted to count her as a featherbrain, but somehow she escapes that. She's a rather lovable combination of tomboy and bookworm. Her romantic interest, Henry Tilney, is among the most winning of Austen heroes--playful and witty, he's very appealing. And the novel itself doesn't take itself too seriously. Naive and unsophisticated Catherine might be, the narrator isn't, and the prose is filled with wit, irony and early nineteenth century snark--but rather good humored snark. I wouldn't recommend this novel as as introduction to Austen or rank it quite as high as her mature masterpieces (Northanger Abbey was the first work she ever submitted for publication), but it's still quite fun.

n  Persuasionn is my favorite of all of Austen's novels. Not the one with the wittiest or with the most appealing heroine--that would be Pride and Prejudice. Nor the funniest. That would be Emma. I do find Wentworth the most appealing of the Austen heroes though. He's a self-made man and the theme of merit versus aristocratic privilege and pride runs through the story. Which is not to say I don't feel for Anne. She's a quieter heroine than you usually see in Austen. Someone that seemingly was too easily persuaded years ago and seems destined to end her life alone. I think if for nothing else, this novel would have earned a place among my favorites because of one scene. My inner feminist cheered at Anne's defense of women, and their faithfulness in love. And truly, if you aren't melted by the letter Wentworth writes to Anne, you have no beating heart.

n  Lady Susann, which finishes this volume, is actually the earliest work, and in my opinion the weakest. (Really a novella, not a novel--it's only 23,021 words.) It was written in 1794 when Austen was still in her teens. I found it hard to get into at first. Unlike the other works in this volume, this is an epistolary novel told in letters, not third-person narration. The story feels thin compared to her other works as a result, although about halfway through we got more of a sense of scenes, with actual dialogue. It's not that I don't find it worth reading. This is very different in tone than Austen's other novels--her titular heroine is a villain--a catty and malicious adulteress trying to force her daughter Frederica into a marriage of convenience. But if I weren't an Austen fan, I doubt I'd have persisted in reading it far enough for the fascination of Lady Susan's machinations to take hold, although take hold they did. The ending nevertheless feels abrupt to me. (I understand Phyllis Ann Karr did a third person narrative adaptation of the story. Particularly since she's an author I've liked, I'd love to read that. Sadly it's long out of print.)

These truly are beloved novels--witness all the professionally published fan fiction based on them. I can understand the impulse. It's hard to finish these and know there's not more Austen to read, other than letters, juvenilia and fragments of two novels never finished, Sandition and The Watsons. Both have been completed by other hands, and I might try them sometime. Other Austen sequels and pastiches I've tried have almost all been unsatisfying--they just don't rank with the originals and can't match Austen's wit and insight. I do rather like the Darcy mysteries written by Carrie Bebris--I think because she captures the personality of the beloved characters enough so you feel you're visiting old friends without trying to imitate Austen's style--which often just underlines the author is no Austen.

The Austen resurgence was based in particular on filmed adaptations made in the 1990s. I do love the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice made with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the theatrical films of Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet and the Emma with Gweneth Paltrow. I thought each was faithful to spirit of their books while, especially in the case of Sense and Sensibility, wonderfully dramatizing aspects only hinted at in the narrative. The Pride and Prejudice miniseries made me laugh out loud and the film of Sense and Sensibility made me cry. I find the filmed adaptations I've watched of Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey problematical. (As far as I know, no filmed adaptation of Lady Susan exists.)

And I haven't see Clueless--the modern-day adaptation of Emma--although from what a friend tells me I definitely should!

But there's nothing like the novels themselves. I envy those who will discover and enjoy them for the first time.

Although I've read most of her novels in the past, I picked up her complete collection on Amazon and I can't put it down...only problem is that the entire collection is in one book. Love her work! Incidentally, if you haven't seen the most recent Pride & Prejudice remake with Matthew McFayden and Keira Knightley, I highly recommend that as well.

In un'edizione elegante, qualitativamente ed economicamente ottima, le Wordsworth Editions propongono le sette opere complete di Jane Austen:

LETTI
• Pride and Prejudice: ★★★★★
Quante volte avrò letto questo romanzo? Sette? Otto? E ogni volta è la stessa storia: passo le prime 50 pagine a sghignazzare continuamente per le preoccupazioni e le incongruenze della signora Bennet; per lo strano modo del signor Bennet di vivere (e apprezzare) il proprio matrimonio; per le stramberie del signor Collins; per l'incipit universalmente conosciuto; per il modo in cui le sciocche consuetudini della vita quotidiana, attraverso lo spirito di osservazione e l'ironia della Austen, acquistino nuovi colori.
È inutile raccontare la trama, che del resto è famosa quanto l'autrice e che più volte è stata trasposta cinematograficamente. Quel che resta impresso del libro è come qualcosa di così quotidiano e ordinario, come la ricerca di un marito in una tranquilla cittadina della campagna inglese, possa essere raccontato con tanto brio, tanta eleganza e tanto spirito.
Jane, nelle sue pagine, non racconta nulla di eclatante, eppure tu sei lì, che volti pagina impaziente di sapere come procederà la storia. Jane non ha bisogno di eventi al di fuori dell'ordinario, o di personaggi fuori dall'ordinario: Jane osserva e descrive il mondo che la circonda.
Non so se sia questa la ragione del suo successo; certo è che, nonostante viviamo in tempi completamente diversi dall'ambiente di cui Jane Austen è cresciuta e vissuta, Orgoglio e pregiudizio è ancora un grandissimo classico. E io non mi stanco mai di rileggerlo.

• Northanger Abbey: ★★★★
Se avessi saputo prima quanto delizioso fosse questo romanzo non avrei aspettato così tanto prima di leggerlo. E invece non l'ho preso in mano finché, alcuni anni fa, un'amica me lo consigliò caldamente.
La sottile ironia di Jane Austen ha qui, come non mai, terreno fertile nel rappresentare minutamente e con arguzia una meravigliosa parodia del genere gotico (e anche di quello romantico). I personaggi di Northanger Abbey sono eccellentemente delineati, i Thorpe non meno dei Morland, gli Allen non meno dei Tilney. E la scrittura frizzante, pungente, a volte tenera a volte acutamente ironica, rende piacevole ogni singola pagina.
In conclusione, credo che Northanger Abbey valga la pena di essere letto almeno tanto quanto vale la pena leggere Pride and Prejudice o uno qualsiasi degli altri scritti della Austen; e in più, vi consiglio di dedicare un'ora e mezza alla visione dello sceneggiato per la TV realizzato dalla BBC nel 2007, protagonisti Felicity Jones e J.J. Feild: molto fedele allo spirito del romanzo e davvero piacevole a vedersi.

• Lady Susan: ★★★
Una storia completamente diversa da quelle a cui la Austen ci ha abituati, con protagonista una donna falsa e spregiudicata. Lady Susan è un piccolo romanzo che non viene mai menzionato, e a ragione, tra le opere maggiori di Jane Austen. È più scarno, più asciutto, scritto in uno stile epistolare che poco lascia intravedere oltre alla singola storia di una donna spregiudicata e falsa, e per questo completamente diversa dalle tipiche protagoniste della Austen.
Non eccellente; ma è comunque interessante vedere l'abbozzo di una storia che, se fosse stata sviluppata in modo più ampio, avrebbe potuto essere, con ogni probabilità, all'altezza di una qualsiasi delle altre storie che l'autrice è stata così brava a raccontarci.

• Sense and Sensibility: ★★★★★
[...] Sense and Sensibility è la storia di tre sorelle che la morte del padre lascia a corto di mezzi, e che l'avidità della cognata, il cui marito è unico erede della tenuta dei Dashwood, rende ospiti indesiderate nella loro stessa casa.
Sin dalle prime pagine la dicotomia espressa nel titolo prende la forma di Elinor per quanto riguarda la ragione, e di Marianne per quanto riguarda il sentimento. Si tratta tuttavia di due classificazioni fortemente riduttive: Elinor non è semplicemente "razionale" [...]; Marianne, a sua volta, non è semplicemente una fanciulla che si può definire con il termine "sentimento" [...].
Il fatto che le due protagoniste siano caratterizzate fin dal titolo del romanzo (la cui prima stesura era chiamata Elinor and Marianne) non deve però far pensare che i loro due personaggi siano monocromatici. Jane Austen mette moltissima cura nel definire le loro personalità, rendendo le due sorelle personaggi estremamente consistenti e credibili. [...] Se l'autrice esprima una preferenza tra le due personalità, lascio a voi deciderlo.
Ma che romanzo sarebbe se Jane Austen non ci avesse messo un Mr Collins o una Mrs Bennet? Di certo non un romanzo di Jane Austen, tanto acuta nel sottolineare con ironia le assurdità e le ridicolezze della società in cui viveva. Così, accanto alle stupende Marianne ed Elinor, ricrea con il solito piglio ineguagliabile personaggi gretti e ridicoli, alcuni dei quali però, nonostante la mancanza di compostezza che spesso li rende fuori luogo in una società di persone beneducate, sono semplicemente spinti da un eccesso di buon cuore: molti di loro sono, perciò, personalità dalle diverse sfaccettature [...] tali da rendere giustizia alla bravura dell'autrice senza per questo offuscare l'attenzione data alle due sorelle Dashwood. [...]
Naturalmente, il lieto fine è immancabile, come lo era stato in Pride and Prejudice; ma se dovessi scegliere un'altra opera di Jane Austen a cui paragonare Sense and Sensibility, sceglierei Persuasion, l'altro romanzo in cui i personaggi sono altrettanto profondi e in cui la felicità è più intimamente sofferta e più giustamente meritata che altrove.

• Persuasion: ★★★★


DA LEGGERE
• Mansfield Park
• Emma

This book, The Complete Works of Jane Austen, is not to be confused with The Newly Discovered, Unfinished, & Finished Complete Works of Jane Austen. The first, which I have completed, contains only the larger, more popular novels that Austen is known for, while the other contains those novels along with many smaller obscure novels, novellas, poems, and letters. I have finished the major books, and am now working my way through the smaller ones.



As for my opinion on Austen:

As I work my way through the works of Jane Austen I find myself with manner of speech slightly affected and by no means convinced that Miss Jane Austen could be anything other than a classicist of the highest order. Here is my list of reasons forthwith that hath convinced me (that's a little Shakespeare influence creeping in, which I'm also reading):

1. Austen's manner of writing has bewitched me like no other. Her phrasing and intimate knowledge of propriety of the time period make her as unique as social virtues amoung the maids of a manor.

2. Then there's the length of time she's been around. The fortitude of her writing has helped her persevere through the duration of years since having first written the novels.

3. The magic factor is evident throughout her work and is evident alone in the number of story adaptations of her works out there.

4. When looking at her methods of form, it is said she was the beginning of the movement from neo-classicism to romanticism. So for this I think we can loosely put her into the category of introducing a new style of writing.

5. I think it almost need not be mentioned that Miss Austen has a huge following. I only pause a moment on it here to continue its course of perpetual provocation.

6. Because she is one believed to have begun the period change to Romanticism, it can therefore be concluded that she was looked on to be one of the first and an expert in the field. At the very least one to which all others might have been compared to.

7. Educators teach Austen because they find her easy to learn, familiar, and non-controversial. However, because of this she is taught often. And because she is taught often there has been some discourse as to her even being taught at all. Some have declared that they are vexed, and that she should not be "forced upon" English Literature students therefore eliciting a response to banning her. And so, it can therefore be concluded, that because she is not controversial, she is controversial and should be banned.

8. Underlying themes are pursuant throughout all of Austen's works. Human fallacies of disillusionment, unrequited love, and betrayal are just some of these. But if one looks closely, one is sure to find many more apparent within.

9. Austen also had substantial influence with social and political issues as a direct result of her writing. She wrote about problems that were a result of unfair laws and customs. They dealt a lot with women's rights. They were specifically problems with women inheriting money, women finding and having ways to make livings, neglect of education, social evaluations of worthiness based on wealth or income, and so on. She was one of the first authors to write on these matters in a clear and succinct form, so as to have an influence on other authors and persons of importance.

You will find more on this opinion here:
My thoughts on Austen's writings and the movies made relating to her works

The following are my reviews on each of the books listed in this novel:

Mansfield Park

Northanger Abbey

Emma

Persuasion

Pride & Prejudice

Sense & Sensibility

Jane Austin is one of my all time favorite authors. I have adored every single novel of hers!! Even though she is a classical author, her books are in no way stuffy or hard reads. She questions such topical themes as her titles suggest "pride and prejudice" and "sense and sensibility" with such wonderful humor and such passionate and extravagant characters. Her novels are always fun to read, hard to put down, and leave you wanting more. I'd recommend ANY Jane Austin book (though they are undoubtedly romantic and girly so perhaps not a favorite for guys.)

I have the old Modern Library edition of this book. Along with lots of other literary interests, I just love Jane Austen...can't say why really...she was definitely pushing the boudaries of the forms of the classical-era novel, and she reprsents an important feminist voice for her time. Mansfield Park is also an indictment against colonialism - she is one of the early (literary) critics of that phenomena.

Beyond the reasons why she might be important, the stories are just wonderful. Beyond rationality, I just feel good when I read her.

I couldn't stand Jane Austen in High School or College. In my effort to read classics I missed, I decided to re-read this. Let me preface this by saying I am a history buff. I even like to read History text books. Her novels used to be difficult to get through, but with a historical eye on the work, they give a wonderful glimpse into the class system, women's life, England, and social systems. I enjoyed the books this time around.

My all time FAVORITE stories!

Jane Austin was so brilliant at capturing human nature. Her characters are so colorful and you know someone exactly like each one! I feel like I can relate to each heroine on some level. While women's rights have come a long way, we still encounter some of the same obstacles in our relationships with others today. Every time I revisit these stories, I love them even more.

For those of you who read "The Jane Austin Book Club", don't laugh at me for reviewing the "complete works" OK?! Ha! Ha! I just wanted to let friends know these are GREAT books, until I can spend some time reviewing each one!