Jane Austen novel question?

Question

What Jane Austen novel (not counting Pride and Prejudice...I've read that) is your favorite? I really want to keep reading her books but I'm not sure which one I should read first.

Answer 1

Persuasion

I don't know much about Sense and Sensability, but all my friends who have read them all like Sense and Sensibility best.

Answer 2

I love Emma. She's a young woman of privilege who has never seen the near by sea because her hypochondriac father would never go there. She has just lost her dearest friend to marriage so her emotional world is growing ever smaller.  Because she lacks much intellectual or emotional stimulation in her life she dabbles in silly matchmaking. Just when it seems that she will lose her truest companion she realizes that she loves him and that she and no one else must marry him. They walk together in the garden and she carelessly turns away from him, afraid that she will hear that he has committed himself to another woman, and then finds the courage to turn back and hear whatever it is he has to say..  And then...well, she finally gets to visit the sea. Its the most perfect ending with the best romantic hero, I feel, in all fiction.  Read it and enjoy.

Answer 3

Persuasion is a great read.  You'll recognize the character types (ie. silly girls, social climbers, quiet, thoughtful people) from P&P.

Northanger Abbey is a lot of fun.  The main character is a girl from a poor family who loves reading Gothic novels, so the book is structured Gothically and the some of the scenes read in a highly dramatic manner.

In truth all of Austen's novels (and novellas, like Lady Susan) are well-written, charming and pose interesting views on society life and the impressions that people make on each other.

Happy reading!

Answer 4

Sense and Sensibility and Emma are my other favorites.

Answer 5

Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Emma.

Emma I like because you really feel like Emma lives in a community, with lots of other people with their own ups and downs.  You know what's going on in the lives of the Perry's, the Coxes, the Coles, the Bates's, they all get mentioned throughout the book.  The Bertrams might as well live in a desert, since they don't seem to have any neighbors at all.

Maybe I'm just an iconoclast, or "elitist" but I have read and re-read those 3 and S&S a bunch of times, but I don't re-read P&P very often at all.

Answer 6

I don't mean to sound like an echo, but Persuasion is my second favorite Jane Austen novel.

In my opinion it is the most romantic of Jane Austen's novels. It also deals with second chances.

Anne is Jane Austen's oldest (27) and most gentle heroine, but there is nothing insipid about her nor is she boring; Captain Frederick Wentworth is one of her most dashing heroes.

However, every single book and story by Jane Austen is worth reading. I'd recommend reading each one.

The only one I wouldn't recommend is her unfinished novel, The Watsons. I forget how many pages there were (perhaps around 100), but it was VERY frustrating to realize the story would never be finished. Ah, well...