I am curious to get other fans’ opinions on their favorite Jane Austen work. If you please, list the books, from your most to your least favorite. And please don’t confuse the book with the movie, because if that were the case, my number one would probably drop down to the bottom. Feel free to elaborate further.

Let me get this started...

- Pride and Prejudice (what did you expect?)
- Persuasion
- Mansfield Park
- Northanger Abbey
- Emma
- Sense and Sensibility

Of course, you don’t want to add the ones you haven’t read. After all, I know a few JA fan(atics) who have read only two or three of her novels.

I did not include her earlier writings, letters, nor unfinished novels since they seem to me to belong to a different class of work, but you are welcome to do so, if you wish. Love and Freindship (yes, it is indeed spelt that way), History of England, etc., are amazing in that they already manifested the sharp wit and scathing criticality that were her trademark.

My first three, I believe, are semi-autobiographical works in the sense that the main characters (Lizzy, Anne, and Fanny) bear a striking similarity to Jane Austen herself, her opinions and temperament, particularly at the time when she was writing each one. It is also very interesting and fun to try and find correlations between a number of fictional characters and real persons in her life.

Jane Austen was also a stickler for accuracy. Characters, places and things (esp. sailing ships) were based on real experience. Places written about can be traced to actual places that she had been to. Her letters attest to the fact that she hated Bath, the exact same sentiments expressed by Anne Elliot. I’m sure she refused to write about anything that she had no personal experience with, which explains the fact that there is not one situation in her novels that show gentlemen interacting/conversing among themselves with no lady present.

Okay, your turn!