The Official Jane Austen Book Club discussion

I want to start getting into Jane Austen. Was wondering what book I should start first <3

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Persuasion
3. Emma
4. Northanger Abbey
5. Sense and Sensibility
6. Mansfield Park
They all have different charms.
That is my favorite in order. P&P is the most classic for a reason. Persuasion is beautiful and more serious, but also more mature.
Emma is funny because she is so deluded. NA is also very funny. S&S is a lovely portrait of two very different sisters. MP is longer and serious. Probably not a good first book to start your Jane Austen journey.
Good luck. There is no bad Austen. Just a matter of preference as to what you like best.

Hi, Angie! If you are on the young side, I think it can be fun to start with Northanger Abbey because the heroine is quite young and acts like a teenager. (Also the hero of that book is my favorite Austen man.) Sense and Sensibility would be a second choice for a younger reader. Pride and Prejudice is the most widely popular and it’s fun to read, and Persuasion is the most swoony.

Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice used to be my favorites, but in my old age I’ve moved to preferring Mansfield Park, which has the most meaty historical themes. Hard to go wrong!

Henry in NA is great and Catherine is fun. Fanny in MP is also a teen but has a Debbie Downer vibe.

I agree with most of the others Northanger Abbey is the first you should read!

I always found the first chapter of Sense and Sensibility difficult when I was younger. I now rank it just below the opening chapters of Pride and Prejudice for humor. My ranking below is suggested for a new to Austen reader and other comments suggest you are young which influences the list Persuasion is full of subtext which life experiences have helped me to catch. I have been reading and loving all her novels since I discovered her at 11 so I do not doubt that a young person can appreciate her books. If you are a Bronte fan you will either love or hate M. P. depending on how you view Fanny. To me Fanny is the most courageous of all Austen heroines she is in the weakest position and makes the boldest choices for the sake of principles. She is often described as too mild. If you can tolerate an epistolary novel the wicked Lady Susan should be slipped in after Emma. It is pretty short.

1. N.A.
2. P. & P.
3. Emma
4. S. & S.
5. Persuasion
6. M. P.

Lady Susan is delightfully wicked. An antihero.

I also love Fanny from MP! I always thought of her as a very strong character in an emotional sense for what she had to go through with her family. I loved her sense of morals and how she stuck to what she knew what was right throughout the entire novel. I love characters like Fanny, I never find too many characters who are strong like that anymore, sadly.

I do have a soft spot for MP because of Fanny, but S&S was my favorite the first time I read the books, probably because that was the first book I read of Austin's

I never carried for Fanny. Austen has plenty of other introverts I like. I like Jane Bennet, Jane Fairfax, Anne Elliot, Elinor Dashwood, Charlotte Lucas, but I have never cared for Fanny in the least. She has no sense of humor. As much as I dislike Fanny, I do think she deserves better than the being second best for her drip of a cousin.

I think P&P is a perfectly constructed novel, and one I think should be read by anyone who wants to write fiction. All of Austen's work have merit, but I think P&P is superb.

J. wrote: "I think P&P is a perfectly constructed novel, and one I think should be read by anyone who wants to write fiction. All of Austen's work has merit, but I think P&P is superb."

Interesting take, J.! When I couldn’t figure out how to develop a plot in a systematic way, I sat down with P&P and adapted it, scene by scene, to a modern American cultural context. Taught me a lot!

i think p&p is by far the easiest to get into, so a good one to start with, but persuasion is my overall favorite—it has much more depth (jane austen herself agreed; she thought p&p was too “light and bright and sparkling,” and needed some shadow to even it out).

I actually started out listening to an Audible dramatized narration of her whole collection:
The Jane Austen Collection from 2020. It's only got the 6 novels, but I'm enjoying them. As to my favorite, it's a tie between Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion.

But then I'm an older reader, and in Sense and Sensibility, I absolutely loved the contrast in personalities between the sisters, though at times I was finding Marianne a bit on the ridiculous side from time to time.

In Persuasion, I like the theme of romantic second chances.

Second most liked for me would be Mansfield Park, tied with Pride and Prejudice.

I haven't read the novelization for Emma yet or Northanger Abbey yet, but I have seen the movie version of Emma. I'm pretty sure the books will be different.

I’ve only read two. Well, I’m in the process of reading the second one. I’ve finished Sense and Sensibility and I’m currently reading Pride and Prejudice. I’m liking Pride and Prejudice but I think I liked Sense and Sensibility more because it was focusing more on the two sisters than the man and woman.

My favorite has migrated over the years. In my teens I loved Persuasion but now it’s my least favorite. Henry Tilney is my favorite hero but I find Northanger Abbey overall a bit coy. I reread Pride and Prejudice the most often but my favorite of the main novels is now Mansfield Park, for its ambition, discipline, and structural complexity.

However, for the past 50 years the Austen work that has been my obsession is The Watsons. She may have been defeated by it but I love that she tried to write a full-on realist novel with autobiographical elements.

I think I agree with you Abigail.

MY first experience was Pride and Prejudice and I will always have a great fondness for it. For many years I would have said that Persuasion was my favourite but these days I prefer Mansfield Park and, dare I say it, Emma.

I have recently read Lucy Worsley book and very much appreciated her slant on Mansfield Park.

I cannot see Fanny happy in the life she wanted. A pastor's wife was expected to serve and Fanny is very timid and does does not really have any useful skills. She was a lady's companion to her aunt. Charlotte Lucas, on the other hand, is made from sterner stuff. She knows how to handle difficult people. We also know from the text of P&P the Lucas girls cook and do household chores, unlike the Bennet girls. When Charlotte makes parish calls on the poor, the sick, the needy, she is much more capable of rolling up her sleeves and getting to work doing what needs to be done. I have a hard time seeing the frail Fanny doing the same.

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Emma
3. Sense and Sensibility
4. Mansfield Park
5. Persuasion
6. Northanger Abbey

I think Pride and Prejudice is the perfectly crafted novel. The construction is really impeccable, which may be one reason it's so easily adaptable.
I also appreciate Mansfield Park - Fanny is quite different from Austen's other heroines because she's defined by her virtues; other Austen heroines are defined by their imperfections.

J. Rubino,
I totally agree with you!!

Emma I could read it over and over again! with Pride and Prejudice as a close second!

Emma is very funny. Miss Bates is a great character.

I think that after many rereadings, and reassessments, and thinking, I would rank Austen as author
1). Emma (narrative genius)
2. Mansfield Park (not much likeable here: why?
3. Persuasion
4. Pride and Prejudice
5. Northanger Abbey--but considering her age and her wit, it's a really wonderful work.
6).Sense and Sensibility: wonderful characters

My rankings are all very close; I am judging these as works of art.
As far as characterizations go, I will stand with this group although they are really all clustered at between 9 and 10 in my rankings.
I would change my rankings if you asked me to base it on wit, on sympathetic characters, on narrative genius, etc.

Emma
Pride and Prejudice