Jane Austen's Novels

Northanger Abbey

This playful short novel is the one which most resembles Jane Austen's Juvenilia. It is the story of the unsophisticated and sincere Catherine Morland on her first trip away from home, for a stay in Bath. There she meets the entertaining Henry Tilney; later, on a visit to his family's house (the "Northanger Abbey" of the title) she learns to distinguish between the highly charged calamities of Gothic fiction and the realities of ordinary life (which can also be distressing in their way). Like Jane Austen's Love and Freindship, this book makes fun of the conventions of many late 18th century literary works, with their highly wrought and unnatural emotions; some of this humor derives from the contrast between Catherine Morland and the conventional heroines of novels of the day.

An early version of the book was written under the title Susan (in 1798-99 according to Cassandra). It was actually the first of Jane Austen's novels sold to a publisher (a publisher named Crosby bought it in 1803 for £10). He advertised it as forthcoming, but never issued it. Jane Austen had the manuscript bought back more than ten years later, after several of her other novels had been published, and apparently made some revisions, but finally "put it on the shel[f]" (letter of March 13, 1816). It was only after her death in 1817 that her brother Henry finally had it published (together with Persuasion). The title "Northanger Abbey" was not chosen by Jane Austen (she referred to the book in her letter as "Miss Catherine").
 

Sense and Sensibility

This novel contrasts two sisters: Marianne, who, with her doctrines of love at first sight, fervent emotions overtly expressed, and admiration of the grotesque "picturesque", represents the cult of "sensibility"; and Elinor, who has much more "sense", but is still not immune from disappointments. Despite some amusing characters and true Jane Austen touches, it is not generally considered to be her best novel. According to Cassandra, it was probably the first of the novels to be started (sometime before 1797, under the early name Elinor and Marianne); it was worked on in 1797, and probably again heavily revised before publication in 1811.

It was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be published, and appeared without her name on the title page (only "By a Lady"). It was advertised as an `Interesting Novel', which meant (in the jargon of the day) that it was a love story. Jane Austen pledged herself to cover her publisher's losses, if necessary, but actually realized £140 in profit. It was one of only two novels that Jane Austen revised after publication, when a second edition came out in 1813. The first and second editions were probably not more than a thousand copies each, but the readership would have been very much larger, due to the institution of "circulating libraries" (book rental shops), and also the fact that the novel was published in three separately-bound volumes (as was the usual practice).
 

Pride and Prejudice

First published in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has consistently been Jane Austen's most popular novel. It portrays the initial misunderstandings and later mutual enlightenment between Elizabeth Bennet (whose liveliness and quick wit have often attracted readers) and the haughty Darcy. Jane Austen wrote in a letter about Elizabeth, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a character as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know". The title Pride and Prejudice refers (among other things) to the ways in which Elizabeth and Darcy first view each other. The original version of the novel was written in 1796-1797 under the title First Impressions, and was probably in the form of an exchange of letters; First Impressions was actually the first of Jane Austen's works to be offered to a publisher, in 1797 by Jane Austen's father, but the publisher turned it down without even looking at the manuscript.
 

Mansfield Park

This novel, originally published in 1814, is the first of Jane Austen's novels not to be a revised version of one of her pre-1800 writings. Mansfield Park has sometimes been considered atypical of Jane Austen, as being solemn and moralistic, especially when contrasted with the immediately preceding Pride and Prejudice and the immediately following Emma. Poor Fanny Price is brought up at Mansfield Park with her rich uncle and aunt, where only her cousin Edmund helps her with the difficulties she suffers from the rest of the family, and from her own fearfulness and timidity. When the sophisticated Crawfords (Henry and Mary), visit the Mansfield neighbourhood, the moral sense of each marriageable member of the Mansfield family is tested in various ways, but Fanny emerges more or less unscathed. The well-ordered (if somewhat vacuous) house at Mansfield Park, and its country setting, play an important role in the novel, and are contrasted with the squalour of Fanny's own birth family's home at Portsmouth, and with the decadence of London.
 

Emma

Emma, published in 1815, has been described as a "mystery story without a murder". The eponymous heroine is the charming (but perhaps too clever for her own good) Emma Woodhouse, who manages to deceive herself in a number of ways (including as to who is really the object of her own affections), even though she (and the reader) are often in possession of evidence pointing toward the truth. Like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, she overcomes self-delusion during the course of her novel. The book describes a year in the life of the village of Highbury and its vicinity, portraying many of the various inhabitants.
 

Persuasion

This relatively short novel, her last, was written in the last few years of Jane Austen's life, and published only after her death in 1817 (though she described it, in a letter of March 13 1816, as "a something ready for publication", she probably would have revised it further, if she had not already been ill with her eventually fatal disease by the time she stopped working on it). It involves an older heroine than any of her other novels do (Anne Elliot is 27), and is also the only novel whose events are explicitly dated to a specific year (1814-1815). Eight years before the novel begins, Anne Elliot (whom Jane Austen described in one of her letters as a "heroine [who] is almost too good for me") had been persuaded by an older friend of the family, whom she respects, to give up her engagement to the then-poor Captain Wentworth. Like Mansfield Park, this novel has a number of characters who are in the navy (two of Jane Austen's brothers were sailors), and several warm-hearted naval families are attractively depicted; these contrast favorably with Anne's own family, in which she is overlooked by her vain and rank-proud Baronet father and her cold and selfish elder sister. In its autumnal mood, this novel is more serious in tone than most of Jane Austen's other works, and perhaps is the most conventionally "romantic" of them (and thus the one which has given rise to the most speculation about her own affairs of the heart -- for example, by Kipling); however, there is still plenty of Jane Austen irony. Persuasion also contains more description of background and natural beauty than the previous novels. In her admiration for the seaside town of Lyme and dislike of Bath, Anne Elliot reflects her creator's preferences.

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