Jane Austen
6 books analyzed
Biography
Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote Emma in 1814-1815, completing it at roughly the same age as Emma herself and at the height of her powers. She had published Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813) to success; Emma was dedicated to the Prince Regent at his request, though Austen privately found him objectionable. She lived in Chawton with her mother and sister, dependent on male relatives, acutely aware of the economic stakes for women without fortunes. She never married. She died in 1817, aged 41, before seeing the full scope of her reputation. Emma was the last novel she completed in her lifetime.
Jane Austen at a glance
Works
Emma
1815 · 474 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
A novel about a woman who is wrong about everything — and the masterpiece is that you agree with her the whole time.
Mansfield Park
1814 · 483 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
Austen's most morally serious novel — a quiet girl in a loud house becomes the conscience no one asked for.
Northanger Abbey
1817 · 260 pages · ★★☆☆☆ Moderate
A young woman raised on Gothic novels arrives at a real abbey and discovers that real life is far more dangerous — and far more ordinary — than fiction.
Persuasion
1817 · 249 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
A love story about a woman who made the wrong choice at nineteen and spends eight years paying for it — until the man she rejected writes the most devastating letter in English literature.
Pride and Prejudice
1813 · 432 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
A comedy of manners with a razor underneath — Austen dismantles the marriage market her own survival depended on.
Sense and Sensibility
1811 · 409 pages · ★★★☆☆ Challenging
Two sisters, one heart of sense, one of sensibility — and Austen wants you to question which is worse.
Diction Across Works
formal-comic-ironic
formal-ironic
formal-interior
ironic-formal
formal-ironic