My Favorite Author: Jane Austen

 I was a senior in high school when I was first introduced to Jane Austen. We had to write a paper on one of two books: Jekyll and Hyde or Pride and Prejudice. I was literally the only one who chose to read Pride and Prejudice out of the whole class, and I'm so glad I did!

I immediately fell in love with Austen’s writing style and humor. I love how she creates strong characters who are always witty and speak their mind. She manages to tie romance, humor, and a great storyline where the good almost always wins. My kind of writer :)  

If you never read Jane Austen before and would like to try, there are a couple of ways in which you could start. I would say the most obvious way would be to try with the shortest novel, Persuasion. In my opinion, this is also the funniest of her novels as the heroine, Anne, is quite sarcastic. Persuasion would give a new Jane Austen reader a good introduction to her writing style and a lot of laughs.

You could also try it this way:

DATE OF PUBLICATION

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice (1813)
• Mansfield Park (1814)
• Emma (1815)
• Northanger Abbey (1818, posthumous)
• Persuasion (1818, posthumous)

Or this way:

WRITTEN ORDER

• Northanger Abbey (1798-99)

• Sense and Sensibility (1797)

• Pride and Prejudice (written in the late 1790s as First Impressions, rewritten in 1811-12)

• Mansfield Park (1811-12)

• Emma (1814-15)

• Persuasion (1815-16)

If you like, you can also start with my personal favorites: Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park.