Reading Order

Hopefully this isn't somewhere else, therefore making my post unnecessary. But, I was curious about what order everyone has read the novels? I always think it is interesting to see which people choose to read first.

Furthermore, what order do you recommend reading them in?

My reading order was:

Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Mansfield Park
Persuasion
Emma
Yet to read Northanger Abbey

If I were introducing someone to Austen I would probably have him/her start with Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion.

I read Northanger Abby first for a class. While still in college a friend recommended Pride and Prejudice. I think Emma was next and then maybe Sense and Sensibility. I am not sure what order I read Persuasion and Mansfield Park.

I would definitely recommend Pride and Prejudice first and then maybe Sense and Sensibility.

I wasn't keeping such good track of things back when I read these, but I think I did Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion. Mostly in chronological order, I guess, though that was not at all purposeful.

My order:

Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Emma
Persuasion
Sanditon
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey

I too recommend reading Pride and Prejudice first, or Northanger Abbey.

I read Emma first, and I don't recommend it as a first Austen. It took me a long time to pick up my second. I still don't like Emma, and I wonder if I'd like it better if I'd read it later on.

>6 Nickelini:, Nickelini, I don't think anyone likes Emma! I'm looking forward to re-reading it when this group does and seeing if I like it more the second time around.

>7 fannyprice:. Actually, somebody does. I *love* Emma, always have. Oh, there are flaws, no doubt. But it appeals to this old incurable romantic. I love the story of Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, among other things. Whenever I read it or listen to it again, I get quite a kick out of laughing at Emma thinking she's in charge of everything. And she means well; she's not an unpleasant person, she just thinks more of her own opinion than her knowledge warrants!

The one I don't like is Mansfield Park. Clearly it's one of your favorites, but I have trouble with it. I think my biggest problem is that all of the characters seems less fleshed out than I'm used to with Austen.

>8 DianeS:, DianeS, I stand corrected! My problem with Emma was that it just seemed so long, in a sort of meandering way. I actually loved the character & I loved how Austen used subtle tricks to allow Emma to present herself as completely authoritative while still hinting to the reader that perhaps she didn't quite see the truth of the world the way she thought she did. I just felt tired of it after reading it.

Mansfield Park is one of my favorites, but I think its partially due to the fact that at the time I read it, I really identified with Fanny in her struggle to stick to her guns under pressure from forces and people she didn't feel were quite right. I agree that some of the characters in the book are less interesting than in other Austen works - Edmund, perhaps, is the dullest person in the history of literature. :) What kills me about this book is that the most interesting and attractive characters - the Crawfords - are the villains! While reading, it took me a little while to realize that Mary was not going to be any kind of heroine in the story. Early on, I think she seems much more like a typical Jane Austen heroine in the Elizabeth Bennet model than Fanny does.

I read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility many years ago. My reading goal for this year is to read the other works of Austen. I started with Lady Susan, one of her lesser known works, and thoroughly enjoyed this novella in letters.

Next up were Persuasion and Northanger Abbey which I followed by watching the PBS adaptations. It's enjoyable to see the characters come to life on the TV screen.

I've just begun Mansfield Park. Edmund may be dull, but he is nice to Fanny when she really needs a friend. I will probably read (and watch) Emma next and follow through with a rereading of S&S and save my favorite (so far) Pride and Prejudice for last.

A shorter answer to the query would have been: I am reading the books according to the order that I have taped them from PBS. Each book definitely has something to recommend it.

I wanted to ask everyone how would you feel about reading Presumption by Julia Barrett The Sequel to Pride and Prejudice? Has anyone read it before? Any thoughts on how it measures up to Austen's work? I was just curious since I own a copy of this book and haven't read it yet. Do you think Jane Austen herself would've actually liked Presumption?

beatles1964

I thought Presumption was pretty dull, nothing really great. I read it a long time ago, so I don't remember it well, but it didn't make a big impression on me.

I love long books. I'm a quick reader and often I prefer the long, complicated, informative books, and Emma falls in all those categories! James Michener is one of my favorite authors, which is explained by the long, complicated, and informative. Well researched is also appreciated!

I agree that Edmund is deadly dull. I never bought his interest in Mary. I find Fanny to be as dull as Edmund (meaning the character, of course!), but her younger sister that shows up near the end seemed to have possibilities to me. I don't think I ever cared for Henry. His insistence on toying with young women who were engaged to or married to other people bothers me a lot. And I lost most interest in Mary when she encouraged him. I'm not usually so judgmental, but I suspect I wasn't supposed to like them much. That left me with almost no one to like, and that never works for me! And I'm not really used to thinking of Jane Austen as judgmental -- the characters in all the books have (generally charming) flaws, but she never seemed to think less of them because of them. She even managed to make the poisonous Mr. Collins in P&P seem just silly and Emma's dad was only weak and querulous, rather than self-centered and supremely inconsiderate. But Henry and Mary don't seem to get her understanding treatment. Henry does have a few moments where he seems like he might redeem himself, but otherwise, once their flaws are revealed, to me they lose all charm.

I would have liked Fanny better if, when she was sent home, she had worked to make the best of a bad situation. I don't like people or characters who are so weak that they don't even *try* to help themselves. (Judgmental. That's evidently my middle name today!)

I have no idea what order I read them in, other than knowing that Pride and Prejudice came first.

I also read Pride and Prejudice first, then Sense and Sensibility. I don't remember the order of the others except Northanger Abbey was last and I think the least of her novels, probably because she intended it as a parody of gothic novels and the heroine is so silly, it's hard to like her. But I saw it on PBS a few months ago and I thought they did an amazing job with it. I had trouble with Mansfield Park because Fanny was just too lacking in spirit.

I believe I read Pride and Prejudice first followed by Sense and Sensibility then Emma I think after that it was Persuasion then Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey followed by Sanditon and the Watsons and finally Jane Austen's Letters

I think unlike those who dislike Emma and Northanger Abbey those heroines don't bother me because Austen is lovingly satirizing them. They are meant to think they are sensible and do foolish things. I have a much harder time with Fanny for being too trod upon.

Hey I was wondering what book are we supposed to be reading at the moment. I'm afraid that I am was behin reading my Jane Austen Novels. Can someone Please bring me up to speed as to what Novel everyone is reading right now.

beatles1964

My reading order was

Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility

Northanger Abbey
Mansfield Park

Emma
Persuasion

I read the first two back to back, many years ago. Probably because I felt at the time they were the most well known ones. I read the next two back to back, about a year ago. I read the last two back to back, just earlier iths year. Don't ask my why I chose the read the Austen novels in pairs. I'll have to reread the first two again one of these days, but there are so many other books out there I haven't read...

>9What kills me about this book is that the most interesting and attractive characters - the Crawfords - are the villains!

I agree! The Crawfords, both of them, were great. By far my favorite characters of the book. Was Jane Austen so stuffy as to see them as villains, or was she spoofing the Upper Class society of the time?

>19 devious_dantes:, What I've read in assorted places is that Austen was trying to set up a contrast between the old values of the country estate and the new values associated with urban spaces (particularly London), using Fanny/Edmund and the Crawfords as sort of human examples of those values. They are supposed to be glimmering and seductive, but shallow and hollow inside. "All that glitters is not golden...." and all that, I think. I don't think though that Austen means to show the old country estates as perfect - the Bertrams are basically terrible parents, Tom is the model of dissipation, the daughters shallow and stupid, and then there's that whole "their wealth is based on slavery" thing.... This novel always struck me as a novel about social change and culture clashes. Fanny, who is of neither world really, despite living in the former, is supposed to breathe new life and values into the older moneyed class, I think. I don't think either world is really held up as being "good."

I think Austen does a good job in this novel highlighting the theme of parenting, which gets touched on in earlier novels. Neither the Bertram nor the Crawford children have had the best parental role models. Neither group of children was really raised with "good values", as it were. And I think you see that play out very vividly in the bad choices that each group makes. I do think we're supposed to have some sympathy for at least Mary Crawford, though. With a better moral compass, she could have been Elizabeth Bennet, which (as we all know) is every woman's goal (at least in a 19th century English novel)!

>20 fannyprice:

Thst is an excellent explanation. Since I identified with the Crawfords more, I guess that makes me a city slicker! I agree with you about Mary Crawford, as well. It did almost seem as though she wanted to be more Elizabethan, if you'll pardon the expression, but didn't know how.

After all this time since the book was written, I don't think things have changed much. :P

I believe I can help answer this question. I too had the same question just a couple hours ago. I was in the midst (in the truest sense of the most unsettling form of the phrase) of reading Emma - after having read (and utterly loved), in this order, N Abbey, S&S (my favorite, hands down), and P&P. I could never get into Emma. Even after spending a good deal of time with it in close reading (as I do) and getting to, I believe, chapter 9 of the first volume, I was still (it really amazes me!) not emotionally attached to ANY OF THE CHARACTERS. It was/is the strangest thing. (And omfg, the dad! What the hell is with Jane Austen writing the dad as the utterly wimpiest little vermin in all of literature?!! It is mind boggling! What what is with that?! Did she hate her father? I don't believe it!) So. Upon realizing that I was not emotionally attached at all to the characters (oh, I just realized that I was very much rooting for/saddened by Robert Martin and his little love for Harriet), I decided to go back to my prior plan to myself to read Jane's books in order - and so I picked up Mansfield Park. After 1/2 of a page I realized this was the best decision I have made in - a long time, let's jsut say. It took me about an hour to read the first page alone because I was just so happy to be back in true Jane Austen world. My god! after reading Emma for so long (it seemed like a few months but was only about 10 days) I was beginning to question what had happened to me! Why had I so loved Jane Austen before, and now I was either incapable of love anymore, or was made to realize that the past me was off base in admiring her novels in the first place, perhaps I was naive. ... No. SO refreshing that that is not the case. See, there is something sinister about Emma! And I think it has everything to do with the fact that, at the point of her writing it, Jane Austen had become "a successful novelist." She had a comfortable living, and she had celebrity. (I don't quite know how comfortable, or how much celebrity - perceived or otherwise - but a good deal more than she had before! (which was nil)). By the bye, I believe that Emma Woodhouse is, essentially, the "woman" (the spirit, the entity) that *persuaded* Anne Elliott to give up love!! OMG! Do you see it?? Emma Woodhouse is the devil! ... So. Yes, I would not recommend reading Emma out of order, at least. I have not read Persuasion, so I don't know if it would be best to read that before Emma, and after Mans Park, but definitely, do read Emma 5th at the earliest. Do not let it taint the delights of Jane's other novels! (The novels which have delighted me into calling her "Janey, and thinking her just so damn adorable! I love herr to pieces). Emma, on the other hand, is an anomaly, to say the least. I appreciate it, that is for sure; it is definitely genius (critics have said that it is "her best," (but critics are a-holes and have no souls), and I believe they say that because it might be the most complex, and the most genius (they all are that), but it is a chore and an anomaly, and I personally will only read it while making sure to not let it infect Jane's other lovely books.
Long story short, I would recommend this order: Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, probably Persuasion (?), Emma. Or you can switch the first two, really. They are all delightful. Mans Park has been said to be "a little bitter," and I am already seeing that, so you should probably keep it at 4th.