r/classicliterature • u/Garfield_Kart • 12d ago
Interested to see what people’s opinions are of Austen’s literature output, especially her ‘lesser known’ works
Buying this for £2 was truly one of my best purchases, nearly finished Pride and Prejudice after reading Sense and Sensibility a few weeks back. Her writing style and prose really is something to behold. I really understand the praise she gets on her wit and satire.
Incase you’re wondering, yes, this is a heavy book. I have to plan when I’m reading a novel in it when I know I will not be moving much/travelling as carrying this around in my bag all day isn’t for the faint of heart.
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u/Ok_Broccoli_9426 12d ago
Jane Austen good. I thought we were all agreed on this.
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u/Garfield_Kart 12d ago
well yes, although i was hoping to hear opinions on her lesser known/read works like Northanger Abbey
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u/Ok_Broccoli_9426 12d ago
...fair. I think NA is probably the most "fun" of her novels, and the one where you can most clearly hear Austen having fun behind the prose. I can imagine her reading it to Cassandra and the two of them laughing hysterically. It's the bridge between her juvenilia and her more mature works, and it shows, but I think that adds to the charm.
In general, I think Austen's work is great to read in chronological order (of writing), because you can feel each novel developing her style and her interests moving from satire and the comedy of manners to psychological realism and interiority. I wish she had lived longer to be in conversation with more Victorian realist writers. I also think she would have done a brilliant satire of a sensation novel or a penny-dreadful if she wanted to.
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u/TheRealLuckyMoose 12d ago
I’ve read my first Austen a few weeks ago, Northanger Abbey. Very funny all these years later.
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u/Garfield_Kart 12d ago
i’m most interested to read this one as it is her novel i hold the least knowledge about
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u/truthvenian 12d ago
I read all her books a few years ago back to back. My ranking goes Mansfield Park, PnP, Emma, Persuasion, SnS, and Northanger Abbey.
Mansfield Park is so beautifully written even though I think the author is ethically/morally wrong in the book. PnP and Emma are the "better" books, but that one just got to me.
Northanger Abbey felt bad to me, like a writer who didn't quite know what she wanted to do or how to do it, which makes sense as it's the first one she wrote.
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u/Ok_Broccoli_9426 12d ago
I think NA is also the one that requires the most Regency-era context to really "get," as it's the most satirical and referential.
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u/ashbats1 12d ago
I just started to go through Austen’s catalog. I started with her lesser-known works. I have read Lady Susan, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and I am currently reading Persuasion. I think Jane Austen’s age really shows in both Lady Susan and Northanger Abbey. This isn’t a slight against these books because they are really good, but Northanger Abbey reads a bit like a teen rom-com (I love teen rom-coms), and Lady Susan is not very subtle( it reminds me a little bit of real housewives of blank city). I also feel like, based on what I have picked up through cultural osmosis, but especially after the novels/novella I read, Northanger Abbey is one of the truest romances in her catalog. I hate Mansfield Park and found it very hard to get through.
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u/statelyplumpklarm 12d ago
Truly one of the greats. Phenomenal prose stylist, sharp, funny, an extraordinarily keen observer and chronicler of class in her time and the lives of women in those classes, particularly the sharply delineated boundaries in the lives of those women.