Jane Austen has become a pillar of the Western Canon, rising from modest fame during her lifetime to sweeping popularity in the twentieth century and today. Yale literary critic Harold Bloom notes, “We read Austen because she seems to know us better than we know ourselves, and she seems to know us so intimately for the simple reason that she helped determine who we are both as readers and as human beings.”
Though Austen is sometimes unjustly reduced to romantic fodder by contemporary readers, she has been adored by writers and critics from Walter Scott to Henry James. In fact, the original Janeites were a group of male scholars devoted to her genius. Charles Darwin’s son Francis describes how his father would request Austen be read to him during the afternoons in his later life; “[My father] was extremely fond of novels . . . and would anticipate the pleasure of having a novel read to him. . . . Walter Scott, Miss Austen, and Mrs. Gaskell were read and re-read till they could be read no more.”
Austen’s six novels—presented here, complete and unabridged—are rife with sharp irony, sparkling wit, and savvy social commentary. Setting her stories among the landed gentry in England, Austen had a special talent for stitching grand themes into everyday circumstances. More than mere marriage plots, her stories of flawed and ordinary characters explore the plight of nineteenth-century women, romantic choice, and individual’s relationship to society. Her elegance, insight, and subtle humor have continued to attract readers from all walks of life for over two centuries.
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