The most recommended Jane Austen books

Samuel Bamford was a poor Lancashire weaver who lived in Lancashire – a long way from Jane Austen’s Hampshire home.

Bamford and other workers campaigned for workers to be given the vote – but this was a dangerous era for anyone who tried to rock the government vote. Samuel’s recollections show what daily life was like for those who had to earn their living.

In 1819, Bamford’s hope for a better life led him and his wife to a famous workers’ meeting in Manchester – where the infamous ‘Peterloo’ massacre took place. 

Ennui is a hidden gem of a novel. I admire the way it deftly weaves together personal lives and political histories on either side of the Irish Sea. I have come to feel strongly that the author, Maria Edgeworth, is unjustly overlooked by literary history in favour of Jane Austen. Yet Austen drew inspiration from her older contemporary. In this novel, Edgeworth draws on French words and ideas to tell the tale of an over-entitled English lounge lizard who is cured of his fashionable affliction—the ennui of the title—by his travels and travails in Ireland. The result is a cosmopolitan novel crackling with invention and implication.

The originality of this novel in being a first-person narration by a Catholic working man on an English-owned Irish estate is extraordinary (as too its original popularity, since its readers must largely have been from the class which is described so unflatteringly in the novel!).

Edgeworth clearly took her inspiration from her own Irish workforce and, indeed, her own dissolute, spendthrift, conniving, or weak-willed relations, hence the novel’s reliability in terms of historical accuracy – enhanced by her own explanatory Glossary.

Sir Walter Scott loved it, and Jane Austen (whom Edgeworth outsold in her day) was a fan – so who am I to disagree?

Jane Austen wrote and revised most of her novels in a cottage lent to her by her brother in Chawton, England. This book is a fictional account of a group of individuals in post-World War II Chawton who are all lost—or have experienced great loss. They band together in an attempt to save Jane Austen’s home from destruction. I loved getting to experience the story from each of the character’s perspectives, and the author’s prose is delightful. This novel is a testament to how people from all walks of life have been changed by Jane Austen, and how reading Jane Austen can save us.

There are many biographies and other narratives of Jane Austen, with many published since 1997, when Professor Park Honan updated his original book. Even so, his biography is still, in my opinion, the best. It is comprehensive, detailed, and accurate, with copious endnotes. The author also had unparalleled help from descendants of Jane Austen. His writing style is straightforward, and he is excellent at depicting the overall context of her life and how it influenced her writing, from her two brothers in the Royal Navy to productions in the London theatres.

Rutherford’s saga follows the story of the New Forest in southern England, a place a number of my own books are set.

He has a deep love and fascination for the places, people, and traditions of the Forest, all the things that make it unique. I love how the stories shift and blend into each other, how details of history flow forward century to century into the future, and the many different ways people love and make choices about their home and the land they live on.

Most of all, Rutherford simultaneously puts a very human face on the New Forest, without losing any of the power and magic of the woods and bogs, plants and animals of the land itself.

I believe that Jane Austen’s novels continue to be massively popular largely because she possessed a talent for creating uniquely authentic and complex female heroines, and never more so than in Emma.

Austen famously said of Emma that she would be “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” From the opening line of the novel, we are set up to dislike this “handsome, clever, and rich” heroine.

Nevertheless, over the course of the novel we fall in love with Emma because despite her worst qualities—spoilt, headstrong, self-important—she is also smart, loyal, affectionate, and honest.

Against Austen’s prognosis, Emma does not prove unlikable, rather she is so entirely, compellingly human that we love her as we do our own sisters, friends, and daughters.

In few pages of literature we will find such a remarkably clear-eyed, beautiful portrait of a young woman on the threshold of maturity.

Jane Austen is unparalleled in her depiction of good and evil on a domestic level. While the situations are slightly less dramatic than in the other books I have selected, Mansfield Park compellingly presents the consequences of habituated action. Fanny Price is not perfect and certainly not most people’s cup of tea, but, like all Austen heroines, represents virtue and a growing self-knowledge over the course of the novel. The Crawford siblings are vivid examples of dulled moral vision. Without committing the literary sin of giving away the end, I will say that the “anti-romance” trajectory of the plot is wonderfully satisfying. Further, Sir Thomas Bertram may be my favorite male Austen character of all.

Partly as a result of one of my numerous misguided educational choices and partly out of genuine interest, I did a lot of work in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century English literature. I wish I’d had Ashton’s book, as it’s a social history of England back then and a basic anthology of what was being reported at the time, with dozens of reproductions of drawings. 

Jane Austen is a favorite novelist of mine, and when you look at the section on women’s fashions, it definitely changes how you see her women—and how the men saw them. 

At the same time, the picture of an England beset by riots, mutinies, and social chaos is not only a useful corrective but a potent reminder of how little our society has changed.

Natalie Jenner sets her story of post-World War II feminism in a bookstore in England.

Three women, each of whom has proved their worth during the war years, must now face the fact that men are taking the reins once again. And yet, as Jenner makes clear, it is the women who have the intelligence, the ideas, and the skills to make this stagnant bookshop a vibrant and thriving place.

Jenner has done her research, and I love the way the setting and characters come alive, as do some real-life literary characters (always wonderful when that works). It's never a question that things will change at the shop—but how that happens makes for a delightful and satisfying read.

Persuasion is Austen’s most mature and humane novel, often overlooked for Pride and Prejudice. 

Anne Elliot has lost her looks and her home. She goes to visit her younger sister and then moves permanently to Bath. Into these scenes enters the one man she ever loved and was persuaded not to marry.

He now has a tidy fortune, and Anne watches from the sidelines as he flirts with her sisters-in-law. She keeps a bland demeanor as her heart shatters over and over again, and I admire this, as well as her steadfastness of heart when all hope is lost.

I have to read this novel once a year for its serious look at how women can love.

Any tour of Regency England needs to start with the familiar, and Jane Austen’s England provides an excellent overview of the geography, traditions, and politics of the period. Though the title says Jane Austen, I love how much detail it has on things Austen never wrote about, like childrearing and crime (especially counterfeiting, which you’ll have to read to believe!). Whether you read it cover to cover or search out interesting facts, this book has everything you need to start your journey.

In Shannon Winslow’s Regency retelling of Pride and Prejudice, we finally get to experience the story from Darcy’s perspective. The story closely follows the original novel, but with some added scenes that fill in the gaps during the time when Darcy is apart from Elizabeth. Ms. Winslow cleverly added an original character as a rival love interest for Darcy. I enjoyed seeing a totally different side to Austen’s most famous novel and witnessing Darcy’s character growth as he struggles to overcome his own pride and prejudice and find true love.

Another first in series, this book, set in 19th century London, introduces Rosalind Thorne.

Nearly ruined after her father abandoned the family, she makes her living by managing the affairs of society women. There are probably more murders in these stories than among the ton in reality, but the mysteries keep things lively.

And the romance? Attractions to her old love, now a duke, and an attractive Bow Street investigator add deliciously to the intrigue. I have just read book 4 and need to find the next. Enjoy!

Hundreds (possibly thousands) of biographies of Austen have been written, but Tomalin’s work has long been a favourite of mine.

Her sympathetic portrait of Jane digs deep into her early family life, schooldays, literary influences, and early authorship. Jane’s relationship with her mother; her family’s encouragement of her writings; the fear of poverty after her father’s death; the disastrous (rejected) marriage proposal, and her literary legacy are all detailed with warmth and energy. 

This book also falls into the mystery subgenre of Jane Austen variations. The story takes place as a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, with Elizabeth and Darcy at the center of it. I found this story to be completely chilling, with a surprise twist at the end that I did not see coming. Ms. Jeffers delivered a page-turner that I couldn’t put down!

I’ll read anything by Curtis Sittenfeld, and this modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice I started the day it came out.

Sittenfeld brilliantly updates Austen to make the classic story more relevant than ever. The Bennet sisters curse! Jane Bennet is almost 40! Mr. Bingley was on a reality dating show!

As someone who has also written an Austen retelling (my first novel, Ladies of the House, is inspired by Sense and Sensibility), I admire Sittenfeld’s care with the plot points we all love from the original—you’ll laugh out loud when our modern Darcy and Liz Bennet meet for the first time. 

I have always loved visiting the city of Naples – for the great food, the rich history, and the warm locals who remind me of my southern Italian relatives. Ferrante’s novels go deep into the complexities of a female friendship that spans many decades, while also bringing to life a wide range of characters who I grew to love and truly care about, while devouring this extraordinary series.

This modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility charms with its tea shop setting, complicated sisterly relationships, and seamless prose.

But the real appeal to this book is the obvious love and expertise with which Lodge describes food, tea, and all their accoutrements. The delicious recipes at the end of each chapter certainly don’t hurt either.

Need some baking inspiration? Just flip through and choose from recipes like Cranberry Vanilla Scones, Pear and Earl Gray Hand Pies, and Raspberry Cream Cheese Kolaches.

We still read Jane Austen because she gently exposes the foibles of her characters as they try to uphold the social conventions of their time. This novel, set in the same time period, does the same.

The three genteel sisters in the story, each with a well-defined personality, are thrust into the dire necessity of earning a living when their father dies. 

We expect romance, of course, but it’s the sister who wears a veil to hide her repaired hare lip who surprises us. Do we see beneath the less-than-lovely exterior of those we meet? That’s one challenge for readers of this multi-layered novel.