Est. 2026 · A Reader's Companion
The world of Jane Austen, entire.
Her life, her six novels, her unforgettable characters, and two centuries of adaptations — researched, referenced, and written for readers.
The Six Novels
1811
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility (1811) was Jane Austen's first published novel, issued anonymously as 'By a Lady'. It contrasts the Dashwood sisters — prudent Elinor and passionate Marianne — as reduced circumstances force them from their home and into the Regency marriage market.
1813
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice (1813) is Jane Austen's second published novel and her most famous work. It follows Elizabeth Bennet, the quick-witted second of five sisters, as she navigates courtship, class, and her evolving judgment of the proud Mr. Darcy in Regency-era England.
1814
Mansfield Park
Mansfield Park (1814) is Austen's most serious novel. Shy, principled Fanny Price is raised by wealthy relations at Mansfield Park, where questions of morality, education, and integrity play out against flirtation and worldliness.
1815
Emma
Emma (1815) follows Emma Woodhouse, 'handsome, clever, and rich', a self-appointed matchmaker in the village of Highbury whose schemes misfire until she learns to know her own heart. Written at Chawton in 1814–15, it is Austen's longest novel alongside Mansfield Park, and many critics consider it her most technically perfect.
1817
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey is Jane Austen's comic novel about Catherine Morland, a seventeen-year-old whose head is full of Gothic fiction, and her visits to Bath and the Tilney family's abbey. The first novel Austen ever sold to a publisher (in 1803), it was the last to appear, in December 1817, five months after her death.
1817
Persuasion
Persuasion is Jane Austen's last completed novel. Anne Elliot, persuaded at nineteen to break off her engagement to a penniless naval officer, meets Captain Frederick Wentworth again eight years later, now rich, resentful and still unmarried. Written in 1815–16, it was published in December 1817, after Austen's death.
1871
Lady Susan
Lady Susan is Jane Austen's early epistolary novella, written around 1794 but not published until 1871 — over fifty years after her death. Its heroine, the widowed and manipulative Lady Susan Vernon, is Austen's most openly scheming creation, seducing and scheming her way through other people's households.
1817
Sanditon
Sanditon is Jane Austen's last work, abandoned after eleven chapters in March 1817 when her final illness made writing impossible; she died four months later. Set in a fledgling seaside resort town being remade by speculation and health fads, it is Austen's most forward-looking, commercially minded fragment — and her most tantalizing might-have-been.
Her Life
From Steventon rectory to Winchester Cathedral — the biography, family, and the mysteries of her final year.
Characters A–Z
Darcy’s income, Emma’s schemes, Anne Elliot’s constancy — every character, cross-referenced with the novels and films.
On Screen
From Olivier to Netflix 2026: every adaptation compared, cast by cast, against the books.
Quote of the Day
“There is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!”
— Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11
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