Jane Austen Books in Order: Publication vs. Writing Order

“In order” can mean two different things with Austen, and they don’t match.

Publication order

#	Novel	Published
1	Sense and Sensibility	1811
2	Pride and Prejudice	1813
3	Mansfield Park	1814
4	Emma	1815
5	Northanger Abbey	1817 (posthumous)
6	Persuasion	1817 (posthumous)

Order of original composition

#	Working title	Later became	First drafted
1	Elinor and Marianne	Sense and Sensibility	c. 1795
2	First Impressions	Pride and Prejudice	1796–97
3	Susan	Northanger Abbey	1798–99
4	—	Mansfield Park	1811–13
5	—	Emma	1814–15
6	—	Persuasion	1815–16

Austen substantially revised the three early drafts before publication, so “written first” does not mean “published as first written” — Northanger Abbey, her earliest completed novel, was the last to reach readers.

Recommended reading order

New readers do best starting with Pride and Prejudice (the most accessible plot and her sharpest comedy), then Persuasion or Emma, saving Mansfield Park — her most demanding novel — for later.

A closer look at each novel’s place in the sequence

Sense and Sensibility (1811) is the safest technical starting point since it’s what Austen herself published first, but its comparatively straightforward moral argument (sense versus sensibility, spelled out in the title) makes it a slightly flatter introduction than Pride and Prejudice’s more layered comedy of misjudgment. Pride and Prejudice (1813) is the novel most new readers actually start with regardless of publication order, and for good reason — its two-proposal structure and quotable wit make it Austen’s most immediately rewarding book.

Mansfield Park (1814) marks a deliberate change in register: a quieter, more morally serious heroine in Fanny Price, replacing the wit-driven heroines of the first two novels with someone whose value lies in steadiness rather than sparkle. Many readers who love Pride and Prejudice find this one a genuine adjustment, which is why it’s often recommended as a third or fourth read rather than a second. Emma (1815) returns to comedy but structures it as something closer to a puzzle — a confident, unreliable narrator figure whose misreadings the reader has to catch in real time.

Northanger Abbey (1817), despite being published last, reads like the work of a younger writer finding her voice through parody — a useful book for understanding where Austen started, even though it arrives chronologically at the very end of most readers’ experience of her. Persuasion (1817), her last completed novel, is generally considered her most emotionally mature work, concerned with lost time and second chances rather than the more youthful courtships of her earlier books — many readers find it lands hardest once they’ve already spent time with her other five novels.

Beyond the six novels

Austen also left behind Lady Susan, a short, unpublished-in-her-lifetime epistolary novella written even earlier than her first drafts of the major six, and two unfinished manuscripts: The Watsons, abandoned around 1804, and Sanditon, left at eleven chapters when her final illness stopped her writing in 1817. None of these require prior knowledge of the six major novels, but they’re generally better appreciated after reading at least Pride and Prejudice and one or two others, since their value lies partly in seeing a familiar authorial voice working in a rougher or incomplete form.