"She is the only novelist who published before Charles Dickens whose books still sell thousands of copies every year."
Sense and Sensibility (published in 1811)
The comparison of the emotional with the rational is a venerable topic. Think of Thomas Jefferson's 1786 letter containing his famous "Dialogue Between My Head and My Heart". Think of 21st Century scientific studies of EQ (emotional quotient ) vs IQ. In this novel the over-emotional Marianne learns to keep a healthier balance between the two modes of living.
Pride and Prejudice (published in 1813)
This is her masterpiece, if popularity with the general public is the measure. It was begun in the early 1790's and revised extensively in later years. Its tongue-in-cheek opening line is one of the most famous in literature: "It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Mansfield Park (published 1814)
This novel more than her others provokes a wide variety of opinions from readers. The novel is solemn and moralistic -- almost the opposite in tone of P&P. Some think that the heroine, Fanny, is priggish. Other's think she's an uncanny look ahead to the Victorian era. It's interesting that the heroines of Austen's last three novels were so isolated socially. Perhaps this says something about Austen's condition in the last years of her life.
Emma (published in 1815)
This novel is considered Jane Austen's masterpiece by most of academia, even though the eponymous heroine is one of her most infuriating characters. Austen herself wrote that she was going to create 'a heroine whom no one but myself will like.'
Northanger Abbey (published posthumously in 1817)
Jane Austen worked on this novel around 1798-1799 and attempted to get it published in 1803. A large part of it is a spoof of the gothic novels that were popular at the time. The publisher who bought it never took it to press. One theory is that he didn't want to publish something that knocked those other novels that were so profitable for him. Jane's brother, Henry, finally bought the manscript back and had someone else publish it.
Persuasion (published in posthumously in 1818)
Austen's last novel was written as she was suffering increasing discomfort and disability from the sickness (possibly cancer) which took her life at age 42. Some scholars have suggested her illness might had played a role, at least in part, to this book's 'autumnal tone.'
