Is there another one from her as good as Pride and Prejudice?

She’s capable of sketching ideal characters that we all know do not exist in life. She also alludes to the gossipy nature of people and domestic cozy living. Many women gravitate towards that. Love and opportune marriage with rich husbands and damsels in distress–it’s the epiphany of female love fantasy, conveniently set in an appealing era. Her ability to illustrate Victorian mannerism is also very endearing to read.

Does anyone else find persuasion so much less interesting than the others? Just slogging through it again to see if it’s any better now that I’m older. I can’t even finish it this time There doesn’t seem to be as much depth to the characters.

Idk if this answers your question exactly, but regarding why her stories have remained very popular for women, it’s because she writes about female situations in a way that females can relate to.

Elizabeth is generally well-liked, but is also criticized for having too much attitude (the biggest critics we see in the story are the Bingley posse and her mom, but she prob faces this elsewhere as well).

Jane is quiet and polite, generally thought of as the nicest girl in the neighborhood, but Darcy calls her out for sometimes seeming unemotional. (Which I guess shows his type and insecurities. His best friend and love interest are both lively people. He is very introverted but hates that about himself).

I could go on about every Bennet sister, but the bottom line is that there is no Madonna/Whore dichotomy. Even Lydia, who is the literal whore of the story, is portrayed as a foolish child who doesn’t know what she’s doing. She isn’t 100% a victim, because she’s going for exactly what she wants. BUT she isn’t a seductress that can ruin men either, as her father plainly pointed out to Elizabeth. She’s just naive and stubborn, albeit at the near-cost of her family’s network.

I would delve into Sense and Sensibility, because I just finished it. But, admittedly, I didn’t like it as much and skimmed a good portion of it. Maybe that’s because I saw the abridged movie version with Alan Rickman first (🥵🥵🥵), but I couldn’t stand the middle portion where Elinor just has conversations nonstop with all the side characters while Marianne cries and sleeps through colds. I suppose the one thing this novel does that the others don’t do as much is actually show a girl turn into a woman. Marriane is barely an adult, so she still has childish beliefs about love and marriage. When she realizes she was wrong about how love works, she marries a man who loves her (yay!) and just learns to love him after marriage while he adores the quasi-reincarnation of his dead teen sweetheart (… yay?). This is different from Emma and Elizabeth, who are both adults that learn how to be better adults.

As well as writing relatable portrayals of females, her stories revolve around themes that concern females in a timeless sense: marrying for love or money; being “too talkative and rude” or whatever bc you’re not passive and quiet; wanting to be loved by a man who respects you, even if you’re a massive fuckup (like Emma). You know how in high school, you read Shakespeare bc “the things he wrote about are timeless”? Austen is just like that.

Idk I hope I gave something good in all this 😭

She is good at painting realistic characters - even her basically good characters have their issues. Some of her baddies are a bit cookie cutter though but they tend to be scenery the main characters react to. It is a bit like a very clever, clear-sighted and slightly naughty friend sharing the gossip with you. Cleverly observed and reported with an edge.

Yes I get exactly what you’re saying. I started reading Northanger Abbey, and when I really thought about it, it wasn’t really much of an interesting book but I still wanted to read on, I still wanted to know the story.

She’s such a good writer her books are still wildly beloved a century later. It’s a bigger question why you’re so surprised you like them.

She let her characters play themselves out, instead of constantly trying to explain how evil the evil god is or how good the good guy is

I don’t know.

I found them insufferable. The humor just passed me by.

I think she hits just the right note of sarcasm, where it’s still sweet and charming.

Sometimes the way the plot comes together is very charming

I have zero idea why you would use the adverb strangely here – literally millions of readers have enjoyed the novel and millions more will too; there’s nothing remotely strange about enjoying P&P.

Martin Amis, long before he was a writer, fell under the spell of the novel; he writes: "When I was introduced to the novel, at the age of 15, I read 20 pages and then besieged my stepmother’s study until she told me what I needed to know. I needed to know that Darcy married Elizabeth. (I needed to know that Bingley married Jane.) I needed this information as badly as I had ever needed anything.
“Pride and Prejudice suckers you. Amazingly—and, I believe, uniquely—it goes on suckering you. Even now, as I open the book, I feel the same tizzy of unsatisfied expectation, despite five or six rereadings. How can this be, when the genre itself guarantees consummation? The simple answer is that these lovers really are “made for each other”—by their creator. They are constructed for each other: interlocked for wedlock. Their marriage has to be.”

You are responding to a great plot, great wit, great prose–literally nothing strange about it.

I’m no Literary critique but her prose is poetic to me. When I read “Pride and Prejudice”, the entire book felt like a single poem. It’s Impossible not to enjoy every word.

Her main characters are always very relatable and realistic, with quirks and issues and strengths and weaknesses. She easily imbues them with natural complexity and depth of character. While they are in some ways nothing special, they are still unique and totally believable, fitting into their setting while being clever enough to not quite fit in - just like so many people feel about themselves.

A little bit weird, a little bit rebellious, a little bit lost, a little bit faking it, a little bit brave, not afraid to admit when they were wrong 9at least to themselves - and us readers - if no one else) - all these qualities encourage us to feel sympathy and a sense of camaraderie. We cheer them on, we hope for the best, we laugh and cry with them because we feel like we know them - they are very much like us in some deep and human parts of our souls.

She was a master of character development because she was incredibly observant and gifted with the ability to put what she observed into words we can understand and relate to.

Charlotte Bronte agreed with you about Austen’s writing being mundane (though well crafted). Here is what Charlotte wrote about Emma:

“She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well. There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting. She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood. Even to the feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition—too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, mouth, hands, and feet. What sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study; but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death—this Miss Austen ignores. She no more, with her mind’s eye, beholds the heart of her race than each man, with bodily vision, sees the heart in his heaving breast. Jane Austen was a complete and most sensible lady, but a very incomplete and rather insensible (not senseless) woman.”