“The Collected Works of Jane Austen”

The published works of Jane Austen include several books, of which my favorites are “Sense and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice”.  The other offerings are also charming and entertaining (especially “Emma”) but do pale in comparison with Austen’s two masterpieces.  I will confess, though, that I did not become a “Jane Austen” addict until later in life and only after I had seen the “most excellent” BBC version of “Pride and Prejudice” with the talented Colin Firth as the handsome, haughty and self-absorbed Mr. Darcy (still very sexy despite all his faults).

Reading the novels does lend some added depth and prespective which the mini-series (and all subsequent versions) could not possibly provide due to both the length of the novels and the ability to get a sense of what the characters are thinking and what motivates them.  The novels also provide you with a sense of what society was like and how the environment shaped the behavior of the characters, with the best clues coming from the language used and how the story is told.

My reading of Jane Austen has led me to purusing other classics, including “Vanity Fair” and “Middlemarch”, both of which provide more details of what life was like in that era.  Jane also has inspired my “Anglophilia” and attraction to truly historical novels and other literature written during that period.  I often think I was born at the wrong time.  The late 1800’s and early 1900’s may have been difficult periods for women to flourish but the public courtesy displayed and the well-defined social roles for each gender certainly would have made life a little simpler and Jane herself does provide proof that women were able to make their own statements in that society.