The Year of Jane: or, a personal account of my first time reading through all the novels of one of the greatest novelists

So I never read Jane Austen as a teenager. I was a voracious reader, but a lot of it was sci-fi & fantasy, I found nineteenth-century fiction slow, and there was a sexism around which I didn't escape and regarded them as "Women's Books". My loss. In my 20s I saw and loved the 1995 movie of Sense and Sensibility (I've always had a bit of a crush on Emma Thompson) and subsequently read the book, and in the past few years saw the 2005 movie of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightley), but that was it.

But this year I've rectified that, and read my way through all six of Austen's complete novels. It felt a good year to do so: this year of 2025 has been the 250th anniversary of her birth (16 Dec 1775), and at the start of the year we visited Winchester for a brief trip and saw her grave in the cathedral. Early in the year we also saw a TV drama about Austen's life, centred on her sister Cassandra (Miss Austen) and a multi-episode documentary about her life and work with discussion by experts and lots of extracts from TV and movie versions (Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius). 

Photo by Rebecca Calcraft

I started the first novel on 25th February, and ended the last one on 29th December (along with various other novels by other writers). I read them in the following order: Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility. Foolishly, I didn't keep any kind of notes after I finished each one so I'm going from memory now. Caveats: one read-through does not a Janeite make, and I'm a middle-aged cis male (not an under-represented group in the novels but never the central character), so I'll bow to many others' much greater knowledge and passion - but I'll try to say what I thought. 

First, the social setting. Throughout the books I was amazed how utterly unfamiliar the society depicted felt. Although it's a world much depicted in costume dramas, the complete financial dependence of women upon either inheritance or marriage, and the dependence of many men upon inheritance, is quite unlike how we live today. Of course, patriarchy and unearned wealth haven't gone away in the least, but they've changed their form from that seen in the novels. The focus is mostly on the wealthy or fairly wealthy, but society is so stratified that others are seen to exist to support these people - class and social status are present throughout these novels. And everyone is really young: marriage takes place around the age of 20 for most people, and most of the key protagonists are around this age, sometimes younger. Anne Elliot in Persuasion is the oldest heroine of the novels: she is 27 years old. 

Second, the gender perspective of the novels. So so so much fiction is about male lived experience, about men's concerns in the world, about the things which matter to men. Austen's world focuses on the female lived experience of her time, meaning that its focus is on domestic and family life. Male characters only really matter where they have roles within these spheres. Off-stage, some of them have jobs to go to, or fortunes to maintain, but we don't see these happening and they seldom matter that much to the story - except where they relate to how potential marriage partners can afford to live. Austen lived most of her adult life in a country at war with France, but apart of there being a lot of regiments and colonels around, you'd hardly know.  

Third, the geographic setting. Although only 200 years ago, Austen's world is almost entirely pre-industrial, has only horses and carriages for transport, and is largely the southern part of England where the interesting places are: large country estates with surrounding villages where their county affiliations are really important, the occasional large towns for holidays or leisure (especially Bath but also Lyme Regis in Persuasion) and of course London which looms above everything. We go no further north than Northampton(shire), plus a trip to Derbyshire in Pride and Prejudice. Only once is there any real sense of town life beyond London, in the scenes in Mansfield Park set in Portsmouth, and that is an unhappy part of the story from which the protagonist has to be rescued. 

The fact that all the above factors are quite different in our society are a surprise for us, but they are simply the nature of the world for Austen. The outward trappings are not the important thing in the books, but rather the relationships and social structures, even if it's the balls and costumes that come out in the tourist industry in Bath and Winchester. Her purpose is not to celebrate that world but to satirise its conventions and expectations, comment on their problems, and show what mischief can be done when rogues break them. And she does it so very well. 

Photo by Alice Calcraft (in Bath)

Austen is a supreme social commentator, at least within her area of interest as described, of culture, class and gender relations. Mansfield Park is her most political novel - the sole work where she addresses questions of slavery (the slave trade was abolished when she was 32 and writing actively though slave-holding remained legal for twenty-five years more), but only in a few places in the novel - and the place where there is the greatest sense of poverty in England as well. But the novel was not well received critically on publication, and is still often low down the list of popularity among contemporary Austen readers. 

A mini-review of each novel from my perspective (in my reading order).

• Pride and Prejudice: for many people, the most beloved so I read it first. And really it's a delight, in the characters and settings and the plot. The opening line and the ending are so familiar, but the way Austen reaches the ending is very satisfying. 
• Persuasion: her final novel, and often said to be her most well-crafted. I really want to like this the most (the presentation in Miss Austen was very compelling) but perhaps I read it at the wrong time because it fell just a little flat. One to read again.
• Mansfield Park: my favourite of them all, I think, because of the political angle mentioned above - but perhaps that's conditioned by my worldview. Even then I wanted to see more! But I found it a thoroughly interesting work. 
• Emma: I struggled with this a bit, because I found the main character really irritating and self-centred, which was intended by Austen but it didn't make for easy reading. More than I think any other novel, it's very tight geographically, hardly straying from one village.
• Northanger Abbey: Much more clearly a parody of other novels than her other work. Although it was published posthumously, it was written early, and her ability to recognise and comment on the other novels is so strong. Disappointed in the ending though which felt very rushed.
• Sense and Sensibility: The only one I'd read before, and I did enjoy reading it again. Lots of action, lots of characters. While the two contrasting sisters are the clear literary device, I was struck how nice they both are, and how horrible so many of the other characters are!

And so as 2025 ends, I can say with pleasure that I've rectified my failing and have now read all of Jane Austen's complete novels (other short and unfinished works also exist). And I'm content to concur with the popular view that she is indeed one of the greatest novelists ever. A thoroughly well-spent year of reading.