Jane Austen wrote six novels, which feels like a small number considering how often her work pops up in a contemporary setting. Her books have been adapted into prestige films, miniseries, loose Hollywood reimaginings, and at least one zombie mashup. They’ve shaped how novelists from the Brontës to Sally Rooney think about interiority and dialogue, and the way two people in a room can say one thing and mean another. Even unfinished fragments like Sanditon and The Watsons have made their way mainstream.
Readers don’t just like these books, they feel ownership over them, which is why ranking them almost always sparks a fight in the comments section. We’re issuing that warning now because, yes, we did assign numbers. And yes, you will have feelings about what ends up where on the list below.
6
‘Northanger Abbey’ (1817)
Image via Penguin Classics
Catherine Morland is seventeen, sheltered, and an absolute fiend for Gothic novels. When a family friend brings her to Bath for the social season, she falls in with two very different crowds: the Thorpes, who are loud and scheming, and the Tilneys, who are warm, witty, and very much Catherine’s speed. She develops feelings for Henry Tilney, the clergyman son, and he seems to return them. But when his father invites her to their estate, Northanger Abbey, Catherine arrives expecting something out of The Mysteries of Udolpho. Basically, she lets her imagination run completely off the rails and almost ruins everything.
The novel was written in the late 1790s, sold to a publisher in 1803, and didn’t see print until 1817, after Austen’s death, which means it’s simultaneously her youngest book and her most delayed. You can feel it. The satire of Gothic fiction is sharp and very funny, and Catherine’s naivety makes her one of Austen’s most endearing heroines, but the novel lacks the layered psychology Austen brought to her later work. Henry Tilney is charming enough, though he has a tendency to lecture, and the plot wraps itself up with a speed that suggests Austen had other ideas she wanted to get to. It lands at the bottom because it’s Austen still figuring out what she could do with a story.
5
‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1811)
Image via Penguin Classics
Austen’s first published novel gets treated like a warm-up act for the rest of her work, and within the first hundred pages or so, you can see why. The premise is deceptively simple: two sisters who process the same disaster in completely different ways. Elinor Dashwood is steady and private. Marianne Dashwood feels everything at full volume. After their father’s death strips the family of their home and income, they relocate to a small cottage in Devon, and Marianne throws herself into a romance with John Willoughby, a charming man she meets after tumbling down a hill in a rainstorm. Elinor is also in love with Edward Ferrars, but she’d rather die than make a scene about it.
Then Sense and Sensibility gets mean. Willoughby’s exit is brutal. Lucy Steele’s secret engagement to Edward is a gut punch. The tidy set-up cracks open and what’s underneath is a novel about what it costs women to have feelings in a world that will punish them for it. By the time Marianne falls dangerously ill, you’re fully in it. And even though Austen wraps the love interests up almost suspiciously fast at the end, you don’t care because you’ve spent the whole book worrying about these two women, and you’re just glad they’re okay.
4
‘Mansfield Park’ (1814)
Image via Penguin Classics
Nobody agrees about this one, and they haven’t since it was published in 1814. Mansfield Park is the Austen novel that splits readers down the middle, and where you end up on the fault line is almost always because of your feelings about Fanny Price. She’s a shy, morally serious girl who gets shipped from her parents’ chaotic house in Portsmouth to live with her wealthy uncle’s family at age ten. The Bertrams take her in, but only Edmund, the younger son, treats her like she belongs. Fanny grows up grateful and overlooked, quietly in love with Edmund and increasingly invisible to everyone else. When the glamorous Crawford siblings show up and start charming the household into chaos, Fanny is the only person who can see through them.
She watches Henry Crawford toy with the Bertram sisters. She watches Mary Crawford’s wit pull Edmund in. Fanny says almost nothing about either, which is admirable or frustrating depending on your preference. That’s the gamble of this novel. It doesn’t give you the pleasure of rooting for someone bold but does get you to notice how someone’s principles can cost them almost everything.
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Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend?
Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun
Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both plus one who tells you truth you have been avoiding all week Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.
Dustin(Stranger Things)
Emily(Emily in Paris)
Wednesday(Wednesday)
Gi-hun(Squid Game)
01
How do you usually end up making new friend?The origin story says a lot about friendship that follows it.
02
What is perfect Saturday with your best friend?Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.
03
You call them at two in morning What happens?This is real test of friendship everybody knows it.
p >
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p >04
san clas=””>The best friendships are ones that survive being corrected.
p >
label clas=”” for=””>ASupport first We can review mistake later.
label clas=”” for=””>BA relentlessly positive reframe entire disaster.
label clas=”” for=””>CThe blunt version Do not soften it me.
label clas=”” for=””>DPatience no judgment how I got here.
p >
div clas=””>
p >05
san clas=””>The friend you attract says something about friend you are.
p >
label clas=”” for=””>AI am all in always about everything.
label clas=”” for=””>BI can turn almost any situation into good time.
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""CI say thing nobody else room will.
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""DI look after whoever having worst day.
p ><label cas ""for ""NEXT QUESTION →
div cas=””>
p >06
san cas=””>How friendship repairs itself matters more than how breaks.
p >
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""ALoudly briefly then back normal by Tuesday.
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""BThey apologise first enthusiastically gift.
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""CCold silence then one dry joke fixes everything.
label cas “”for “”<san cas ""DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened.
p ><label cas ""for ""NEXT QUESTION →
div cas=””>
p >07
san cas=””>Everybody missing something right friend fills that gap.
p >
label cas “”for “”ATo make my life bigger than would be alone.
label cas “”for “”BTo push me out house into my own life.
label cas “”for “”CTo catch me when start lying myself.
label cas “”for “”DTo be person who never gave up on me.
p ><label cas ""for ""NEXT QUESTION →
div cas=””>
p >08
san cas=””>Eight questions this one decides who get.
p >
label cas “”for “AWe would still drop everything each other instantly.
label ca ”for “BWe still make plans still actually go.
label ca ”for “CWe still cut through each other’s nonsense one sentence.
label ca ”for “DThey stood by once when cost them something.labe />
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p >
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span cla=””>Dustin is friend entire show runs on loyal past point sense enthusiastic everything incapable leaving behind.
li>You have same instinct Your friendships loud specific slightly ridiculous last decades because.
li>He also one person would take strangest interest completely seriously far rarer sounds.
li>You would have group chat It would never once quiet.
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p >
span cla=””>
div cla=””>
span cla=””>Emily treats ordinary Tuesday something could turned into occasion best worst quality friend depending energy levels.
li>You share refusal sit still Neither ever accepted night when something happening somewhere else.
li>She far more loyal than people give credit defends friends loudly publicly occasionally before checking facts.
li>She would post photo without asking You would forgive because very good photo.
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p >
span cla=””>
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span cla=””>Wednesday never says kind thing does not mean makes rare count enormous amount.
li>You would rather be told truth than made comfortable She constitutionally incapable offering anything else.
li>Underneath all ferociously protective simply refuses make performance caring.
li>Do not expect birthday message Do expect ruin anyone wrong you.
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p >
span cla=””>
div cla=””>
span cla=””>Gi-hun not strongest player Squid Game cleverest He one keeps choosing protect somebody else over over genuine cost himself.
li>You have same instinct You notice who struggling stay long after anybody blame leaving.
li>He flawed friend part why lands He lets people down comes back tries again more most manage.
li>He would give last chance never once mention done it.
p >
label ca ”for “<RETKE THE QUIZ
‘Emma’ (1815)
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