And, which Austen is your favourite and why?

[mixedmamameansbusiness]

I could go on and on.

Persuasion wins, no question. Anne is likeable and I swoon for Captain Wentworth. The letter scene is the single most romantic thing I have ever read. I love it. Thoroughly disapointed that the Penry-Jones adaptation omitted it.

P&P comes second with the scene at the parsonage, Darcy gives with one hand and takes with the other.

I have a penchant for arrogant heroes.

But that's because she's not young, isn't it?

By Austen standards I mean.

All the others are really young - late teens or very early twenties.

It's such a tragedy that she died so young, she would have written even more complex, interesting and sometimes sad characters.

p&p because it is such a touchstone for many years. i find the relationship between lizzie and jane very moving and like to contemplate it. also i like to reflect on how darcy is this popular romantic hero and his personality is so the opposite of that ha! he may have a heart of gold but his curmudgeonliness makes him such a fun character. what a terrifying fil he would be.

i do agree on persuasion on all points. it is brilliant and fascinating. a struggle to flourish, it speaks to something very fundamental about life as it really is.

though what i really take from this topic is the yawning void in my rl of nobody to regularly talk austen with.

Really surprised and heartened to see Persuasion mentioned by so many here. I love it too. If we're talking adaptations I loved Ciaran Hinds as Wentworth a few years back.

I love P&P too but never quite got passed the idea that Lizzie only fell in love with Darcy when she saw his house - didn't a correspondent of JA point that out to her?

Persuasion for me, too.

"All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."

(And the Elliot father and sister are a hoot.)

i dont think it is the house, but the housekeeper who really starts the revolution of understanding in elizabeth. and also seeing georgiana and her intense shyness, and seeing darcy be civil to the gardiners. a lot of evidence overthrowing previous understanding.

but in p&p fandom, i think the house is important in changing readers minds about darcy! girl meets house is a romance genre all its own. i als think that, in the ehle firth version there is a touch too much emphasis on her liking pemberler. could be i am oversensitive on it though since it is a frequent contention.

TantePiste - I am very lucky that my cousin introduced me to Austen and therefore is equally obsessed. Her cat is even called Jane (Austen).

I love Persuasion and indeed as the kids were out last night sat and watched the Ciaran Hinds DVD. love it

Sense and Sensibility does have the glorious Colonel dashing on his horse to bring Marianne's mother, though. Wish there was a gentleman who would ride ventre a terre for me when I was in peril.

It's not the house (although Elizabeth does make a joke about that). The housekeeper makes Lizzy review her feelings about Darcy and see him as somebody who is kind to and worthy of the respect of his 'inferiors' - because the housekeeper has known him all his life and seen him in his natural habitat, her viewpoint resonates with Lizzy. Then she sees the love and gentleness with which he treats Georgiana and again that softens her view of him. She's seeing the 'real' Darcy in his own environment instead of the arrogant Mr Haughty he puts on in public (and is equally as due to shyness as it is to the natural arrogance of the aristocracy).

Persuasion, then P&P. And in last place, Emma. Emma is so irritating, it really hindered my enjoyment of the book.

Just read Persuasion for the first time, what a good book. Before I had only read P&P but liked Anne Eliot so much more.

Which Austen should I try next please (get very irritated with wet women in classics)?