250 (& More) Reasons We Love Jane Austen
Born on December 16, 1775, Jane Austen turns 250 this year. Help us celebrate!
Everyone has their own reason for adoring Jane Austen, and we would all love to hear yours. Whether it's as simple as "Mrs. Bennet's nerves," a favorite witty line, or a heartfelt toast, we're gathering a joyful collection of 250—and more!—reasons you, her readers and fans, appreciate her. Join us in celebrating the incomparable Jane!
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Comments
Laura Rocklyn Aug 19, 2025, 6:53 AM (15 days ago)
Jane Austen's works are so extraordinary because their truth and insight allows them to speak to readers at different ways at different times of our lives. No matter how many times I return to reread SENSE & SENSIBILITY or PERSUASION, I discover something new: a new favorite quote, or favorite moment, or realize that I now relate to a new favorite character. Her stories both allow us to escape into another time and place, and illuminate for us different ways to look at our own moment in time. Austen was writing in the midst of the Age of Revolutions, and her way of looking at the world and depicting relationships between people was truly revolutionary.
Lisa Lintner Aug 18, 2025, 5:35 PM (16 days ago)
Austen’s stories have grown with me. Her characters, wit, and insight reveal something new each time I return to them. Persuasion—my favorite of her novels—moves me in a way it never did when I read it 28 years ago. Anne Elliot has a quiet strength and aching hope that resonate more deeply with each read. That, to me, is part of Austen’s magic.
Katie Aug 18, 2025, 3:57 PM (16 days ago)
Jane's characters are people we know. Her stories are ones we've lived, though in a different time.
Jane's sparkling pen invites us to have fun rather than be vexed, and she does so without losing truth or dismissing heartache.
Jane draws us to laugh at the world, to not take life so seriously.
Her words refresh us, make us less jaded in a world which gets darker and more serious every day.
Damianne Scott Aug 18, 2025, 3:09 PM (16 days ago)
There are several reasons why I love Austen. But, my favorite quote sums up why some consider the queen of romance: " I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as -- if I may be allowed the expression -- so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. 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."- Anne Elliot
Marguerite Aug 18, 2025, 1:49 PM (16 days ago)
Who could resist a young, handsome Laurence Olivier as Darcy. Not this teenager!
Patricia Jeffries Aug 18, 2025, 1:17 PM (16 days ago)
She introduced me as a teen age girl to a way of life so very different from my own and so appealing that I fell in love with her and her novels in not so different a way than today’s “Swifties.” At 85 I am still an enormous fan!
Kathie Wunderlich Aug 18, 2025, 11:00 AM (16 days ago)
Her timeless, sardonic wit that makes me laugh every time, as well as her characters who exemplify those traits-one can just SEE them! Captain Wentworth's letter: the most true, heartfelt, evidence of longing that I have ever read.
Sue Rose Aug 18, 2025, 10:22 AM (16 days ago)
There's a reason why Jane Austen has inspired hundreds of fan fiction variations. She created complete and deeply nuanced worlds offering so much opportunity for others' to work their imaginations. What if one Austen character changed in a particular way, or the chronology shifted a bit? What if we delved more deeply into historical detail or women's roles at the time. It's a gift to be able to spend time in the worlds Austen has created and inspired.
Michaela Aug 18, 2025, 10:15 AM (16 days ago)
What to say about Jane... she is timeless, she is a master of society, she was beloved by people she was mocking, and she is a bada$$ for her time for defying the expectations she wrote about.
However the reason I love her and all variations of her work is because I connect with the characters. All the characters. She has examples of every type of person we still encounter today. She made her novels so relatable that 250 years later we can still see our friends, partners, and family in her characters. She knew human nature in a way very few authors ever have. Which is why she will continue to be relevant forever.
Elyse Welles Aug 18, 2025, 10:03 AM (16 days ago)
Jane Austen’s novels provide the most apt, socio-anthropological approach to romance I’ve ever found. Her characters, even on the fringe of the story, fulfill in all ways the archetypes people inhabit when it comes to love. These archetypes - from the deeply in love and equitably married Crofts in Persuasion, to the Mrs. Jenkins archetype of nosy yet well-meaning matchmaking - have provided a framework for my own way of living in the world. Austen reminds us that at the core of self is how we show up for love, and through her characters, helps us understand how people do or do not honor love in their lives.
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