Jane Austen published six novels between 1811 and 1817, and not one of them carried her name on the title page. This page lists them in the order readers first met them, with the length of each and a note on where it sits in her career.
That seven-year run is misleadingly tidy. Two of the six were old drafts she revised at Chawton, so the printed order is not the order in which the books were conceived. Reading in publication order is still the clearest way in: you watch the comedy of manners tighten into the moral seriousness of the last two books.
Word counts here are for the editions on this site. They matter more than usual with Austen, because the difference between her shortest novel and her longest is more than eighty thousand words.
Where to start
Pride and Prejudice — the most quoted entry point and the one that shows the machinery of her comedy at full speed. If you already know the plot from adaptations, start with Emma instead, which reads less like the film.
Jane Austen in publication order
Numbered by first publication. Word counts and reading times are for the text on this site.
| # | Year | Title | Words | Reading time | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1811 | Sense and Sensibility | 119,000 | 6.6 h | First published novel, 1811, credited only to “a lady”. |
| 2 | 1813 | Pride and Prejudice | 122,000 | 6.8 h | The 1813 revision of the 1790s draft First Impressions. |
| 3 | 1814 | Mansfield Park | 163,000 | 9.1 h | The first novel she completed after moving to Chawton. |
| 4 | 1815 | Emma | 161,000 | 8.9 h | Dedicated, by permission, to the Prince Regent. |
| 5 | 1817 | Northanger Abbey | 80,264 | 4.5 h | Written 1798–99 as Susan; published posthumously. |
| 6 | 1817 | Persuasion | 84,000 | 4.7 h | Her last completed novel, issued with Northanger Abbey in 1817. |
How to read Jane Austen
- Publication order. The table above. Sense and Sensibility through Persuasion, 1811 to 1817, ending with the two novels published together after her death.
- Written order. Northanger Abbey comes first, begun in 1798 as a parody of the gothic novels she had been reading. Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice also grew out of drafts from the 1790s.
- Shortest first. Northanger Abbey runs about 80,000 words against 163,000 for Mansfield Park, so it is the cheapest way to test whether her voice works for you.
Nothing here is a series, so any order works. The one adjustment worth making: leave Persuasion for last, because it is the quietest and the most moving of the six, and it lands harder after the others.
Every title above has a page here with chapter summaries, the word count, reading time, and free EPUB, AZW3 and KEPUB files. Jane Austen’s shelf · Classic fiction · Gothic and horror classics — or go back to Jane Austen for the full shelf.