What can anyone add to what's already been said? Sense and Sensibility is already one of the truly indispensable novels; then Pride and Prejudice betters it! Darcy is an extraordinary invention, shadowy and unknown but completely captivating. I read Emma and Persuasion too long ago to be able to write about them now, but I'll return to them… ( )

Pride and Prejudice - A classic. I find it humorous and intriguing. A glimpse of what I would like to think of as that Georgian England. Who knows. I love the father figure.

Persuasion - I know it had a different title, but I can't help but laugh every time the word is used in the body of the text. Its like the titular line every other page. Anyway, another classic and very entertaining. I enjoy the philosophical snippets that Austen slips in. Some of her ideas seem almost revolutionary, especially for the time. I wonder how common those sentiments were. I will only have to read more about it.

For Pursuasion:
Much like a modern situation comedy, this story relies on mistaken identity, mischance and misfits to make it work. Much like Pride & Prejudice, we have the story of two people destined to be together if only the details could be worked out. There is folly galore as well as an abundance of social propriety to be got through.

Austen’s wit and sarcasm are very much in force in this novel, although slightly less so than in P&P. Once again we’re faced with a bevy of daughters and an entailed estate. Once again the cousin upon whom the estate is entailed does not get one of the principal daughters. He’s a jerk and she finds out just in time. I liked this much more than Emma, but not quite as much as P&P. ( )

Handy to have all the books in one when you have limited space, but difficult to review. I have only read Mansfield Park and S&S in full. The former I read ay 18 for my A Levels, and found it turgid (my mum thought me a philistine) - in my defence I was probably to immature in my reading tastes, and also I would suggest, Fanny Price isn't the most inspiring of Austen's Heroines.

Sense and Sensibility is a funny and erudite examination of 18th Century society (as I susepct are all her novels). Mrs Dahswood and her 3 daughters are left impecunious after the death of Mr Dashwood - the laws of the time mean his eldest child from an earlier marriage must inherit. The book follows their endeavours to make ends meet, and to ensure the 2 older daughters make adequate matches. Well adapted in the Ang Lee film, although some characters are omitted. ( )