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Jane Austen completed six novels in a writing career that lasted barely two decades, published every one of them anonymously, and died at 41 without knowing how permanent her place in English literature would become. Two of the six appeared only after her death. What’s remarkable isn’t the size of the body of work — it’s how little of it feels dated: the comedy, the social precision, and the exact calibration of who deserves the reader’s sympathy still land two centuries later. Here are all six, in order, plus the unfinished work she left behind.
By Lisanne Swart · 6 novels · Classic Fiction · British · 1811–1817 · Updated September 2026
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Quick answer
Jane Austen completed six novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (December 1815, title page dated 1816), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together on 20 December 1817, six months after she died. She also left Sanditon unfinished, abandoned The Watsons, and wrote the novella Lady Susan. All six were published anonymously, but only the first carried the words “By a Lady” — the rest were credited to the author of the previous ones. Start with Pride and Prejudice. Born 16 December 1775 at Steventon in Hampshire; died 18 July 1817, aged 41.
Jane Austen, explained in five minutes
Quick facts about Jane Austen
- Born
- 16 December 1775, Steventon, Hampshire
- Died
- 18 July 1817, aged 41
- Novels completed
- 6, published 1811–1817
- Published posthumously
- Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, together on 20 December 1817, title pages dated 1818
- Published anonymously
- all six. Only Sense and Sensibility said “By a Lady”; the later ones were credited to the author of the earlier ones
- Named at last
- in Henry Austen’s Biographical Notice, printed with the 1817 double volume — the first time her name appeared in public as the author
- First written
- Northanger Abbey, drafted c. 1798–99 and published last
- Left unfinished
- Sanditon, twelve chapters written January to mid-March 1817; and The Watsons, abandoned around 1804–05
- Also wrote
- Lady Susan, a short epistolary novella from around 1794, first published in 1871
- Most adapted
- Pride and Prejudice (1813)
All 6 books by Jane Austen, in order
Sense and Sensibility
Austen’s debut, published anonymously in October 1811 as “By a Lady,” follows sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood after their father’s death leaves them financially dependent on relatives. Elinor’s controlled restraint and Marianne’s open, romantic feeling represent the “sense” and “sensibility” of the title — two ways of managing love, loss, and disappointment that the novel tests against each other rather than simply endorsing one.
Less tightly constructed than her later novels, but the sisters’ contrasting temperaments set up a question — how much feeling should you show, and when — that Austen kept returning to for the rest of her career.
— LisannePride and Prejudice
Elizabeth Bennet, one of five sisters whose mother is desperate to see married off, meets the wealthy, aloof Mr. Darcy and dislikes him almost on principle. The novel is built around both characters slowly, believably revising their first impressions of each other — Austen’s title names the exact flaw each of them has to overcome. Thomas Egerton published it in January 1813, credited to “the Author of Sense and Sensibility.”
The most purely enjoyable entry point into Austen: the wit is sharper here than anywhere else in her work, the plotting is her tightest, and Elizabeth Bennet remains one of the great romantic-comedy heroines in English fiction, two centuries on.
— LisanneMansfield Park
Fanny Price, a poor relation raised alongside her wealthy Bertram cousins, is quiet, morally rigid, and often overlooked — a sharp contrast to Austen’s more vivacious heroines. The novel is her most explicit examination of class, dependency, and moral seriousness, including uncomfortable glancing references to the Bertram family’s wealth being connected to slavery in Antigua. Egerton published it in 1814, credited to “the Author of Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice.”
The most argued-over Austen novel: some readers find Fanny’s passivity frustrating compared to Elizabeth Bennet’s wit, others find the novel Austen’s most morally rigorous work. Worth reading once you already know why you like her, so you can decide where you land.
— LisanneEmma
Emma Woodhouse is wealthy, clever, and thoroughly convinced of her own good judgment, particularly when it comes to matchmaking the people around her. Austen described her as “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like” — the novel’s comedy comes from watching Emma’s confident meddling repeatedly go wrong, and from the slow, humbling process of her actually learning something. Published in December 1815, though the title page reads 1816, which is why sources disagree about the year. John Murray published it, credited to “the Author of Pride and Prejudice &c. &c.”
Austen’s most technically accomplished novel in terms of structure — nearly every clue to the actual plot is visible on a first read and completely missed, because Emma herself misreads everyone around her, and the narration stays close enough to her perspective to mislead the reader too.
— LisanneNorthanger Abbey
Austen’s earliest completed novel, though the last published — it appeared six months after her death, alongside Persuasion. Catherine Morland, an avid reader of Gothic novels, visits Northanger Abbey and lets her overactive imagination convince her the house is hiding a dark secret. It’s Austen’s most direct literary satire, gently mocking the Gothic fiction craze of her own youth. John Murray published the pair on 20 December 1817, with title pages dated 1818.
Lighter and more openly comic than her later work, and a good demonstration of how developed her satirical instincts already were before she’d written any of the novels she’s now most famous for.
— LisannePersuasion
Anne Elliot, now 27 and considered past the age for romance by the standards of her time, encounters Captain Wentworth — the man she was persuaded to reject eight years earlier for want of fortune and status. The last novel Austen completed before her death, it’s quieter and more melancholic than her earlier work, concerned with regret, second chances, and what it costs to have once been talked out of what you wanted. Published by John Murray on 20 December 1817 alongside Northanger Abbey, with a title page dated 1818.
Often cited as Austen’s most emotionally mature novel — the wit is still present, but it’s tempered by real sorrow about time lost that can’t be recovered, which reads differently knowing it was the last thing she finished.
— LisanneThe Other Work: What She Left Unfinished, and the Novella
Six completed novels is the number, but it is not the whole shelf. Three more pieces of fiction survive, and all three are in print — which is why the count of Austen’s books runs anywhere from six to nine depending on who is doing the counting.
- Lady Susan — written c. 1794, published 1871 — A short epistolary novella, told entirely in letters, following a manipulative widow scheming her way through London society. Finished, unlike the other two, but never published in her lifetime: it first appeared in 1871, in the second edition of her nephew’s memoir of her. It was filmed as Love & Friendship in 2016.
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- Sanditon — twelve chapters, January to March 1817 — Her final piece of writing. She began it in January 1817 under the title The Brothers and stopped in mid-March, twelve chapters in, as her illness worsened; she died that July. It is a satire of a seaside resort town built on health fads and property speculation. The manuscript was not published until 1925, when R.W. Chapman printed it as Fragment of a Novel Written by Jane Austen, January–March 1817.
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- The Watsons — abandoned c. 1804–05 — A fragment about a family of sisters in circumstances close to several of her finished novels. She stopped work on it around the time of her father’s death in January 1805 and never went back to it.
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- The juvenilia — Three notebooks of stories, parodies and playlets written in her teens, which she copied out and kept, and which survive as Volume the First, Volume the Second and Volume the Third. Love and Freindship — her spelling — is the best known piece in them.
- And the two that are not hers — Sanditon and The Watsons have both been completed by later writers, and those continuations are sold under Austen’s name on the cover. If a Sanditon runs to a full novel, somebody other than Austen wrote most of it.
How Jane Austen Actually Works
The technique she is most imitated for is free indirect style: the narrator slides into a character’s head without announcing it, so that a sentence can report what somebody thinks and quietly judge it at the same time. Emma is the demonstration piece — the narration stays so close to Emma’s reading of events that the reader misses the plot alongside her.
Money is always specific. Characters are introduced with their incomes, and the numbers are not decoration: they set out exactly who can afford to refuse whom. The romances are legible as romances and equally legible as accounts of what happens to unmarried women without capital, which is why the novels survive being read for either.
The comedy is structural rather than verbal. Very few of the jokes are lines you could lift out; most of them are a person being wrong in a way the reader can see and they cannot. That is also the mechanism of the plots, which turn on misread evidence far more often than on incident.
And the settings are deliberately small. Three or four families in a country village, as she put it in a letter of advice to her niece. Nothing in the six novels depends on the Napoleonic wars going on around them, though sailors keep coming home from them.
Jane Austen Books in Order
In publication order: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (December 1815), and then Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together on 20 December 1817. Four novels in five years, then a gap, then two at once after she was gone.
Order of writing is not the same list. Northanger Abbey was the first novel she finished, drafted around 1798–99 and sold to a publisher who then sat on it for years without printing it. It came out last. That single fact is why “what was Jane Austen’s first novel?” has two correct answers, and why the two answers are fifteen years apart.
Two of the dates need a footnote. Emma was published in December 1815 but its title page reads 1816, which is why catalogues disagree about the year. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published on 20 December 1817 in one four-volume set, with title pages dated 1818 — so those two turn up as 1817 or 1818 depending on who is counting.
Nothing continues from one novel to the next, so you can read them in any order. What changes is the temperature: the early books are funnier and the late ones are sadder, and Persuasion is the only one written by someone who knew she was ill.
Where to Start with Jane Austen
If you have never read her
→ Pride and Prejudice. It is the most widely recommended entry point, the shortest way into how her comedy works, and the one everything else gets compared to.
If you want the one critics rate highest on craft
→ Emma. It is the novel most often named as her most technically accomplished, because the plot is hidden in plain sight behind a narrator who sees what Emma sees.
If you want the saddest one
→ Persuasion, the last novel she completed. Quieter and more melancholy than the rest, and frequently named as her most emotionally mature.
If you want to see her at her most satirical
→ Northanger Abbey, written first and published last. It is a send-up of the Gothic novels that were the craze of her own youth, and it is the funniest thing she wrote.
Frequently asked questions about Jane Austen's books
How many books did Jane Austen write?
Jane Austen completed six novels: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (December 1815), and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published together on 20 December 1817. She also left one novel unfinished at her death, Sanditon, and an earlier abandoned draft, The Watsons, plus a short epistolary novella, Lady Susan, written around 1794 but not published until 1871.
What are Jane Austen’s novels in order?
In publication order: Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (December 1815), Northanger Abbey (December 1817) and Persuasion (December 1817). In the order she wrote them, Northanger Abbey comes first, drafted around 1798–99, and Persuasion last.
When were Jane Austen’s novels published?
Sense and Sensibility appeared in October 1811, Pride and Prejudice in January 1813 and Mansfield Park in 1814, all three from Thomas Egerton. Emma was published by John Murray in December 1815, with 1816 on the title page. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published together by Murray on 20 December 1817, in one four-volume set with title pages dated 1818.
Was Emma published in 1815 or 1816?
Both dates are defensible, which is why catalogues disagree. Emma was published in December 1815 by John Murray, but the title page of the first edition is dated 1816. Sources that go by the actual publication say 1815; sources that go by the imprint say 1816.
Did Jane Austen publish her books as “By a Lady”?
Only the first one. Sense and Sensibility (1811) carried “By a Lady” on its title page. After that the novels were credited to the author of the previous ones: Pride and Prejudice was “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility,” Mansfield Park “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice,” and Emma “By the Author of Pride and Prejudice &c. &c.” All six were anonymous, but only the debut used that phrase.
What was Jane Austen’s first novel?
It depends on whether you mean written or published. Northanger Abbey was the first novel Austen completed, written around 1798–99, but it wasn’t published until December 1817, after her death. Sense and Sensibility (1811) was the first novel she actually published, making it her true published debut.
Which Jane Austen novels were published after her death?
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Austen died on 18 July 1817 with neither in print. Her brother Henry arranged for John Murray to publish them together on 20 December 1817, in a single four-volume set with title pages dated 1818. Sanditon, unfinished, was not published until 1925, and Lady Susan not until 1871.
Why were Northanger Abbey and Persuasion published after Jane Austen’s death?
Jane Austen died in July 1817 before either novel had been published. Her brother Henry arranged for both to be published together that December, along with a Biographical Notice that publicly identified her as the author for the first time — during her lifetime, every one of her novels had been published anonymously.
When was Sanditon published?
In 1925, more than a century after she wrote it. Austen began Sanditon in January 1817 under the title The Brothers and stopped in mid-March, twelve chapters in. The manuscript was first printed by R.W. Chapman in 1925 as Fragment of a Novel Written by Jane Austen, January–March 1817. The longer versions sold today are completions by other writers.
What did Jane Austen leave unfinished?
Two novels. Sanditon, twelve chapters written between January and mid-March 1817, a satire of a seaside resort town built on health fads and speculation. And The Watsons, abandoned around 1804–05, about a family of sisters; she stopped work on it around the time of her father’s death and never returned to it.
What order should I read Jane Austen’s books in?
Publication order works well: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. For a first-time reader, Pride and Prejudice is the most commonly recommended starting point regardless of order, since it’s her most accessible and best-known novel.
What is Jane Austen’s best novel?
Pride and Prejudice is generally considered her most popular and accomplished novel, and the most commonly recommended starting point. Emma is often cited by critics as her most technically sophisticated, and Persuasion is frequently named as her most emotionally mature, since it was the last novel she completed.
Sources
- Jane Austen — Wikipedia
- Persuasion — Wikipedia (publication, 20 December 1817)
- Mansfield Park — Wikipedia (title-page attribution)
- Sanditon — Wikipedia (twelve chapters; Chapman, 1925)
- Emma, first edition, John Murray 1816 — Bonhams
- The Anonymous Jane Austen — Great Writers Inspire, University of Oxford
Bibliography last verified 7 September 2026.
“3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on.”
— Jane Austen, in a letter of writing advice to her niece Anna, September 1814.
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