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250 (& More) Reasons We Love Jane Austen

Austen at 250 logo with fireworks in background



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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  • M Aug 31, 2025, 7:23 PM (3 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen because she addresses folly in a way that does not intice the reader to join in; rather it encourages the reader to choose what is right because they see it's goodness. Instead of romanticizing running away with a lover she leads young readers to see how this choice lacks the joy obtained by waiting for marriage, without falling into the trap of sounding ever so prudish. She pulls her reader into the moment, causing us to cringe as if we had uttered such shameful unkindness instead of Emma. Jane Austen doesn't talk down to her reader but almost magically avoids being preachy while pulling her readers into a world where we learn to abhor foolish behavior and crave kindness, gentleness and propriety.

  • R Aug 31, 2025, 7:06 PM (3 days ago)

    I love how Jane Austen shows us the humor in our day to day lives, and helps us grow our own moral characters by reading her books. She shows the best and worst of human character in ways anyone can understand. Displaying how to spot the Wickhams, Willoughbys, and Crawfords of this world, Jane Austen teaches us to be wise when it comes to judging character.

  • Wanda Rader Aug 31, 2025, 11:08 AM (4 days ago)

    I found Jane through the movies made of her stories. I opened Pride and Prejudice, and I was hooked. That was years ago, and I now have my own collection and read them whenever I need that special Austen feeling of being caught up in the doings of that period of history as told from a woman's point of view.

  • Vanessa Bliss Aug 30, 2025, 12:40 PM (5 days ago)

    Jane Austen feels like a friend. Her writing is funny, insightful and intimate and you feel like she could be in the room with you right now, gossiping. Her writing manages to be realism and escapism at the same time.

  • Mary Hamric Aug 27, 2025, 2:51 PM (8 days ago)

    Jane Austen has encouraged me to be a better person and she did it mostly through Emma. I related to Emma so much because I had made major mistakes in my life and nearly lost everything. I felt seen and I felt validated that being a better person was possible.

  • Gabriella Spatolisano Aug 26, 2025, 4:44 PM (8 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen because she is funny, she creates complex and real characters, she writes in a beautiful language. And because I can re-read her again and again and never get tired.

  • CHRISTINA DADFORD SIMPSON Aug 23, 2025, 12:26 PM (12 days ago)

    I can read a little or a lot of Jane Austen and always enjoy it. When I was in hospital and drained of energy I would read perhaps a page or two at random and it was like having a visit with an old friend. Jane Austen is timeless - we all know people from her books.

  • Sue A Scott Aug 22, 2025, 10:48 AM (13 days ago)

    I was quiet, but I was not blind.
    ---Fanny Price

  • Hilary Aug 22, 2025, 9:54 AM (13 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen because she has such a brilliant way of depicting how the group-think in a room can go from right to wrong, without anyone noticing the change. For example, in Mansfield Park, originally more characters than Fanny question the propriety of putting on the play the "Lover's Vows," but in the end, Edmund agrees to act in it, and somehow even Fanny is roped into rehearsing lines with others! And in Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, both mothers realized after the fact that they long mistrusted the young men who jilted their daughters.

  • Joanne Cybulski Aug 20, 2025, 2:43 PM (15 days ago)

    I have been reading Jane Austen since I found her books in the library in Middle school.

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