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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Judith Norell Aug 19, 2025, 10:10 AM (2 months ago)
I read Jane Austen again and again, I become anxious in the same parts of each novel again and again, I feel her delight and empathy towards some of her characters, and her light mockery of others again and again. In these difficult times for the world and for myself as well, Jane Austin is a comfort, a refuge, and an escape. Her modest life contrasts so strongly with some of the people who are considered “celebs“ or public figures, It is an antidote to what is considered Important in today’s world.
Tonia Burton-Bouchard Aug 19, 2025, 9:25 AM (2 months ago)
I've loved Austen since I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time at age 12. I still have that paperback book that I purchased in our school library during a book fair! In my youth I read it many, many times - the pages are now yellowed and tattered. I think it was so beloved for me because it was my comfort while my father fought several health battles. In 1994 we lost him, and the following year I remember my sister and I excitedly waiting to wait the BBC adaptation on A&E. It connected me with my sister as I shared my love for Austen with her - we watched P&P together every year at Christmas until she moved away. I still watch this amazing adaptation every Christmas, and we both either read the book or watch the miniseries when we are in need of comfort. For these reasons P&P will always be my favorite. But my second favorite is Sense and Sensibility because I loved the story of the sisters' relationship. My sister and I are more alike than the Dashwood's but we have the same love and devotion to each other! We can't wait for the AGM in Baltimore to explore more of the Austen world we have come to love and reconnect with our new JASNA friends we met in Denver AGM 2023.
Emma Lowell Aug 19, 2025, 8:35 AM (2 months ago)
I love Jane Austen because she understood women and society so well, and created a space for women to feel seen, even 250 years later!
Laura Rocklyn Aug 19, 2025, 6:53 AM (2 months 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 (2 months 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 (2 months 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 (2 months 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 (2 months ago)
Who could resist a young, handsome Laurence Olivier as Darcy. Not this teenager!
Patricia Jeffries Aug 18, 2025, 1:17 PM (2 months 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!
Jamie Childs Aug 18, 2025, 12:05 PM (2 months ago)
Because anyone who can make such an odious comment as "What excellent boiled potatoes" so funny, deserves our recognition.
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