Jane Austen's Reading List
The 5 books that shaped Jane Austen — novelist.
With wit, irony, and precision, she created the modern novel of manners and gave literature some of its most enduring characters.
Influential Books
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen(1813)
Austen's most beloved novel — wit, class, and the education of Elizabeth Bennet in love and self-knowledge.
Emma
Jane Austen(1815)
Austen's most psychologically complex heroine — a comedy of errors in matchmaking and self-deception.
The History of Tom Jones
Henry Fielding(1749)
Austen admired Fielding's comic plotting and social observation, which influenced her own narrative craft.
Cecilia
Fanny Burney(1782)
Burney was Austen's most important predecessor. "Pride and Prejudice" as a phrase comes from Cecilia's final pages.
Sir Charles Grandison
Samuel Richardson(1753)
Austen loved Richardson's epistolary novels so much she wrote a play adaptation of Grandison as a teenager.