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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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Comments

  • Celia Storey Oct 21, 2025, 1:51 PM (3 days ago)

    I believe that Jane’s prose speaks to me because she grew up surrounded by the boys in her father’s boarding school and knew what there was to know about “boys.” She was no romantic idealist. The death of her admired cousin, in childbirth, persuaded her that she did not want to become some wealthy man’s broodmare. Wealth was not merely money to her.
    For the richness of her life, the clarity of her storytelling and the severity of her judgment, I admire Jane Austen. Also, because she got things done. She wrote novels rapidly while caring for her beloved family.
    In my dreams, Jane and her sister and I and any other girls who feel with us are friends, and laughing and laughing together.

  • Claire Saim Oct 19, 2025, 2:52 PM (5 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen because she had always been such a comfort to me. And she changed my life for ever. Thank you Jane !

  • Sherry Rose-Bond Oct 11, 2025, 2:47 PM (13 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen because she speaks to me...in some ways she IS me. I find bits of myself in many of her characters, not just her heroines, and I look at how THEY deal with and (hopefully) resolve their issues. She is universal and timeless! I cannot think of another author who affects me the way that her works have. I was first introduced to her when I was 12 and had just moved from Chicago to a village outside of London. A neighbor, who had been a teacher before her marriage, gave me a copy of P & P to read. This neighbor's name was (truly) Elizabeth Bennet!

  • Maria Frawley Oct 8, 2025, 7:50 AM (17 days ago)

    Let me count the ways! I love Austen because of the subtlety of her insights about our humanity -- little moments as when Elizabeth Bennet confesses to feeling delight at cheating others of their premeditated contempt (made more complicated because she has misjudged the contempt she believes Darcy to feel). Or when Persuasion's narrator tells us that much as Anne Elliot yearns for a sister relationship such as what she witnesses in the Musgrove girls, she is "saved" by some feeling of superiority that we all have about ourselves. These and hundreds of similar gems are woven so organically through stories of mistakes made, lessons learned, chances to be become better persons.

  • Jo Oct 7, 2025, 7:50 AM (18 days ago)

    Articulating the reasons why I love Jane Austen is difficult—there are so many that keeping this comment brief is a challenge! Number one on my list, though, has to be her razor-sharp insights into human nature. In two hundred plus years people remain, sadly, not much evolved, with many of the same (serious) flaws that Austen exposes to comic effect. She is an antidote to the depressing days in which we find ourselves.

  • Gianna Pasquale Oct 5, 2025, 5:54 PM (19 days ago)

    Dear Jane,
    Every heroine that you brought to life with your pen knows her own heart better at the end of the novel than she did at the beginning. Thank you for always encouraging us to grow in self-knowledge, discover the true desires of our hearts, and become worthy heroines of our own stories.
    With gratitude,
    Gianna
    P.S. Thank you for the countless memories laughing and glowing with my mom and sister over everything from Mrs. Bennet's nerves to Captain Wentworth's letter (which we know by heart)! :)

  • Lori Bellitt Oct 5, 2025, 5:01 PM (19 days ago)

    I learned from Lizzie how to eloquently (sharpness of tongue) and visually (piercing look) put a patronizing man in his place.

  • Jenni Taylor Swain Oct 5, 2025, 1:06 PM (19 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen for giving me over 250 (plus) things to talk about with my friends! What rabbit hole should we go down today?

  • Bridget Gethins Sep 30, 2025, 10:41 AM (25 days ago)

    Dearest Jane,
    As I think back on our introduction, me reader and you, goddess of your pen. I knew not what to expect. As a dyslexic, which I hid from all! Until an acquaintance ask me to join her book club.
    I was 23. For some reason I said yes. "Great. The first book is ,"Emma" by Jane Austen."
    I bought my first paperback novel. The cover was a portrait of a lovely young woman. This was 1985.
    Something magical happened, something clicked in my brain. I slowly worked through, "Emma." Then I read "Pride and Prejudice." And now I have many books by and about Jane Austen.
    Happy Birthday, and thank you, Jane Austen.
    Friend,
    Bridget Gethins

  • Susan Weisgrau Sep 27, 2025, 12:54 PM (27 days ago)

    I love Jane Austen novels because they make me feel smart. Every time i follow the thread of where the sentence is going, some of her brilliance rubs off on me. Every time I get her "wink" which I'm sure is given just to me, I feel clever and witty.. I read Jane Austen the same way she is reading me. I end up feeling smart, more self-aware and entertained at the same time. Can any reader ask for more?

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