What is your favorite Jane Austen novel?

I had never read Jane Austen until the semester before I received my Master's Degree in English. Isn't that odd?  What took so long?  I think Jane was a bit looked down upon in the "serious" literature department: I remember how my classmates dismissed Pride and Prejudice as "a story about a bunch of girls wanting to get married."  That's what they said to me when I announced that I wanted to write my research paper on it.

Needless to say, I loved Jane from the very first page of Pride and Prejudice.  I'm from a family of a lot of girls, so the characters and their concerns seem very real to me.  Add to that attraction, I loved everything British:"Masterpiece Theatre," The Rollings Stones, Twiggy, Yardley lipstick--I could go on and on.

Looking back, from where I am in my life right now, I would choose "Sense and Sensibility" as my favorite Jane Austen novel.  To me, it echoed my relationship with my sisters; especially between my younger sister and myself.  She and I would often say about the novel that she was the "Sense" to my "Sensibility": she was the one who went for the bad boys; for the roller coaster ride; while I played it safe in my world of prudence and sensibility.

My younger sister died six years ago.  I often think about Jane Austen's novel as it pertains to her: I remember discussing it with my sister and saying that the scene in the novel where Marianne almost dies is how I would feel towards her if anything ever happened to her.

Unfortunately, my fears came true when my sister, like Marianne in the novel, had a life-threatening illness.  Marianne survived; but my sister did not.  I loved her with my heart and soul and I dedicate my book to her:

Nonsense and Sensibility: 

A Modern Austen Variation

By Louise Hathaway

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