The Jane Austen books in order begin with Sense and Sensibility and end with the posthumously published Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Austen completed six full-length novels, all standalone stories about love, family, money, class, and the consequences of poor judgment.
This guide lists the novels in publication order and in the order Austen first wrote them. It also covers the completed novella Lady Susan, the unfinished novels The Watsons and Sanditon, her teenage writings, and selected letters and other works. For my personal ranking, see my guide to the best Jane Austen books.
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- Jane Austen Books in Order
- Jane Austen Books in the Order She Wrote Them
- Incomplete Jane Austen Books
- Jane Austen Other Works
- Jane Austen Letters and Additional Writings
- About Jane Austen
Jane Austen Books in Order
Jane Austen completed six full-length novels. Here they are in publication order:
- Sense and Sensibility (1811)
- Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- Mansfield Park (1814)
- Emma (1816)
- Northanger Abbey (1818)
- Persuasion (1818)
The years above follow the dates printed on the first editions. Emma went on sale in December 1815 with an 1816 title page. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published together in December 1817, but both carried 1818 title pages. That is why some Jane Austen book lists use 1815 and 1817 for those releases.
The six novels don’t share characters or continuing storylines, so you can read them in any order. I recommend publication order if you want to follow Austen’s development as a published novelist. If you’re new to her work, I’d start with Pride and Prejudice. Northanger Abbey is a good choice for a shorter, more openly comic introduction, while Persuasion is more reflective.
When people say Jane Austen wrote six books, they usually mean these six completed novels. That count doesn’t include Lady Susan, her two unfinished novels, or the many stories, plays, letters, and fragments she wrote as a teenager.
Jane Austen Books in the Order She Wrote Them
Publication order is different from the order in which Austen first drafted the novels. This is the simplest order of initial composition:
- Sense and Sensibility (c. 1795)
- Pride and Prejudice (1796)
- Northanger Abbey (c. 1798–1799)
- Mansfield Park (1811)
- Emma (1814)
- Persuasion (1815)
This is the order Austen began the novels, not the order in which she completed every revision. Sense and Sensibility began as Elinor and Marianne, Pride and Prejudice as First Impressions, and Northanger Abbey as Susan. Austen returned to those early manuscripts and revised them before publication.
Lady Susan was begun around 1794, before the earliest version of Sense and Sensibility. Austen began The Watsons around 1804, after drafting the first three novels, and Sanditon was the final work of fiction she began.
Incomplete Jane Austen Books
Jane Austen left two novels unfinished. The years below are composition dates rather than publication years.
- The Watsons (c. 1804)
- Sanditon (1817)
The Watsons survives as an untitled fragment. Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh later supplied the title, and the reason she abandoned the novel isn’t known. My advice is to choose an edition that clearly separates Austen’s surviving text from any continuation by another author.
Austen wrote the surviving portion of Sanditon from January to March 1817, when declining health forced her to stop. The manuscript itself is untitled, although her family later called it Sanditon. It contains 12 chapters and was the final fiction she worked on. The Sanditon television series uses Austen’s fragment as its starting point but develops the story far beyond what she wrote.
Jane Austen Other Works
Lady Susan
- Lady Susan (1871)
Lady Susan is a completed epistolary novella, not one of Austen’s unfinished works. She probably began it around 1794 and completed the surviving fair copy in 1805. It was first published in 1871.
The title of the film Love & Friendship can cause some confusion. The movie adapts Lady Susan, not Austen’s youthful work Love and Freindship.
Jane Austen’s Juvenilia
Austen copied her teenage writings into three notebooks known as Volume the First, Volume the Second, and Volume the Third. Most were written between about 1787 and 1793. They include stories, plays, letters, parodies, fragments, and a poem, often with deliberately exaggerated plots and spellings.
I recommend reading them in a collected edition instead of tracking down separate editions of every short piece. Love and Freindship: And Other Youthful Writings brings Austen’s early work together in one volume.
Volume the First
- Frederic & Elfrida
- Jack & Alice
- Edgar & Emma
- Henry and Eliza
- The Adventures of Mr. Harley
- Sir William Mountague
- Memoirs of Mr. Clifford
- The Beautifull Cassandra
- Amelia Webster
- The Visit
- The Mystery
- The Three Sisters
- A Fragment
- A Beautiful Description
- The Generous Curate
- Ode to Pity
Volume the Second
- Love and Freindship
- Lesley Castle
- The History of England
- A Collection of Letters
- The Female Philosopher
- The First Act of a Comedy
- A Letter from a Young Lady
- A Tour through Wales
- A Tale
Volume the Third
- Evelyn
- Catharine, or the Bower
Both pieces in Volume the Third are unfinished in Austen’s hand. They belong with the Juvenilia rather than with the two later unfinished novels.
Jane Austen Letters and Additional Writings
- Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters (c. 1816)
- Jane Austen’s Letters, edited by Deirdre Le Faye (2011)
Plan of a Novel, according to Hints from Various Quarters is a comic outline Austen assembled from suggestions she received between late 1815 and early 1816. A selected version first appeared in print in 1870, and a fuller transcription followed in 1926.
Austen didn’t prepare her surviving letters as a book, but they are essential additional reading for anyone interested in her life, family, humor, and writing. I prefer the Deirdre Le Faye edition because it gives readers a substantial, carefully edited collection rather than a small selection of quotations.
Austen also left poems, prayers, verses, riddles, and other manuscript material. I wouldn’t treat each of those pieces as a separate book, but they are worth exploring in scholarly collections after you’ve read the fiction.
About Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, in 1775 and died in Winchester in 1817 at the age of 41. Four of her novels were published anonymously during her lifetime. Her brother Henry identified her as the author in the biographical notice included with the posthumous publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Austen’s novels found readers and critical attention during her life, even though her identity wasn’t publicly attached to them. Sense and Sensibility sold out its first edition within two years, and her books continued to reach new audiences through nineteenth-century reprints and later editions.
Her fiction focuses on women negotiating marriage, money, family duty, social rank, reputation, and personal judgment. I think Austen’s work has lasted because her comedy is sharp, her characters are flawed, and the emotional choices still feel recognizable.
Looking for more books in order?
If you want more romance authors and reading-order guides like this one, start with my Romance Books in Order index.