Keira Knightley as Elizabeth holds hands and embraces Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Image via Focus Features By Jessica Toomer Published Sep 15, 2026, 12:18 AM EDT Jessica is a journalist, editor, TCA critic, and multimedia storyteller with a decade of experience covering pop culture, film, TV, women's sports, lifestyle, and more. She earned her degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington with a focus in creative writing before moving to N.Y.C. and getting her start at The Huffington Post . (She still misses those nap pods.) She's covered multiple film festivals, recapped some of your favorite series, worked too many red carpets to count, and even yapped on a podcast or two. When she’s not interviewing your favorite showrunner or ranking Ryan Gosling's best roles for places like UPROXX, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire, The Daily Beast, and Cosmopolitan , she’s busy being a full-time hype woman to her cat, Finn. You can find her on Bluesky and, sadly, Twitter . Sign in to your Collider account Add Us Add on Google Preferred Source Google News Like Like follow Follow followed Followed Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap Jane Austen wrote six novels, which feels like a small number considering how often her work pops up in a contemporary setting . Her books have been adapted into prestige films, miniseries, loose Hollywood reimaginings, and at least one zombie mashup. They've shaped how novelists from the Brontës to Sally Rooney think about interiority and dialogue, and the way two people in a room can say one thing and mean another. Even unfinished fragments like Sanditon and The Watsons have made their way mainstream.
Readers don't just like these books, they feel ownership over them, which is why ranking them almost always sparks a fight in the comments section . We're issuing that warning now because, yes, we did assign numbers. And yes, you will have feelings about what ends up where on the list below.
Northanger Abbey Image via Penguin Classics Catherine Morland is seventeen, sheltered, and an absolute fiend for Gothic novels . When a family friend brings her to Bath for the social season, she falls in with two very different crowds: the Thorpes, who are loud and scheming, and the Tilneys, who are warm, witty, and very much Catherine's speed. She develops feelings for Henry Tilney, the clergyman son, and he seems to return them. But, when his father invites her to their estate, Northanger Abbey, Catherine arrives expecting something out of The Mysteries of Udolpho . Basically, she lets her imagination run completely off the rails and almost ruins everything.
The novel was written in the late 1790s, sold to a publisher in 1803, and didn't see print until 1817, after Austen's death, which means it's simultaneously her youngest book and her most delayed . You can feel it. The satire of Gothic fiction is sharp and very funny, and Catherine's naivety makes her one of Austen's most endearing heroines , but the novel lacks the layered psychology Austen brought to her later work. Henry Tilney is charming enough, though he has a tendency to lecture, and the plot wraps itself up with a speed that suggests Austen had other ideas she wanted to get to. It lands at the bottom because it's Austen still figuring out what she could do with a story .
Sense & Sensibility Image via Pengui…