Jane Austen had four books published in her lifetime, and two others published posthumous. Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma were all publish while she was alive. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were not. The graph above shows the book lengths (in word count) of each Austen novel and the year they were published.
The two shortest books are also the two books that were published posthumous: Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. It could be a coincidence. But it seems that maybe these are the shortest because Austen was planning on revising them before publishing. It is also possible that because they were so short in comparison to her other novels, that she did not think they were ready for publication. We will never have an answer to this, but regardless of the length both books are excellent.
Jane Austen’s six novels were published within 8 years of each other. That is a very quick pace of publication. Tragically Austen never saw the level of success that she has in present day. She died at 41, and only four of her novels had made it to publication and had modest success. An interesting fact is that her novels were out of print for 12 years after her death. The books were eventually brought back into circulation by Richard Bentley, and have never been out of print sense.
Page Length:
Sense & Sensibility: 352 pages
Pride & Prejudice: 408 pages
Mansfield Park: 464 pages
Emma: 544 pages
Northanger Abbey: 288 pages
Persuasion: 212 pages
Jane Austen Book Lengths Graph Notes:
The x-axis (horizontal part of the graph) shows the name of the book and the year it was published. The y-axis (vertical part of the graph) shows the amount of words. Each bar represents the book lengths, in total amount of words, for that Austen book (Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion). Jane Austen: She was an English novelist made famous from authoring six major novels, which interpret, critique and comment upon the British society at the end of the 18th century.
Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
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A Jane Austen Book lengths Jane Austen Book lengths
