Just one? Persuasion. Old, sad, wise, meditative and thoughtful, with secret letters and dark pasts and regrets and quiet kindnesses and sidelong glances and selfish assholes who don't get nearly enough comeuppance and a great older couple and Jane Austen hating on Bath.

YMMV, but I'd avoid the illustrated version with drawings by Hugh Thomson -- he somehow makes Captain Wentworth, who ought to be handsome in a nice scruffy Wesley-without-the-giant-scary-insanity-issues way, look kind of domesticated and cute. Bleh.

eta: Okay, to be fair, I went and Googled it up, and the last picture of Wentworth looks all right. Still not my favorite set of Austen illustrations.

So am I hearing correctly that if one has never read Austen one might start with Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and get a proper feel for the original material but with bonus zombies? I was under the impression that it was for folks who had already read the original.

Laga, I think 80% of it is the original text, so it will definitely give you a feel for the original.

Part of me thinks I loved Emma as much as I did *because* I read it in a class with a fabulous teacher, and the discussion was great.

Same with Tess -- I did a paper on it junior year of high school, and then made my teacher cry in class because she was losing an argument with me about it. (I wasn't trying to make her cry, though. That was actually a little unsettling, much as I disliked her.)

Honestly - the two writers I hated being subjected to in high school: Dickens and Annie Dillard.

Dear lord, I could not get through Great Expectations to save my life, and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was the most Hippy Dippy piece of shit I've ever had to endure. Ptui!

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was the most Hippy Dippy piece of shit I've ever had to endure. Ptui!

FINALLY. THANK GOD. Definitive proof that you and Hec are clearly, firmly two distinct and separate persons!

I was never fond of things like hardy and wuthering heights -- overly dramatic. And while I did read Austen early, I agree that it improves as I age.

Hardy is just waaay too depressing for me. Austen has its depressing bits, but it's papered over with the wonderful mild snark. I saw a writer recently claim that from a feminist perspective, Austen is a horror writer (because of the desperate need to marry: Charlotte Lucas being a case in point).

I liked Jane Eyre but Wuthering Heights makes me roll my eyes: they're all such drama queens, and unpleasant people to boot.

I have never read Pilgram at Tinker Creek but I loved Dillard's An American Childhood and The Living was very good indeed, if a bit bleak.

I love Dickens, for both his literature and his societal impact, but my favorite Victorian writer is Elizabeth Gaskell. Her stuff is seriously funny and insightful. And not just because her most noted book is my last name. :)

:: hugs all of my Austen books tightly ::

I also love Wharton (Including Ethan Frome) and the Brontes. Hardy I can take or leave. And of course George Eliot is the queen of 19th century lit.