Customer Reviews

Favorite Jane Austen Novels: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Firstly, in regards to the comments by "able baker" - the book they're referencing is Jane Austen's complete works BUT it is one book. I'd much rather have each individually. The three books included are some of her most beloved stories, which is a great starting point for a new fan. The books are complete and unabridged, so there is nothing missing. It's a great set for the value, each book is only $2.66! You can't even buy used versions for that low of a price. My only complaint is that the actual box is rather flimsy and I'll probably end up throwing it away.

This is a great collection for a new Jane Austen fan. It showcases some of her best work but the price is right if you're not sure you want to invest in hard cover editions just yet.

This edition isn't such good value - here you only get three of Jane Austen's books. You can get all eight of them for only a few dollars more - take a look at this edition:

0954840119

(that's the ISBN number - copy and paste it into the Amazon search box, and the book will come up).

Like many readers, I own the ubiquitous "hardcover with six novels plus" volume of Austen's works. While perfect for college and bookshelf vanity, it requires wrists of steel to read. This collection, however, is a hidden gem: inexpensive paperbacks that can be reread and carried with ease (beach, train, incredibly boring meetings, etc.). The quality of construction and typeface are significantly better than the price would suggest. First-time readers will be pleased with the three selected novels and they will likely be inspired to find Emma, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey on their own.

If you're wondering why you should buy Austen, well, Austen created the "modern" novel. In the western canon, there's a huge difference in what came before, Austen, and the writers who followed. While props go to Hemingway for stripping down language a century later, Austen shed the literary scene of the "impossibly-perfect heroine," replacing that figment with real women (though not quite so real as the servants that made their lives possible). While still in some ways conduits for morality tales, Austen's women are psychologically complex, decades before Freud: they think, they reason, they stand up for themselves and they have flaws, heaven forbid. No more of the either/or choice of virgin-or-whore. Austen likes her female characters and they are admirable. Not for nothing does Austen defend women in Persuasion by saying that, while all "histories are against them," those works were written by men. Austen liked her male characters as well, but recognized that when affairs of the(straight) heart were transferred to paper, the aggrieved parties with pens and the means to write and be published had all been men.

This is an inexpensive way to read some of Jane Austen's great works. The books are small enough to take with you wherever you go.

Item is as advertised as the books are mass market productions. Great deal for the price.

This is a great gift for those around you or a good way to remember books you read while you were younger. I have been blessed by buying this, bringing older books to newer family members. It arrived on time and in perfect condition! Thank you!

Jane Austin is undoubtedly one of the best writers of her time, and probably even of today. I would recomend this book to anyone who likes to read. Jane Austin actually makes you feel like you are living in that time period, and that you actually know the characters. She uses such complex words, that you are lost in the flow and beauty of them. This book certainly deserves five stars.

I think this boxed set collection of Dover Thrift edition Jane Austen books is a good idea, especially if you want to own the books in seperate volumes and not all together in one giant book as in the book the previous reviewer was referring to and as a book collector I like to own each book in their own seperate ediitions but why did they not include Emma, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park in this box set? Hopefully a second Dover Thrift box set will be made for those books!

Pride and Prejudice was written over 200 years ago, but Elizabeth Bennett is alive and well today living my hopes and fears. Jane Austin has touched my heart as no other author has ever been able to do. Obviously time is not as powerful as we may believe.