One of the most popular and beloved novelists in the English language, Jane Austen wrote novels that have beguiled and challenged readers for two centuries.

For some, Austen is our beloved Aunt Jane, chatting with us about tea parties, excursions in pony phaetons, and ill-advised epistolary relationships. For others, she is a subversive ironist whose piercing vision of human foibles offers us reflections relevant to our own lives and times.

How did this seventh child of a provincial clergyman, a single woman who lived an intensely domestic life, produce some of the greatest novels in the English language? What makes them great? We will examine and discuss Austen's complete works in this class. We will look at historical, literary historical, and cultural contexts of the works, paying particular attention to Austen's style and approach to the novel as a genre.