How old were you when you first read Jane Austen?

[Celeste]

I'm 24 and recently just read Pride and Prejudice and now reading Mansfield Park. I've always wanted to read Austen books because my mother was in love with P&P and Colin Firth.

[Anne]

I started reading Austen when I was 17, but I was initiated to her at about age 13 when I watched Pride and Prejudice for the first time!

[QNPoohBear]

In college around the same age as Marianne Dashwood during the 90s movie boom. Sense & Sensibility was airing on HBO so I figured if I wanted to see it I had better read the book first. I dashed off to Borders and bought S&S, P&P and Persuasion. I owned Emma already and later bought Northanger Abbey/Other writings, Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon in London I think.

[Tessara]

I loved the 1995 S&S adaptation, and that started it all for me, when I was about 15-16 years old.

I recently did a re-read of all of her books that I have copies of. My favourites are Emma and Persuasion.

[Gina]

Pride and prejudice was my first Austen read when I was 14 and it's still my favourite!
Personally, the film version with keira knightley as Lizzy I think is the best, I think the casting is great and it's very true to the book :)

[Tanya]

I was still at primary school, so about 10/11 years old. My first one's being Emma and Pride and prejudice.

[Konna]

About 14-15 years old, I found Pride and Prejudice in the school library.

[Dia]

I started reading Jane Austen's books when I was 16 ..First because I became addicted to books after reading the serie of harry potter ,and second because I have seen most of the film adaptation of P&P .. so I read that book first and then I fell in love with all of the others

[Abeer]

I was 14 years old, and from then I became a huge fan of jane austen :)

[Daisy]

I first picked up Sense and Sensibility when I was nine years if age and I fell in love then and there. It was beautiful! I simply picked it up from my library because I always loved the classics and the lovely cover drew me in so I had to check it out :)

Then I watched the 2005 movie version in which I forced my parents to watch with me and then I watched the 1995 version and loved it even more!

[Anne]

Daisy wrote: "I first picked up Sense and Sensibility when I was nine years if age and I fell in love then and there. It was beautiful! I simply picked it up from my library because I always loved the classics a..."

9 years old! I am impressed. Wow. I wouldn't have had a single clue of what it was about had I read it when I was 9!! I read it last year and found it difficult enough lol ;)

[Daisy]

Yes, I'm shocked I could comprehend it all at that age. But I cab still remember chattering on with my mom about how I admired both Marianne and Elinor (:

[Anne]

That's awesome! :)

[Amber]

I read my first Austen book when I was 16. The book was P&P and since then, it is one of my favorite books ever.

Jane Austen is awesome :)

[Kay]

In high school, we actually went on a field trip to see a play about Pride and Prejudice. I was about 16 or 17 at the time. Ever since, then I was hooked. Pride and Prejudice was my first book, and I remember sitting in class reading the rest of her books.

[Ane]

15 :D And she instantly became my favourite writers; now there are some others that I adore as much but for different reasons, so they do not compete really.

[Lydia]

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was eleven. I have read it several times since then, and it is definitely my favorite. I don't know how I discovered it exactly, I just remember that I had to have it. I got my mom to buy me an inexpensive Barnes and Noble Classics paperback edition, and I devoured it. I still have not read all six novels. I read Sense and Sensibility immediately after I finished Pride and Prejudice, and I just recently finished reading Emma. The others are in my To Read stack. I still treasure my original copy of Pride and Prejudice. It has a spot of honor on my mantle, and it always will.

[Karlyne]

That's sweet, Lydia!

[Kayla]

I was eleven years old when I first read Pride and Prejudice as well! I began reading a lot of classics when I was eleven, first because I wanted to challenge myself and secondly, because I very quickly fell in love with them. I've reread Pride and Prejudice several times now, along with other Austen novels.

[Yanina]

I was between eleven and twelve when I read my first Jane Austen novel - Pride and Prejudice.

[C]

I watched the Keira Knightley version of P&P when I was 12-13, and after that I was hooked, though I didn't read the books until a couple of years later, due to the advanced English (I'm Norwegian).

[Kirk]

30, alas!! Yes, the movie adaptations. Saw S&S first, P&P, and then Emma. Read them 1st and then immediately followed them with the other big 3. P&P has always been #1, but the gap between it and the other 5 has narrowed considerly upon rereadings. Although Emma is my 4th favorite, Emma 09 is my favorite adaptation. Thanks for posting a great question!

[Titir]

I loved reading classics from a young age..my dad is responsible for this!I read my first unabridged Jane Austen novel,Emma,when I was 13!But I read the abridged version of Pride and Prejudice at the age of 11!

[[deleted user]]

Once you have read all the novels, wait a few years and read them again. You will find many new things in them. I think as we age and have different experiences in life, the novels take on a new angle based on what you bring to them at that point in time.

[Lorraine]

I saw the 1995 mini series of P&P during a repeat showing in 1996. It was after that I got a copy of the book from the library. It was quite a difficult read, as I hadn't ever read any sort of period book before that. The sentence structure, with a lot of description at the beginning of sentence, and the verbs at the end of the long sentences, really took so getting used to. I've read all six of her major novels now, but I find them easier to understand if I listen to an audio book.

[Mareena]

I read p&p and Emma when I was 11 but I was pretty advanced, my friends didn't till they were 15.

[Ralph]

I was 26 or 27. I had been reading the naval fiction of Patrick O'Brien where a question in a book club style article asked to compare O'Brien to Jane Austen. I had just prior been watching the film Clueless and 'discovered' it was Emma, re-vamped, so I decided to try Jane Austen, beginning with Emma. Shortly followed Sense and Sensibility as film so I continued on with the novel. By 28, I was hooked.

[Isabella]

The first time i read Jane Austen("Pride and Prejudice") was when i was 18. I plan to re-read it again before the year ends just to have those happy memories come back to me.

[Abigail]

Thirteen. Somebody (bless whoever it was) gave me the Modern Library all-six-novels-in-one edition, and I read it cover to cover five times before I could be cajoled into reading anything else.

[Edward]

Aod wrote: "I was wondering at what age people on this list first started reading Jane Austen. I have a theory that to really LOVE Austen books you have to start reading them when you are young. Assuming that ..."

Well I suppose 40 is young for someone who is 80 but perhaps not so young for someone below the age of 30. I picked up Jane Austen at B&N about five or six years back (I'm currently 45) and I have to say I immediately fell in love with Jane Austen.

In fact, she became my favorite author right behind J.K. Rowling. I think she was an amazing writer with an incredible ability to draw into her story.

I don't think I would have enjoyed Jane Austen if I had picked her books up when I was 15 or even perhaps 20. I would have probably not have even read her books because what self-respected 15 or 20 yr old male would want to read a Romance?

[Lariela]

I think in my late teens/ early twenties.

[Abigail]

Edward wrote: I picked up Jane Austen at B&N about five or six years back (I'm currently 45)

At whatever age you come to an appreciation of Jane Austen, it’s a good thing!

[Edward]

Abigail wrote:
At whatever age you come to an appreciation of Jane Austen, it’s a good thing!"

Abigail I concur although I wish it was required reading in H.S. Sure reading The Picture of Dorian Grey or Macbeth is fine. However, I don't think once was I given an woman author to read in H.S.

[Abigail]

I think in high school I was assigned very little literature written by women, too, though I happened to be encouraged at home to supply the deficiencies. In college it was a very different matter.

By the way, am enjoying your posts in various threads!

[Edward]

Abigail wrote: "I think in high school I was assigned very little literature written by women, too, though I happened to be encouraged at home to supply the deficiencies. In college it was a very different matter...."
Ditto Abigail. Enjoying reading your posts as well. Actually English Lit in College was so unmemorable I couldn't even tell you what we read.

In English class in my H.S. we were assigned the following:
The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe
The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde
1984 - George Orwell
Johnny got his gun - Dalton Trumbo
Macbeth - Shakespeare
Hamlet - Shakespeare
Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
For whom the bell toll - Ernest Hemingway
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

I think George Eliot and Virginia Wolf might have been mentioned in passing as a women authors. However, I wasn't aware that there were any female authors in the 18th and 19th Century.

Even though Eliot and Wolf were mentioned never once did we read any of their works. Neither Austen, Mary Shelley or the Bronte sisters were mentioned.

Even though my Senior English Teacher was a woman. I think perhaps the subjects that women wrote about were thought of silly and only Romance novels not worth studying as true literature.

[Martine]

I first saw the 1940 film version of Pride & Prejudice in 1966. I was 9. Although we are intended to dislike Darcy until we see Elizabeth's rebuff soften him, I was instantly smitten. It was after that I asked my mother for the book. The original text was hard to read at that age, but what I didn't understand or couldn't read I made up. My love of Austen, her way of speaking, the manners etc became a way of life for me. I was the politest and well spoken teenager you could ever meet. Nothing's changed. I love Austen still. It was her works that inspired me to become an author myself. The sadest part is she only had time to write 6 books before her early death at 41. Martine.

[Inactive]

I read P&P when I was twelve-ish and hated it but could not get it out of my head, then I reread it and reread it and fell in love with it. I adored Northanger Abbey the first time though and read it at about the same age

[Rebecca]

I read P & P in about three days during finals week last week, which made studying take a lot of motivation and self control because I desperately wanted to stop every five minutes and just keep reading. I did study, but I mostly read during those three days. I still got a 4.0 though, so I don't regret it a bit. Now I'm already over half way done with S & S. I think I've been reading it for two days... not positive. Anyway, I'm 17, and I absolutely LOVE P & P, and S & S is also pretty captivating and pleasant as well

[Louise]

I read Persuasion for English A level when i was 17, and loved it. it is still my favourite.

[Bookworm]

I first read JA after having watched the films many times, when I was in my early teen or mid teen years-maybe 14 or 15, I can't rightly remember the exact age. But it was late, and that was a sad fact. The very fist one I read, of course, was P&P.:)

[Inactive]

I think I was eleven or twelve when I read P&P, I actually really disliked it! Later on in the year I read Northanger Abbey and adored it, then returned to P&P and loved it the second time around.

[[deleted user]]

The first novel I read for this amazing novelist was Pride and Prejudice , I started reading I when I was 19 years old

[Marnie]

I can't really remember but I was in my early twenties I think. I think I read P&P first.

[Karen]

I was 8 or 9 when I first read Pride and Prejudice. I liked it then and have reread it at least 100 times since plus all the other 5 novels and juvenilia. I do not plan to have a year go by when I do not reread at least one of her novels.

[Lariela]

In my early 20s when I first read 'Pride and Prejudice', and late 20s for the other books. (Wish I'd read them in school though.)

[Kate]

I was late to the party. I was fourteen when I read Pride and Prejudice (duh!) and read all the others shortly after. Everyone I knew (that was into books like I am) was so surprised I had never read it:)

[Abeer]

I was about 13 years old when I first got introduced to the beautiful world of Jane Austen. One of the books in the literature class was "pride and prejudice" and I remember that I read it more than three times.

[Candi Lynn]

I started reading Jane Austen when I was in college-- around 19-20ish.

[Tess]

I read Pride and Prejudice when I was about 16.

[Krysta]

I was 12 the first time I read Pride and Prejudice