El July 18, 1817 died Jane Austen, who was buried in the city of Winchester. I had 41 years and his life did not review important events, but he did obtain from the beginning the good reception and recognition to his work. His novels they perfectly reflected and described, with also a touch of irony, the feelings and behaviors of bourgeois society in which he lived.

Over time these novels have not lost their charm or their power of attraction and emotion. Unforgettable stories and characters that we have all read or seen at some time and that have marked our more romantic spirit. Today I review that most fundamental work as a small tribute to his very great figure.

Pride and prejudice

"It is a universally accepted truth that every single man in possession of a great fortune needs a wife." It is the determining and descriptive beginning of his best regarded and most famous work possibly. He started writing it in 1796 but it wasn't published until 1813. In it, Austen tells the story of the five daughters of Mrs. Bennett, who has no other goal in life to achieve a good wedding for all of them. And among the suitors he has shuffled are two rich young men, Mr. bingley and the lord Darcy.

There is already a relationship between the eldest daughter, Jane, and Mr. Bingley that seems to have a great future but, under the influence of Mr. Darcy, it is not successful. However, the intervention of Elizabeth, the second daughter, insightful and somewhat rebellious, will change the course of events.

Pride and prejudice it has all the fundamental themes of Austen's work. The oppressive family environment, pressure of marriage, class difference, the specter of poverty and delicate sensitivity of a determined heroine, but who is also wrong.

Of course it has been taken to the movies on many occasions, the most recent, in 20o5. Directed by Joe Wright and starring a cast led by Keira Knightley y Matthew macfadyen.

Sense and Sensibility

De 1811. Another of his best known works that tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne. They are completely different because in Elinor the predominance common sense y Marianne is carried away by a great sensitivity. And both characters and behaviors carry their risks.

Elinor and Marianne live with their mother and little sister Margaret. After the death of his father the family patrimony passes to his half brother, John Dashwood, the only male descendant and son of a first marriage. So family he keeps almost nothing and moves to a little house in the country offered by a relative. There the Dashwood sisters will meet three men: Edward Ferrars, Sir John Willoughby and Colonel Brandon. And both will find both love and disappointment. In between, more plots and misunderstandings that will lead to the outcome according to each one.

Also adapted many times to both film and television, the version most remembered is that of 1995by Ang Lee, with Emma Thompson y Kate Winslet like the Dashwood sisters.

Enma

Posted in 1815, tells the story of Emma woodhouse, an intelligent but also spoiled young woman who insists on match to all your friends. When her governess, friend, and confidant decides to marry, she has to face the real void in her life. For this she will dedicate herself to trying that others lead a life as perfect as she thinks hers is.

But all his works of sentimental manipulation will create around them many tangles, misunderstandings and confusion. Emma it is another splendid portrait of provincial England in the early XNUMXth century.

Has adapted even a comic and of course also as a series, miniseries and film version. Perhaps the best known is that of 1996, with Gwyneth Paltrow protagonist.

Mansfield Park

De 1814, is considered the novel most complex, gloomy and dense by Austen. Tells the story of Fanny price, which is a girl still when her uncles take her in at their mansion in Mansfield Park, rescuing her from a life of poverty. There you will begin to enjoy a life full of leisure and refinement. But in that mansion it is also hidden a dangerous truth that Fanny will have to learn to deal with.

This novel describes a order and criticism of the family and society that are changing in the eyes of a shy young woman, for some charming and for others without attractiveness.

Again it was the subject of film and television adaptations such as, for example, the 1999 film version with Frances O'Connor as Fanny Price.

Persuasiveness

Was his latest novel who started writing shortly after Emma. It was published as a work posthumous in 1818. Connects with Northanger Abbey, since both were published in a single volume two years later. And also because both stories occur in Bath, to whose spa Jane went at that time.

It is the only work that can be defined as a love story. All the others always tell of the infatuation of one or two couples and end with the wedding of the protagonists, but this is the only one in the narrative that focuses on the sfeelings of the protagonist, Anne Elliot.

Anne is a woman sensitive, patient and underappreciated, which, years after having rejected To the man she loved following bad advice, see how he reappears in his life, rich and honorable but still jilted. Then Anne will do everything possible to make love give her a second opportunity. Of course again we have a successful recreation of the time.

For cinema a version was made in 1995 and to TV there is a series of 2007.

Northanger Abbey

Written between 1798 and 1799, tells the story of Catherine Morland, an avid reader of gothic novels, who spends her time visiting friends, like Isabella Thorpe, and going to dances. To Catherine John Thorpe claims it, Isabella's brother, and Henry tilney, a young clergyman with great fondness and knowledge for history and literature.

Thus, the Tilneys invite Catherine to visit her father's farm, Northanger Abbey. She expects it to be dark, old, and full of mystery and fantasy, just like in the novels she reads. There is a adaptation for TV de 2007.