This year, the world celebrates the 250th birth anniversary of Jane Austen — one of the world’s best-known and popular novelists — who was born on December 16, 1775. The world of her novels is limited: all six revolve around the landed gentry, as well as middle- and upper-middle-class landowners who lived off the rental income from their estates in England, and whose action takes place during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This begs the question: why is Austen so widely read and cherished worldwide, centuries after her works were first published?

Perhaps one reason for her enduring popularity is the gentle romantic suspense of her novels. Their plots navigate the uncertainties of courtships, misunderstandings between lovers, and twists of fortune that bring people together. (This may also explain why film adaptations of her work translate so well into the popular romantic comedy genre and why her works remain relevant to — and resonate with — readers today.) Clearly, these uncertainties and delicacies of love remain relevant today, even though the pace and rhythm of dating have changed, not least due to technology.

Many readers are attracted to Austen’s novels because of the beauty of her prose, famous for its wit and irony, and it is a pleasure to read her novels aloud due to the delightful tone of her writing. In fact, it is hard to find a single word in Austen’s novels that is extraneous.

One of the most famous first lines from any novel in history, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” is one example of the economical, precise irony of Austen’s prose. This seemingly simple sentence, so delicious to read, captures a truth about gender and class and introduces the rigid hierarchies that shape Pride and Prejudice.

That Austen’s novels end happily for her main characters does not mean that she shies away from the harsh realities and precarity of life. Her key characters lead fairly comfortable lives and maintain their social status, particularly through marriage, which is a primary concern for them.

Despite a seemingly constrained world, Austen develops many vibrant characters. However, it is not just her heroines who are fascinating — her secondary characters also lend much colour and entertainment. For example, talkative and anxious Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (“You have no compassion for my poor nerves”) contrasts well with her sardonic husband (“I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends.”).

On the other hand, there could not be a better portrait in literature of a self-obsessed narcissist than that of Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion (“He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion.”) No wonder we recognise her characters — be they meddlesome relatives, smug uncles or arrogant bachelors — in our own lives.

That Austen’s novels end happily for her main characters does not mean that she shies away from the harsh realities and precarity of life. Her key characters lead fairly comfortable lives and maintain their social status, particularly through marriage, which is a primary concern for them. This is because, in Austen’s time, women could not enter professions, and legal restrictions often prevented them from inheriting their fathers’ properties. Consequently, women who could not find financially stable husbands often fell into the shadowlands of society.

No surprise then that Austen’s novels portray many women who fall into poverty and are forced to live as the dependents of unwelcoming relatives. And because the pursuit of marriage is set against these social strains, the stakes in her novels are always more serious than they appear during a superficial reading.

However, Austen’s heroines remain fascinating because, even while pursuing romance, they are trying to understand themselves and are not simply products of social conditioning, single-mindedly looking for suitable matches. Instead, they ask themselves: how can one find true love and companionship in a society shaped by hierarchies of gender and class?

Although Austen’s heroines are critical, they are not rebellious. Anne Elliot in Persuasion regrets breaking off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth because he is not wealthy. She then realises that she should not have prioritised status and material comforts over a real connection, but this realisation leads to quiet regret and introspection, not a rejection of her community and its values.

In Emma, the eponymous flawed heroine is convinced she can change the lives of the people around her and tries to match people who are ill-suited to each other, believing she can transcend social norms. Unfortunately, her efforts backfire. In the beginning of the novel, she commits to never marrying but, by the end, she has fallen in love with an older, wiser man who helped to cut her misdirected ambitions to size.

Why do Austen’s works remain appealing even in a time when revolts and radical ruptures from conventional morality are fashionable? Her heroines are fascinating even though they are engaged in mostly quiet struggles. For many, this idealisation of restraint may seem shallow, but Austen’s novels convey that restraint is not always due to a lack of feelings or desire. Because Austen’s heroines have such deep sensibilities, we see that restraint can co-exist with perceptiveness and depth.

Indeed, even within social constraints, one can cultivate a rich inner life and, to some degree, independence of mind. This seems to me best illustrated by Anne Elliot in Persuasion and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.

This year is the 250th birth anniversary of Jane Austen. Why do her novels about the English landed class in the 18th and 19th centuries still captivate readers around the world today?

The possibility, indeed, the necessity of a bigger and better life, looms in her novels. Radical breaks from convention (the elopement of Lydia Bennet, one of the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice, the adultery of Maria Bertram in Mansfield Park) and even physical violence (the near-fatal accident of Louisa Musgrove in Persuasion) find their way into her plots, disrupting the lives of her characters. Austen manages this disruption with elegance and harmony — without sentimentality. And although the moral dimensions of her universe are always restored, her stories are far from simplistic morality tales.

Perhaps Austen’s great artistic skill lies in this description by author and literary critic E.M. Forster: “All the Jane Austen characters are ready for an extended life, for a life which the scheme of her book seldom allows them to lead, and that is why they lead their actual lives so satisfactorily.”

Ultimately, Austen’s ability to entertain — and challenge — her readers remains unparalleled. We are so lucky that she wrote, that her work has survived, and that it will likely live forever.

The writer is a lawyer based in Karachi

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 21st, 2025