How many copies of Jane Austen’s books have been sold?
Over 30 million copies of Jane Austen’s books have been sold worldwide.
Austen’s most popular best selling novel, Pride and Prejudice, sold over 20 million copies alone.
The First edition of Emma, containing a handwritten message from Austen, was sold for $424,794 on auction, making it the most expensive book by Austen.
The First edition of Pride and Prejudice from 1813 was sold for $100,000 on auction in New York’s Swann Auction Galleries:
Sense and Sensibility’s first edition was sold for $81,250
Emma was sold for $27,500
Mansfield Park’s first edition was sold for $20,000
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion both were bidded at $11,875
For her life, Jane austen earned under 700 from publishing and sales of her novels, which amounts to $84,320 in today’s value (2022).
Austen sold rights for her fiction novel Pride and Prejudice for $10,300 (2022 equivalent).
She earned $14,637 (2022 equivalent) from sales of Sense and Sensibility.
Within 15 years after her death, her novels generated over $200,000 (2022 value equivalent) in income, 2.4 times more than her lifetime earnings from publishing.
How many books did Jane Austen publish?
Before her death in 1817, Jane Austen published 4 novels, with another 3 novels completed but not published after her death.
Aside from 7 completed novels, Austen has 2 unfinished novels (The Watsons and Sandition).
There are also 3 volumes of Jane Austen’s juvenilia: the first contains 16 short stories, the second has 9, and the third contains 2.
Jane Ausaten novels in order
Title
Published
Chapters
Pages
Audiobook length
Sense and Sensibility
1811
50
352
11 hrs 25 min
Pride and Prejudice
1813
61
432
11 hrs 35 min
Mansfield Park
1814
48
570
14 hrs 26 min
Emma
1815
55
414
14 hrs 45 min
Northanger Abbey
1818
31
288
6 hrs 6 min
Persuasion
1818
24
126
8 hrs 43 min
Lady Susan
1871
41
108
2 hrs 27 min
Characters in Jane Austen’s books
124 distinctive characters appear in Jane Austen’s novels, 51 primary characters and 73 secondary characters.
69 out of 124 characters in Jane Austen’s novels are women, or 55.6%.
Male characters in Austen’s novels make up for 44.4% of all characters, appearing 55 times in total.
30 out of 51 primary characters in Jane Austen books are women, or 58.8%.
39 out of 73 secondary characters in Jane Austen novels are women, or 53.4%.
Jane Austen’s prose is a masterclass in precision, every word earning its place. Word games reward that same economy of language. WordsRated’s Unscramble Words and Wordle Solver are free tools updated every day. We also publish hints for today’s Connections, and our Wordle Words List shows you the complete list of words the Wordle game uses.