I watched NorthangerAbbey for the first time on the Masterpiece Classic channel. I’d never seen this story before, so it was exciting to watch the relationship develop between the main characters. The magnificent abbey was impressive and forbidding, and the hero’s father appeared just as suspicious as the heroine suspected. Unfortunately, the only evil doing dwelled in her imagination. As the hero so aptly said, "Can there be such a thing as reading too many novels?" Although the moral of the tale works fine, I was left wanting more. If this were a Barbara Cartland novel, the father would have poisoned his wife, rather than just driving her off with his hard-hearted attitude. And then he’d try to kill the heroine in his spooky mansion while the hero refused to believe her. But true to a Jane Austen story and a classic romance, the dark moment when the heroine thought all was lost led to a reconciliation with the hero, and all ended well.

Manfield Park was next, and this has always been enjoyable. The poor relation is a standard in Regency romances, and Fanny stands in for the impoverished cousin who goes to live with her wealthy relatives. The new version is okay but the older film is richer, in my opinion. For my personal library, I’ll stick with the earlier incarnation.

No one can beat Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth, and Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson. Then there’s Persuasion. I prefer the newer film because the earlier one was so bleak. This is probably my least favorite of Austen's stories because the heroine comes across as weak-minded until she learns to stand up for herself.

We owe an ageless debt of gratitude to Jane Austen for her contribution to the romance genre. Classic tales of lovesick ladies wearing gowns and fluttering their fans in merry olde England continue to attract readers to this day. Heroines may have grown gutsier, but Jane’s ladies were no shrinking violets either. They compelled us to sympathize with their plight and to fall in love with the hero as they did in their own fashion.