What to read after Jane Austen?

"Pride and Prejudice" is Jane Austen's greatest masterpiece, a sharp and witty comedy of manners played out in early 19th Century English society a world where men held the power and women were required to negotiate mine-fields of social status, respectability, wealth, love, and sex in order to marry to their own liking and the advantage of their family. Such is particularly the case of the Bennetts, the family of daughters featured in "Pride and Prejudice." Their father's estate will be left to a distant relative, at which point they stand to lose everything. This battle of the sexes in "Pride and Prejudice" is largely seen through the eyes of second daughter Elizabeth, who possesses a razor-sharp wit and rich sense of humor and finds herself pursued by the rich but annoying Mr. Darcy, and hindered by her own dim-witted mother and her sister Jane's hopeless love for the wealthy Mr. Bingley. One of the funniest novels ever written, "Pride and Prejudice" is peopled with memorable characters brought vividly to life as they both succeed and fail according to the manners of their era. "Pride and Prejudice" is a masterpiece of wit and style; a timeless novel for the ages.