I really cannot determine which of the two authors I prefer, having enjoyed reading at least some of the novels of each of them but I will say that of all of Austen's novels I enjoy reading Pride and Prejudice the most, and of Dickens' novels, A Christmas Carol, and the same goes for the movies adapted from those two.  6 novels were written by Austen and 15 novels and more than a dozen short stories were written by Dickens.  31 movie adaptations have been made from Austen's novels and 87 movies have been adapted from Dickens' novels, however, notwithstanding the many movies I have watched during my lifetime, I've not watched that many of the adaptations of either of them.  

I will assume, though, that it is more likely that most of NT's active members have read at least some of Dickens' works, whereas I doubt that as many will have read Austen's.

I will assume, though, that it is more likely that most of NT's active members have read at least some of Dickens' works, whereas I doubt that as many will have read Austen's.

You do have a point. Now that I recall the classics we were taught in school, there was Dickens' Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. I don't recall the same kind of introduction to any of Jane Austen's novels.

Although I've read all those 3 Dickens' novels, watched the movies of them as well, they were not taught in high school, and even though I majored in English Literature for my B.A. I don't recall if they had given courses in either one.  However, in grade 11 (third year high school) I had to do a book report on Pride and Prejudice.   I got a lousy mark because Miss Dixon disagreed with my opinion that both Lizzy and Darcy had been both proud and prejudiced, and I was the only one in the class who thought so.  Not only do I still think they both were, but recently I read a scholarly article that said that as well. 

my opinion that both Lizzy and Darcy had been both proud and prejudiced

You were correct and both brought each other down a rung or two from the myopic character ladder.

Back to the discourse, I'm sorry but comparing the two authors adds nothing to either, it is akin to comparing Streisand with Pavarotti.

BTW, Joseph Conrad was far better than either of them.

Thanks for your support.  On Newsvine I tried to start a "Canadians" group but even there not enough members qualified. 

Jane Austen (/ˈɒstɪn, ˈɔːstɪn/ OST-in, AW-stin; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are implicit critiques of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her use of social commentary, realism, and irony have earned her acclaim amongst critics and scholars.

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.......Dickens's novels were, among other things, works of social commentary. Simon Callow states, "From the moment he started to write, he spoke for the people, and the people loved him for it." He was a fierce critic of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. In a New York address, he expressed his belief that "Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen". Dickens's second novel, Oliver Twist (1839), shocked readers with its images of poverty and crime: it challenged middle class polemics about criminals, making impossible any pretence to ignorance about what poverty entailed.

At a time when Britain was the major economic and political power of the world, Dickens highlighted the life of the forgotten poor and disadvantaged within society. Through his journalism he campaigned on specific issues—such as sanitation and the workhouse—but his fiction probably demonstrated its greatest prowess in changing public opinion in regard to class inequalities. He often depicted the exploitation and oppression of the poor and condemned the public officials and institutions that not only allowed such abuses to exist, but flourished as a result. 

wikipedia

Both emphases have a prominent place, but I prefer Dickens because his topics were more related to social change for the masses. 

Another two authors whose works I've enjoyed, and both have had novels adapted to movies, are more contemporary:  Ernest Hemingway and John Grisham. 

I always felt that Dickens' characters were more accurately described as caricatures.  Their qualities, either good or bad, were exaggerated to the point of not being realistic.  I feel that Austen's characters are more nuanced.  Her heroes and heroines have flaws.  Her villains aren't entirely evil.  They're much more like real people - a mix of bad and good, serious and funny, wise and foolish.

I think you are right on this one. You may have come the closest to answering Buzz's implied question in post # 1. She may be better in that sense than Dickens was.

On the other hand, I kind of agree with JR on the subject matter, although not for the same reasons as John. Dickens wrote about and during a unique period of history. He notes the difference between the American and French revolutions. Many centuries later, I believe the French people have come to agree with him. He also noted the human cost of the industrial revolution in England. I tend to see the results of that period as benefiting the entire world. It was the very early stages of the British Empire. An empire which not only civilized much of the world but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings. The very places where others seek refuge.

I don't know that I'd say one is better than the other.  They're just different.  Dickens had a goal with his work - raising social awareness.  His characters furthered that goal.  Nobody can help pitying Oliver Twist, or rejoicing at the rehabilitation of Ebenezer Scrooge.

An empire which not only civilized much of the world but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings. The very places where others seek refuge.

I'd venture to say that those areas were already populated by decent human beings.

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An empire which not only civilized much of the world but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings. 

Unbelievable.  The idea that the invading colonizers who committed genocide against the indigenous populations were "rational, decent" is more than a little disturbing.

"...but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings."

Some might want to add the words "mostly" to the beginning of your adjectives describing human beings.

"I'd venture to say that those areas were already populated by decent human beings."

And in some ways, IMO, even more civilized.

'Legacy of Violence' documents the dark side of the British Empire : NPR

Our guest, historian Caroline Elkins, documents the dark side of the British Empire in her new book, "Legacy Of Violence: A History Of The British Empire." That empire became the largest empire in history and by 1920 included 24% of the Earth's landmass. Elkin spoke with guest interviewer Arun Venugopal, who's a senior reporter in the Race and Justice Unit at public radio station WNYC in New York. They spoke before Johnson's resignation announcement. Here's Arun with more.

ARUN VENUGOPAL, BYLINE: This year marks the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II, her 70th year as the Queen of England. It's the first time any British monarch has celebrated a Platinum Jubilee. When Queen Elizabeth II took the throne in 1952, the British Empire encompassed parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific and included 700 million people. In her new book, our guest, Caroline Elkins, looks at how the use of violence was central to the spread and maintenance of the British Empire, even as it portrayed itself, self-servingly, as a benevolent force. The book is called "Legacy Of Violence: A History Of The British Empire," and it explores how colonial officials from India to Malaya to South Africa hid evidence of their violent practices while building the largest empire in human history.

In the 1990s, Caroline Elkins began to write her dissertation about Britain's civilizing mission during the last years of colonial rule in Kenya, but then she discovered British officials had created a vast network of secret detention camps that housed as many as 1 1/2 million members of Kenya's Kikuyu community. In those camps, officials practiced unimaginably sadistic forms of torture upon Kikuyu men and women, along with sexual violence. Her revelations were published in her first book, "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story Of Britain's Gulag In Kenya," for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. Caroline Elkins is professor of history and African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the founding director of Harvard's Center for African Studies. And she joins us now.

Caroline Elkins, welcome to FRESH AIR.

CAROLINE ELKINS: Thank you so much for having me, Arun.

VENUGOPAL: Much of your book deals with the idea of liberal imperialism. What does that mean?

ELKINS: Yeah, liberal imperialism is Britain's civilizing mission, right? It's white man's burden - this idea that it was going to bring democracy and rule of law and free market to, you know, 700 million subjects across a quarter of the world's landmass. And, you know, all empires are violent, but it takes a particular form in the British Empire because coercion isn't just about establishing and maintaining authority over subject populations; it's actually part of reform, this idea that you have to have local populations feel suffering, to feel pain, to experience forced labor, that these, in fact, bring about a kind of developmentalism, a kind of movement into, if you will, adulthood and eventually into independence.

As Britain begins to expand its empire overseas and confronts distant places with so-called backward people with these strange religions and dependent relationships, the question becomes, can these people with different skin colors become like us? And skin color becomes the mark of difference.

VENUGOPAL: Let's talk about the moral effect that you referred to earlier. A leading British military theorist you quote, Colonel Charles Callwell, said, "the enemy must be made to feel a moral superiority throughout" (ph). You say his approach was embraced across the empire, that it helped fuse battlefield strategies with the white man's burden. But what does it mean in practice?

ELKINS: You know, in practice it means untold suffering, Arun. It means that gloves are off and that any kind of sort of coercive tactic, whether it be the use of detention camps, whether it's torture, whether it's scorched earth policy, the level of violence is extraordinary. And what it means for somebody like Callwell is that you can explain the violence by the fact that it has a moral quality to it. It has a moral, if you will, redemptive effect. Battlefields, soldiers, colonial administrators, missionaries, they - many of them believed in the sort of - you know, the nature of coercion and the ways in which it was part and parcel of this civilizing mission.

VENUGOPAL: British legal experts, you write, wrestled with distinctions between civilized and uncivilized. Some went so far as to create categories of civilized, barbarian and savage. These categories, I guess, relied on all the Western anthropologists and other academics who are crisscrossing the empire, measuring skull sizes and whatnot of Natives and deciding how civilized a tribe was. Scholarship was quite critical to the imperial project, wasn't it?

ELKINS: Yeah, it absolutely was. And I think that the nature by which, if you will, academics - people who are, as you're saying, scholars at the time - were complicit in the colonial project, lending credence, lending sort of scholarly heft. And it's also important to bear in mind that this is an era in the 19th century of the upswing of scientific racism. And what becomes the marker of difference is skin color. Whites are at one end and the Brits at the top of that of that sort of - you know, top of the pile. On the far end of the other spectrum are Blacks from Africa, with all other shades in between. And, of course, you know, the Brits and others are capable of racializing subjects such that Afrikaners in South Africa and the Irish also become racialized such that they are seen as being, you know, sort of a lesser breed, if you will, than Anglo Saxons in Britain.

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I commented similarly, maybe a little less emphatically, having replied to the posted comments before getting as far as yours. 

in some ways, IMO, even more civilized.

Yes, the sacrificing of children, as painfully as possible because their screams made their god happy and ensured the sun rose, sure was rational and civilized 

 a senior reporter in the Race and Justice Unit at public radio station WNYC in New York

Lol. 

Thank you for the history, JR, but sometimes "Less is more":

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hofmann “Nature is pleased with simplicity.” – Isaac Newton “ Less is more .” – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe “The more you say, the less people remember.” – François Fénelon

.

@ 4.1.13    Sean Treacy  

(I have no desire to repeat such a comment as a guide to what I am replying to)

Whether or not that is true, I DID use the words "in some ways" did I not?  I didn't think it necessary to humiliate a few of the members of this site, even if it were, but then there are some members here, are they not, who revel in having the opportunity to do just that. 

Teach yourself. 

An empire which not only civilized much of the world but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings. The very places where others seek refuge.

Those areas were populated with decent human beings and advanced civilizations to say that they were not and it took white Europeans to ''civilize'' them is beyond belief. If slaughter, slavery, and genocide are your idea of civilization [removed][✘]

I guess you could counter with Rudyard Kipling.

 “The White Man’s Burden” is seven stanzas long and is a glimpse into the way Europeans justified their colonial ambitions. The poor white man, said Kipling, is doomed to the hard work of going to foreign places and raising up the local savages into civilized society. It was originally written for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and then altered to serve as a British man’s advice for how America should treat the newly acquired Philippines. Reminder: Rudyard Kipling Was a Racist Fuck and The Jungle Book Is Imperialist Garbage (gizmodo.com)

Yes, the sacrificing of children, as painfully as possible because their screams made their god happy and ensured the sun rose, sure was rational and civilized 

As the RCC and other Christian denominations showed us into the 1980s how they protected children with sodomy, rape, beatings, starvation, medical experiments, slavery and forced labor all the while being protected by the Pope and the RCC....

A wonderful example of civilized Christian people praising their god....you must be so proud, Sean.

The idea that the invading colonizers who committed genocide against the indigenous populations were "rational, decent" is more than a little disturbing.

Agreed.

As the RCC and other Christian denominations showed us into the 1980s how they protected children with sodomy, rape, beatings, starvation, medical experiments, slavery and forced labor all the while being protected by the Pope and the RCC....

Child sacrifice under a different label.

hild sacrifice under a different label.

You should read about what was going on in native villages that made the english set up those schools in the first place. The Canadian government compiled all sorts of first hand reports that will  sicken your stomach  if you have any sense of humanity.   Or the sky high abuse sexual abuse rates that continue to this today on reservations.  Somehow those are never discussed.  

But, of course, that doesn't fit in with the incredibly simplistic narrative of perfect victimhood the modern left has indoctrinated modern westerners with. You've bought, hook, line and sinker into a myth that bears no relation to reality and actually denies Indians their humanity, since you take away their agency in making them caricatures.  

The good white liberal never criticize the genocides, atrocities, rapes, tortues and  any other bad acts of indians. Why is that? It seems liberals just don't think Indians are up to being held to the same standards as white people.  They just treat them like kids, not responsible for their own actions. 

And they proposed to solve those problems by sentencing the children to rape, slavery, abuse for speaking their own language or following their own religion?

What an excellent plan.

d they proposed to solve those problems by sentencing the children to rape, slavery, abuse for speaking their own language or following their own relig

You must really hate  American public schools.

By the way, what do you think Indian tribes did to the kids they kidnapped, those they didn't murder or immediately  torture to death? Again, funny how the "good" white liberals never seem to be bothered when those kids were raped, sold into slavery and abused. 

My NSHO: Sometimes less is more, sometimes not.

An empire which not only civilized much of the world but help populate large areas such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with rational, decent human beings.

Nice rewrite of history. Prior to the American Revolution, the English, dumped some 52,000 convicts in the colonies for terms of 7 or 14 years from 1718 to 1775.  During the "troubles in the colonies" England stopped dumping "convicts" in the colonies and began sending 164,000 undesirables to Australia. ( 1788-1868 )

The English "decent people" you speak of have a long and dishonorable habit of firing on their own soldiers as a desperate last measure to "win the field", Agincourt, Waterloo and Cowpens.

Morality did not abide within the English but Dickens sought to change all of that eventually influencing England America and some colonies.  But while some white people give credit to Dickens for that, non whites have a different feeling for Dickens the Indian hater. Clearly the paintings and books by George Catlin of all the Native Indian tribes he lived with from 1830 and later were of decent the NAIs were without the pressures of the civilization and pressure of the Industrial Revolution.  These lofty ideals were more or less dashed to pieces by the unexplainable hatred of the Native Americans by one very popular Charles Dickens.

The very places where others seek refuge.

Hundreds of years later after all of the dirty laundry has been aired.

LAST WARNING

LAST WARNING

You should read about what was going on in native villages that made the english set up those schools in the first place. The Canadian government compiled all sorts of first hand reports that will  sicken your stomach  if you have any sense of humanity.   Or the sky high abuse sexual abuse rates that continue to this today on reservations.  Somehow those are never discussed.

Another batch of ignorant comments. First, the ''Residential Schools'' were modeled after the US ''Indian Boarding Schools'' in the US and it was done by the Canadian government as a means to assimilate Indians into the white world It was the same as the goal of the US government. Have you never heard the quote ''kill the Indian save the man" Thx to Col. Pratt.

There are first-hand reports in the early 1900s of how bad the Residential School was by Canadian investigators. Which points out how badly the children were treated.

The sky-high sexual abuse on reservations is 78% committed by non-Indians. If you could have watched the trailer you would have a much better understanding of the problem caused by religion/gov't the RCC being the main culprit in the sexual abuse on the rez. BTW the Canadian gov't has acknowledged all of the findings of the commission that investigated the thousands of Indian children that died in these so-called schools in Canada. 

As a result of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation, the Canadian government has paid over $23 billion in settlements to compensate First Nations children and families affected by discriminatory child welfare services, marking one of the largest class-action settlements in Canadian history; this includes funds allocated specifically for the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission itself, which was around $60 million over five years. 

Also, there are three  Indigenous groups in Canada, First Nations (Indian) Inuit (far north separate from First Nations), and Metis. You might want to investigate what Metis people are. 

"...a mix of bad and good, serious and funny, wise and foolish."

Excellent analysis.

Could it be because this seed was also about Dickens that it has seen an avalanche of comments as compared to any other Jane Austen article I have ever posted?  LOL

Anything posted about current politics or religion not relevant to Jane Austen and/or the topics referred to in the group description above will be deleted as "off topic".

I am beginning to think that the discussion is getting just a little too similar to what I have forbidden so if it continues, I will start deleting comments.

Sometimes deleting comments is a good idea (in any event it would probably make the less is more people happy!).

"(in any event it would probably make the less is more people happy!)."

Are there any less is more people around here?  I have to admit I'm not one.

I guess everyone could leave you and Jane Austen alone together.

The threads were getting into an argumentative off-topic trend, and not what I want to see on any of my articles.  Although I could ticket your comment as no value I'll leave it up for reasonable members to see and let them make their own decisions about the quality of it. 

The comments on this article have gone in a direction that disturbs me greatly.  It is not at all what I intended, so I have decided that the best thing I can do is to FREEZE it.  Therefore this article is now locked permanently.  If anyone wants to continue with their "drama" they can do it on their own articles.