Agreed about the latter two, the moralizing just kills the potential both stories had. I liked Mansfield Park quite a bit in the beginning, as well, mostly because of that man and his sister with the not impeccable morality. When it turned out they'd be depicted as the bad guys and the boring, goody-two-shoes woman as the heroine, it rapidly went downhill.

Haven't read the other two yet, but I might do so soon while I'm at it (as you may have suspected, I'm reading my parents' paperback of all seven novels, hence the reading Emma and Lady Susan after the P&P reread).

Yes, pride and prejudice, I know. It doesn't quite compare, though. Elizabeth is generally a great person all-round, whose only real fault is that she goes along with the general exaggerated disapproval of Darcy - though Darcy admits later on that he was largely to blame himself for that - and because of that is too naive towards Wickham. That's about it. It's enough of a fault for some kind of regret and guilt, but it's really quite modest. I don't entirely recall all the details of S&S, but Elinor Dashwood is if anything even more virtuous, really.

Now compare that to Emma's arrogance in match-making with such painful results for her friend, her bad judgement in sharing her theory about Jane Fairfax and Mr. Dixon with Frank Churchill, her pride making her treat Jane colder than she deserves, and last but not least her snide remark at Miss Bates. (Certainly, the latter was really quite modest and Mr. Knightley's sermon about it seems quite exaggerated by modern standards, but she feels awfully guilty about it and by her own standards it's a very bad thing indeed.) None of those are unforgiveable faults, of course, but I have to maintain that she really is more prone to committing errors that hurt others and having flaws than Elizabeth or Elinor. And I also like that Mr. Knightley shows his affection and feelings for her partially through his reproaches about her flaws - which seems like a more mature and adult kind of love than that in the other two books.

When Emma hears from Harriet about how Mr. Knightley had been paying so much attention to her lately, and had then gone off to London in a hurry, I thought maybe it was because Mr. Knightley was in fact her father, and had fatherly feelings for Harriet instead of romantic ones - and had gone to London to double-check with her mother, or something like that. I suppose I should've known better than to think Austen would allow Mr. Knightley to have a skeleton quite as gruesome as that in his closet, by the standards of the time anyway.

No, not really. When it is discovered near the end that Harriet isn't of noble birth after all, we get the following line: "The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobleness or wealth, would have been a stain indeed." And the idea that the discovery of Harriet not being of noble birth is necessary for her to marry Robert Martin and have a perfect ending, well, that says enough, no?

When Mrs. Elton first appears on the scene and you get Emma's reaction to her which is basically "who do you lowborn upstart think you are to come act like that in my village", I did wonder for a moment if we'd get Emma taken down a notch, whether it would turn out Mrs. Elton's claims to being of equal or higher rank would be confirmed. But it became clear quickly that it was not so, and Emma's views of her high rank are never really challenged in a way that has Austen's support.

In P&P, Elizabeth does end up marrying Mr. Darcy, but not before she has pointed out that she is of noble blood, however low, and so he is still marrying someone nominally of equal rank. So unless it's different in one of the books I haven't read yet, I think it's safe to say those really are Austen's own views. Which is entirely understandable, to be sure, as she writes about the environment she knows.