Jane Austen's works are not easily classified within a specific literary movement because she did not write in the same style as many of her contemporaries. Austen lived during a period of English literature that favored the dramatic and Romantic over satire and comedy.

Austen's novels, on the other hand, are unapologetically funny and warm-hearted. Her protagonists are often strong-willed and rebellious, but they always end up happily, no matter the conflicts and difficulties they once faced. Even her worst villains are funny in their own way, especially the imperious Lady Catherine de Bourgh, from "Pride and Prejudice".

Many authors of Austen's day fall more squarely into the Romantic tradition, which favored overwrought descriptions and overlong sentences. Austen's style is more simplified, focusing on the characters' conversations rather than the scenery surrounding them.

It is the rich, dynamic characters in Jane Austen's literary world that so endear generations of readers to her novels. many critics are often loathe to refer to Austen as true "literature" because of her enduring popularity, but she is one of the very few authors that can so easily make the crossover, transitioning from classic literature to popular reading, without losing any meaning or importance.

Austen's witty style and social commentary is akin to another English writer who defies classification. Charles Dickens, like Austen, penned novels about the regular people of England, and offered true insight into a world often ignored by the literary elite. Austen also sharpened her focus to a specific set of people: England's rural middle-class at the end of the 1700s and the start of the nineteenth century.

Unlike many of her Romantic contemporaries, Austen's novels are bogged down with the particulars of scenery and description, but rather thrive on her light, airy prose and spectacular wit. Unlike other Romantic authors, Austen's stunning prose allows her to make the leap from stodgy "classic literature" to modern language and popularity.

Austen's particular style defied classification in her day, and today it has become the norm. Although her novels were not very popular during her own lifetime, today she enjoys some of the world's greatest successes. Her novels are published all over the globe in hundreds of languages, and endure to this day.