The other day a friend, about to tackle Jane Austen, asked me to advise him on the order in which he should read her novels. Without my giving it too much thought, this is what suggested itself:
(1) Sense and Sensibility, (2) Pride and Prejudice, (3) Emma, (4) Mansfield Park, (5) Persuasion, (6) Northanger Abbey.
I immediately added that he could hardly go wrong whatever sequence he took them in; and indeed when I went back to my reading log and looked at the order in which I'd read the six novels myself when I did first read them in 2007 (I leave aside a youthful encounter with Emma in 1958 or 1959), I found that it didn't correspond to my recommendation. Still, I think I can justify the latter. As follows...
Someone new to Jane Austen needs a 'warm-up' before getting to her two shining masterpieces, and Sense and Sensibility is ideal in that role, with enough goodies to win a person over. Then the aforesaid shining masterpieces, Pride and Prejudice and Emma, and unless our reader is Mark Twain or resistant for some other incomprehensible reason, he or she should be well convinced. That is the time to tackle the book - Mansfield Park - about which there seem to be the most reservations (though not from me), reservations about the characters of its two main protagonists and about some of the moral thinking of the author. Then, having weathered those difficulties, if such they do appear, a first-time reader can return to the ground of near-flawlessness with Persuasion, and end with the less weighty yet still delightful homecoming of Northanger Abbey.
It may not be your optimal Jane sequence, but it's mine.