# Worst popular books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 13, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445 "2009-11-13T15:06:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/201 "2009-11-28T22:40:52Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > In defense of Jane Austen, she did write what she knew: in her time period, it was crucial that women marry well. Not much has changed, there. (well, it has a bit, but it’s still important for women to marry well, but that’s another thread). Jane Austen was also limited by the fact that she needed to make money off her writing, as she was a woman who had not married well (or at all). Her sister Cassandra was likewise unmarried. There were few “respectable” ways for a woman to make her own money in those days, and Austen was proud that she was able to help her family by selling her novels. She’d been writing ever since she was a young girl and no doubt would have written even if she’d been independently wealthy, but the fact that she needed to sell her stories meant she had to appeal to the popular tastes of the time. Her surviving juvenile works, which were intended only for the amusement of her close friends and family, are much more obviously humorous/satirical than her novels. They even contain black humor about murder, madness, and alcoholism, subjects that were at most delicately hinted at in her adult works. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445.md?page=10)