Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gráinne Tyrrell, Doctoral Researcher in Biomedical Device Design, School of Architecture and Product Design, University of Limerick

“If you can’t handle this, you’ll never keep up with your peers.”

That’s what a young vascular surgeon in training reported hearing from a senior colleague during interviews for our study, after she needed two hands to hold a medical device her male peers could operate with one.

Another cardiologist, more than ten years into her career, must regularly hand over part of a procedure because she doesn’t have the grip strength for a particular surgical task. The problem isn’t her skill, focus, or stamina – it’s that the tools were never built for her hands.

Stories like these are sometimes misused to reinforce outdated stereotypes: that women aren’t physically capable of performing certain high-skill roles like heart surgery.

In reality, women surgeons are often working harder – and sometimes risking their own health – to achieve the same results as their male colleagues. The barrier isn’t ability. It’s the long shadow of gender bias in both medicine and design.

Our research team is working to change that. We’ve developed a test rig equipped with sensors and 3D scanning technology to capture precise measurements of grip strength and hand size across a variety of simulated surgical scenarios. So far, we’ve gathered data from 42 cardiologists and vascular surgeons worldwide.

The study involved 24 women vascular surgeons from across the globe, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Many participants shared personal accounts of the strain they endure, describing aching wrists and fear of long-term joint issues – all exacerbated by tools that demand more strength than their bodies can comfortably deliver. For some, the motivation to take part was personal: they want the next generation of surgeons to face fewer barriers.

This data is already being used to inform the design of new cardiovascular devices. Handles are being resized to fit a wider range of hand shapes, and the grip strength required to operate them is being lowered. The aim is simple but critical: reduce injury risk, improve surgeon wellbeing and extend careers.

Built for men, used by everyone

The operating theatre is full of devices designed to fit the “average” surgeon and, for decades, that average has been male. Handle diameters tend to be optimised for larger hands, while buttons and sliders are calibrated to force ranges comfortable for male grip strength.

In vascular and cardiac surgery, precision and power go hand in hand. These procedures require surgeons to maintain awkward positions for extended periods, often in high-pressure situations. Even without design flaws, the risk of muscle and joint strain is significant. But when a handle is too big to grip securely, or a control requires more force than a surgeon can comfortably exert, that risk increases sharply and disproportionately for women.

The impact isn’t only on the surgeon. Fatigue, strain and discomfort can affect concentration and precision, which in turn can influence patient outcomes. In a profession where the margin for error is vanishingly small, ergonomics aren’t a luxury — they’re a safety requirement.

When engineers develop new biomedical devices, they rely on design guidance: technical data on ideal handle sizes, optimal button placement and the comfortable grip force a surgeon should be able to apply.

But these guidelines are built on incomplete data. Historically, women were excluded from research studies, meaning their measurements never made it into the datasets that shape design.

Even when designers look for female-specific data, there either are no data or the sample sizes in studies are very small. One common shortcut is to scale down men’s measurements by 30-40% to “estimate” women’s — a crude approach that doesn’t reflect real-world variation in hand anatomy or grip strength.

The problem isn’t just gender. Ethnicity and age matter too. People of colour have long been underrepresented in health research, compounding the challenges faced by women of colour. The differences can be striking: the average grip strength of a European man is about 49kg, while for an Asian woman it’s around 24kg — yet both may be expected to perform identical surgical tasks with identical tools.

A changing profession needs changing tools

In 2025, women made up the majority of doctors in the UK for the first time — a milestone that signals a profession in transition. But the tools they will use are still rooted in outdated assumptions. The lack of inclusive design isn’t just an equity problem. It’s a practical one, affecting career longevity, workplace safety and ultimately patient care.

Calls to improve ergonomics for women in surgery have been growing louder. Professional organisations, research groups and individual surgeons have all pushed for better-fitting, more adaptable tools. Yet progress has been slow, partly because gathering detailed ergonomic data has traditionally been time-consuming and expensive.

New technologies are changing that. With 3D scanning, advanced sensors, and more sophisticated modelling, it’s now possible to collect accurate, relevant data far more efficiently. This opens the door to design that accounts for the diversity of the surgical workforce — not just in gender and ethnicity, but in body size, strength and working style.

By integrating grip strength and hand size data from a truly representative group of surgeons, designers can move away from the “one-size-fits-all” mindset that has dominated for decades. Lowering the physical demands of surgical tools won’t just help women – it will improve comfort for all surgeons, from smaller men to older practitioners whose grip strength changes over time.

Heart surgery techniques have advanced rapidly in recent years, driving remarkable innovation and design. However, while technological progress has surged ahead, the data guiding these designs remains outdated and exclusionary, oftentimes leaving women in surgery an afterthought.

As today’s operating rooms evolve in diversity, we’re advocating for surgical instrument design to evolve with it – ensuring inclusivity is built into every medical device.

Gráinne Tyrrell’s PhD research is funded by Research Ireland and Medtronic under the Enterprise Partnership Scheme. The authors acknowledge Donna Curley for her contributions to the research as an industry mentor.

Eoin White and Leonard O Sullivan do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When surgical tools don’t fit: how gender bias in design puts women surgeons at risk – https://theconversation.com/when-surgical-tools-dont-fit-how-gender-bias-in-design-puts-women-surgeons-at-risk-262743

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Claire Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Southampton

Picture this: you’re out for dinner with your partner. The food arrives, the conversation flows – and then their phone buzzes. They glance down, smile faintly and start typing. You sit there, fork in hand, suddenly invisible.

That moment has a name: phubbing, a mash-up of “phone” and “snubbing.” It’s become an almost inevitable feature of modern relationships, as smartphones claim a place at the table – sometimes literally.

You might think of phubbing as a minor irritation, but our research shows it can erode relationship quality, dent self-esteem, stir up resentment and even trigger retaliation. And some people are far more sensitive to it than others.

Using a daily diary study, we tracked 196 people over multiple days, asking them to report how much they felt phubbed by their partner, how they reacted and how they felt afterwards.

The pattern was remarkably consistent. On days when people felt more phubbed, they reported lower relationship satisfaction, worse mood and more anger or frustration.

Phubbing can make the “phubbee” feel excluded, less important and less connected. This fits with equity theory in psychology – relationships feel better when both partners invest equally. If your partner is focused on their phone instead of you, it can signal unequal investment.

Individual differences

Not everyone experiences phubbing the same way. In our 2025 study, published in the Journal of Personality, we found that attachment style – the habitual way people think and feel about relationships – played a big role.

People higher in attachment anxiety – who fear abandonment and crave reassurance – reacted more strongly when phubbed. They reported more depressed mood, lower self-esteem and greater resentment. They were also more likely to retaliate.

Those higher in attachment avoidance – who are uncomfortable with closeness – didn’t report their relationship satisfaction drop as sharply due to phubbing, but they still sometimes retaliated, often by picking up their own phone to seek approval and validation from others when their partner wasn’t meeting these needs.

Narcissism can also play a role. People with high levels of narcissism generally like being the centre of attention, but they may go about it in different ways. In another 2025 study, we examined two sub-types of narcissism: narcissistic rivalry (being antagonistic, insecure and status-defending) and narcissistic admiration (being self-promoting and charm-driven).

We found that people higher in narcissistic rivalry reported lower self-esteem, higher anger and more conflict – whether phubbed or not. When phubbed, they were more curious about what their partner was doing, but also more likely to retaliate out of revenge or to gain approval from others.

People higher in narcissistic admiration tended to have higher relationship satisfaction and wellbeing overall. When phubbed, they were more likely to engage in conflict with their partner than retaliation.

Phubbing as a tit-for-tat game

In our earlier 2022 study, we looked more closely at the type of behaviour phubbed partners engaged in. Common responses included ignoring the phubbing, feeling resentful, asking about the phone use or directly confronting the partner. But one of the most frequent, and telling, responses was retaliation – picking up their own phone and doing the same.

When we asked why people retaliated, three main motives emerged. One was revenge, to “teach the partner a lesson”. The other was seeking support, turning to others for connection when the partner seemed unavailable. And a third was seeking approval – posting on social media or messaging to get validation from others. Boredom was also sometimes mentioned, but it was far less common.

Phubbing might seem trivial – after all, we all check our phones. But in relationships, it can act as a micro-rupture in connection. These small moments can accumulate, creating a sense that your partner’s attention is elsewhere and that you’re less valued.

For people who are already sensitive to signs of rejection – like those high in attachment anxiety or narcissistic rivalry – the impact can be magnified. They may interpret phubbing as a deliberate slight, rather than a mindless habit. This can set off cycles of conflict or withdrawal.

How to break the phubbing cycle

If you’ve ever been accused of phubbing, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad partner, but it might mean your habits need attention.

Simple steps can help protect relationship quality can include creating “phone-free” zones during meals or before bed. It could also be useful to acknowledge the interruption if you must check your phone – explaining why and returning your attention quickly.

Ideally, couples should discuss phone boundaries openly so both partners feel respected. If you’re the phubbee, recognising your own triggers can help. If phubbing hits a deep nerve, it may reflect earlier experiences of feeling ignored or undervalued. Perhaps your partner checking their phone isn’t about your inadequacy but rather about having a bad habit that’s hard to break.
Knowing this can help you respond in ways that repair connection rather than escalate conflict.

Ultimately, smartphones aren’t going away and neither is phubbing. But our findings suggest that the small, everyday choice to be present with your partner matters more than you might think. Put simply, when you put down your phone, you pick up your relationship.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘Phubbing’: why ignoring your partner for your phone infuriates certain people – and causes them to retaliate – https://theconversation.com/phubbing-why-ignoring-your-partner-for-your-phone-infuriates-certain-people-and-causes-them-to-retaliate-263963

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Claire Isabella Gilmour, PhD Candidate, Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol

This year has seen a number of artefacts recovered from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt. The area has attracted interest for some time due to ongoing searches for the tomb of Cleopatra VII and Alexander the Great. But the new finds add to our knowledge of the ancient city of Canopus, one of several settlements that have largely been lost to the sea.

The discovery of buildings and an ancient dock is particularly crucial for our understanding of this principal port – one of the most important for the economy of Egypt before the foundation of Alexandria in the 4th century BC.

The Nile Delta is where the river flows into the Mediterranean Sea, and the twin cities of Canopus and Thonis-Heracleion were situated on opposite banks. Canopus was on the western side, at the mouth of the westernmost branch of the Nile. Recovering artefacts from the mouth of the Nile is difficult because much of the material not only lies on the seabed, but is submerged under clay and silt.

The preservation of archaeological material underwater is variable. Metal objects do not fare well, but stone is more durable. Organic materials such as wood can last surprisingly well due to the lack of oxygen in waterlogged places, although they become very vulnerable when removed, so rapid protection is essential.

The recent discoveries include the remnants of an ancient harbour and a merchant ship, shedding light on shipbuilding techniques and economic activity.

Statues continue to emerge, building on what we already know of sculptural practices, religion and politics. They offer clues as to the physical appearance of the ancient city.

One of these statues is a huge quartz sphinx holding the cartouches of Pharaoh Ramesses II (carved oval tablets bearing his name). While it is not yet determined how or when that sphinx was brought to Canopus, it emphasises the antiquity of the site. A white marble statue of a Roman nobleman further confirms the city’s status as multicultural and extremely wealthy.

Where Greece and Egypt meet

The foundation date of Canopus is unknown, but the site had been settled for centuries before the Greeks. It was first mentioned in writing in the 6th century BC, in a poem by Solon.

Expanded over time, in a location perfect for trade and military activity in the Mediterranean, Canopus became a key part of the success of the Greek rulers of Egypt. It served the Ptolemaic dynasty well for several centuries before eventually becoming part of the Roman empire around 30BC. However, the coastal position meant that settlements in that area were vulnerable to environmental stresses and earthquakes and rising sea levels eventually submerged them by the 8th century AD.

A large proportion of the western suburbs of Canopus are today underneath the modern Egyptian coastal town of Abu Qir, while the eastern suburbs are underwater.

For ancient people, Canopus was a place of pilgrimage. Countless people travelled to the sanctuaries of the Egyptian gods Osiris and Serapis there to take part in the Mysteries of Osiris. The annual religious festival reenacting the god’s murder, dismemberment and resurrection dated back to the earliest days of ancient Egypt.

The modern site of Abu Qir was also a place of importance to early Christianity, as religious changes took hold across the world.

A sunken city and its treasures

Underwater excavation in the Alexandria area has continued for decades, most notably by French archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team. They work under the auspices of the European Institute for Underwater in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Many initial finds were made during the team’s work in the 1990s-2010s. The British Museum showcased some 200 of its artefacts in their Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds exhibition in 2016. Highlights included a 5.4 metre tall granite statue of Hapy, the personification of the Nile (on loan from the Maritime Museum, Alexandria) and a massive statue of the Apis bull (from the Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria). It showed that Greek rule did not mean the end of Egypt; rather, it was refashioned with a new image.

A sculpted figure of the posthumously deified Arsinoë II, daughter of Ptolemy I, as the Egyptian goddess Isis was also found. It is an intriguing combination of the timelessness of ancient Egyptian statuary, overlaid with the Greek aesthetic, wearing garments rendered in stone so fine they seem transparent.

There is much more to be found beneath the waves, but the strict criteria applied to these underwater excavations mean that most objects will remain there, at least for now, with plans being developed for the world’s first underwater museum.

The targeted nature of the excavations is part of a quest to highlight and celebrate the work being done around underwater heritage. As climate change pushes sea levels ever higher, the need for protection for archaeological sites like Canopus only becomes more pressing.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Claire Isabella Gilmour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. New finds shed light on Canopus – the ancient Egyptian port city lost to the sea – https://theconversation.com/new-finds-shed-light-on-canopus-the-ancient-egyptian-port-city-lost-to-the-sea-263953

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Ciara Greene, Associate Professor of Psychology, University College Dublin

Psychologists have intensively studied the factors that make both eyewitnesses and victims more or less susceptible to memory distortion. But to date there has been no experimental evidence comparing memory suggestibility between the complainants and accused in sexual assault cases.

My recent study was the first to compare memory errors between complainants and the accused. The findings of this study, which examined the memories of people embroiled in a fictional sexual assault case, suggest that both parties are equally likely to misremember the details of what happened.

Imagine that you have been called to serve on a jury, evaluating a case of alleged sexual assault. In this case, David and Rebecca are university classmates and went to a party one Saturday evening. Towards the end of the night, they went to an upstairs bedroom, where sexual activity took place. The next day, Rebecca went to police to lodge a complaint of sexual assault, stating that she did not consent to sex with David.

In this trial, as is often the case in real court cases, the accused, David, contends that the sexual activity was entirely consensual. As a juror, this puts you in a difficult position. Both parties agree that sexual activity took place, so any physical evidence is probably going to be of limited use. To make your decision, you must rely on the testimony of David and Rebecca, based on their recollections of the evening. This means that you must evaluate the credibility of David and Rebecca’s memories.

When a court case hinges on the memories of victims or eyewitnesses, expert witnesses are sometimes called to explain the science of memory to the jury. The issue is understudied, but evidence suggests that in sexual assault cases, these experts are almost always called by the defence rather than the prosecution.

In the case I described above, this means that the expert testimony would be used to argue that Rebecca’s – but not David’s – memory might be distorted.

Research into eyewitness memory literature is largely motivated by a desire to reduce eyewitness errors and avoid miscarriages of justice. As a direct result, the majority of evidence that the expert can rely upon in giving their testimony will have focused on memory distortion among witnesses and victims of crimes. This can give the impression that witnesses and complainants are particularly prone to memory errors, while the memory of the complainant is infallible.

People who are accused of crimes are human too, and their memories are subject to the same reconstructive processes as anyone else. In response to this issue, my colleagues and I conducted a series of experiments – recently published in Scientific Reports – which showed that both parties in a “he said, she said” case are equally likely to suffer from memory distortion.

In our study, participants were invited to imagine that they were going on a date with either a man or a woman. They then watched a video of scenes from the date, filmed from a first person perspective. After the video, participants were told that an accusation of sexual assault had been made, and were randomly assigned to the role of the complainant or the accused.

Next, they were shown witness statements from a security guard, bartender and taxi driver that included some misleading descriptions of the date. For example, the statement suggested that the accused was plying the complainant with drinks, or that the complainant was sexually aggressive. Over three experiments, we found that the “accused” and the “complainant” were equally likely to incorporate these misleading details into their memory of the date.

A lot of people tend to think of remembering as a simple act of accessing information, like pulling up a computer file. But research has shown we reconstruct each memory from the ground up every time we recall it, as though we are building a Lego tower out of individual bricks, rather than recalling the event as a whole. This reconstruction can be error prone, and we sometimes incorporate misinformation into our memories, like adding a brick to our tower where it shouldn’t be.

The problem arises when we expect human beings to have machine-like recollection for the details of an event, and judge them harshly when they don’t.

These errors can have devastating consequences in judicial settings. The US-based independent non-profit the Innocence Project reported in 2014 that 72% of mistaken convictions that were later overturned when DNA evidence emerged had originally relied upon faulty eyewitness testimony.

But psychologists have developed techniques that interrogators can use to obtain uncontaminated eyewitness testimony. For example, interviewers can be trained to extract eyewitness reports using techniques from the cognitive interview, a technique developed by psychologists to avoid introducing post-event misinformation and distorting witnesses’ memories. In this technique, the interviewer can help witnesses recall details by asking them to form an image of the original scene (such as the location of objects in a room), to comment on their emotional reactions at the time and to describe any sounds, smells and other physical conditions.

When people ask why we didn’t evolve perfect memories, the answer is the same as when we ask why we didn’t evolve to be four metres tall or have hearts that beat 300 times per second: we didn’t need to. Evolutionary pressures pushed us to stand upright and reach a height that supported our ability to feed and defend ourselves, but once that need was met, natural selection no longer favoured ever-increasing height.

In the same way, our memories evolved to support our daily lives – to help us make decisions and take action – not to be an infallible recording device.

When it comes to eyewitness memory, we should treat it just like any other form of evidence, recognising its value but also understanding that it can be contaminated. In the case of sexual assault, it is important to understand that the factors that might undermine a victim’s account – including the passage of time since the event, alcohol consumption and exposure to post-event misinformation are just as likely to apply to the defendant too.

Ciara Greene receives funding from Research Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board of Ireland, and AXA Insurance.

– ref. Defendants in sexual assault cases are just as likely to misremember the event as alleged victims – new study – https://theconversation.com/defendants-in-sexual-assault-cases-are-just-as-likely-to-misremember-the-event-as-alleged-victims-new-study-262841

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Malgorzata Szymanska, PhD Candidate, Cognition and Brain Science, University of Cambridge

Inside every human brain lies a detailed map of the body, with different regions dedicated to different body parts – the hands, lips, feet and more. But what happens to this map when a body part is removed?

For decades, scientists believed that when a body part is amputated, the brain’s body map dramatically reorganises itself, with neighbouring body parts taking over the area once represented by the missing limb.

This idea of large-scale brain reorganisation became a central pillar of what neuroscientists call adult brain plasticity: the ability of the brain to change its structure and function in response to injuries, new experiences or training.

Our new study, published in Nature Neuroscience, shows the opposite is true: the brain’s body map remains strikingly stable, even years after amputation.
To test what happens in the brain after a person loses a body part, we took a unique approach.

Working with NHS surgeons, we followed three adult patients who were preparing to undergo lifesaving arm amputations for medical reasons, such as cancer or severe problems with blood supply. We scanned their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before the amputation and repeatedly afterwards – in some cases for as long as five years.

During the MRI scans, we asked patients to move different body parts: tapping their individual fingers, curling their toes or pursing their lips. This allowed us to map brain activity and to construct the brain’s body map.

After the surgery, we repeated the scans, this time asking them to move their missing (phantom) fingers. Phantom movements are not imaginary: most amputees continue to feel vivid sensations of their missing limbs, even though they are physically no longer there. Doing so gave us a rare opportunity to directly compare the brain’s hand map before and after amputation in the same person.

We discovered that, across all three patients, the map of the hand in the brain remained remarkably unchanged and did not get overwritten by other body parts, such as the face. This neural stability helps explain why so many amputees continue to feel their missing limbs so vividly.

For most amputees, however, phantom sensations are not neutral sensations; they are painful and described as burning, stabbing or itching. For years, the dominant explanation for these painful sensations came from the idea that the brain’s body map has reorganised itself. In turn, this theory inspired therapies such as mirror box therapy, virtual reality training, or sensory-discrimination exercises, all aimed at fixing supposedly broken maps.

Our findings show the brain’s body map is not broken. This helps explain why these therapies consistently fail to outperform placebo treatments in clinical trials. If the map remains intact, trying to fix it is a dead end.

The real culprit

Instead, our results suggest we should look elsewhere, for example, in the nerves that are cut during surgery. Severed nerves can form tangled clusters that misfire signals back to the brain. New amputation surgical techniques are being developed to preserve nerve signalling and maintain stable connections to the brain.

Our findings have important implications for developing prosthetic limbs and brain-computer interfaces. Invasive next-generation brain-computer interfaces can tap directly into the preserved map of the amputated body part to decode what movements are being attempted or even deliver electrical stimulation to the map to enable amputees to feel their missing limb.

These technologies are in development and could, one day, restore natural and intuitive control and sensations of a prosthetic limb, by using the preserved body map.

Our results show that our brains have a resilient model of the body that maintains the representations, even when the sensory input is lost. For amputees, this means that the missing limb lives on in the brain, sometimes as a source of discomfort, but also as a resource for future technologies to use.

Malgorzata Szymanska is receiving funding from the Medical Research Council for her PhD. She was also funded by the Wellcome Trust while working on the study.

The study was supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship, awarded to Tamar R. Makin. Hunter Schone was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health and a research fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health.

– ref. Scientists have been wrong about phantom limbs for decades – new study – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-been-wrong-about-phantom-limbs-for-decades-new-study-263547

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy Thompson, Lecturer in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University

To mark the 250th anniversary of her birth, we’re pitting Jane Austen’s much-loved novels against each other in a battle of wit, charm and romance. Six leading Austen experts have made their case for her ultimate novel, but the winner is down to you. Cast your vote in the poll at the end of the article, and let us know the reason for your choice in the comments. This is Jane Austen Fight Club – it’s bonnets at dawn…

Sense and Sensibility (1811)

Championed by Lucy Thompson, lecturer in 19th-century literature and creative writing, Aberystwyth University

Sense and Sensibility is Austen’s most quietly radical novel. As her first published work, it may be less polished than her later fiction, but it is no less incisive.

It lays bare the emotional cost of living in a world governed by reputation, family obligation and gendered expectation. Excluded from inheritance and displaced from their home, the Dashwood sisters must navigate constant scrutiny. Through Elinor and Marianne, Austen dramatises two strategies for survival in a society obsessed with appearances.

Born from an earlier epistolary draft, the novel retains a sharp interest in how information circulates and misleads. Gossip doesn’t just constrain; it distorts. Letters are spied upon, conversations overheard. Assumptions take on the weight of fact.

In this world, everyone watches – but not everyone truly sees. Sense and Sensibility may wear a quieter face than Emma or Pride and Prejudice, but it is Austen’s sharpest early critique of how appearances govern lives.

This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Championed by Andrew McInnes, reader in English literature, Edge Hill University

Everyone already knows the best Austen novel: Pride and Prejudice. Why? Elizabeth Bennet. Lizzy is so charismatic that you might mistake the novel’s title for an abstract problem, and not Darcy’s pride versus her prejudice.

We share her prejudices because Austen makes them so delicious. We roll our eyes at Mrs Bennet because Lizzy finds her exasperating. Wickham is seductive because he satisfies our inner bitch. And we fall in love with Darcy alongside Lizzy.

Pride and Prejudice is the funniest and sexiest of Austen’s novels. In it, she allows herself a swoon-worthy romance without a hitch. Unlike Northanger Abbey’s Henry Tilney, Darcy doesn’t fall in love because Lizzy adores him, but falls first. Darcy is a complex man – shy, domineering, funny – and not a drip like Eds Ferrars (Sense and Sensibility) or Bertram (Mansfield Park). And unlike Emma, Lizzy builds healthy relationships with other women.

Austen called Pride and Prejudice “too light and bright and sparkling” and joked that it could do with an essay on Walter Scott or Napoleon. But we know that would be a crime. It is just light and bright and sparkling enough to outshine the others.

Mansfield Park (1814)

Championed by Amanda Vickery, professor in early modern history, Queen Mary University of London

Pride and Prejudice is often the first grown-up novel young girls read, but Mansfield Park is the only Austen novel about a little girl growing up.

All Austen’s fictions are versions of the female-centred courtship novel, usually covering a single year, with the heroine safely married to a deserving gentleman by the last page. Yet her heroines are mostly formed young women. Only in Mansfield Park do we meet our heroine as a little girl – and a puny and cowering little girl at that.

Mansfield Park is Austen’s bildungsroman (the novel of becoming) on a par with that other girls’ classic, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847). Like poor, plain Jane, Fanny Price is a girl of no consequence – a Cinderella figure in a mansion of the rich and selfish.

Fanny is shy, frail and physically timid, but she is not a moral coward. She learns to bear her lot with dignity, and to hold fast to what she believes. By volume three, Fanny is at last the centre of her own story. Mansfield Park is not just a love story, it is a life story.

Emma (1815)

Championed by Ruvani Ranasinha, professor of global literature, King’s College London

Emma Woodhouse is Jane Austen’s most vividly realised, proto-feminist heroine. Witty, clever and attractive, Emma is supremely self-confident and flawed. She challenges every expectation of female propriety and is full of contradictions: self-centred yet deeply attached to her hypochondriac, indulgent father; snobbish but kind.

Emma revels in meddling in the romantic lives of others, especially her protégée, Harriet Smith. When her carefully laid plans unravel, the busybody makes mortifying mistakes and learns self-knowledge: “It darted through her with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no-one but herself!”

All Austen’s novels are shot through with the awareness of the role of wealth and class in marriage. But Emma – “an heiress of thirty thousand pounds” – is free from the intense competition among the women for young men with positions and prospects. At the same time, she attracts men like Mr Elton seeking women with landed connections and dowries. This is why the novel both responds to Austen’s historical moment and speaks to our own.

Northanger Abbey (1817)

Championed by Octavia Cox, departmental lecturer in English literature, University of Oxford

Northanger Abbey is a riot of jokes. Nobody and nothing is spared: not the heroine, convention, society – even readers. There’s everything marvellous you’d expect from an Austen novel (sharp satire of patriarchy and socioeconomic weaponisation, laughter at human absurdity and pompousness, beautifully wrought witty expression, a rollicking good yarn, irony), but with extra sass.

Its bombastic intrusive authorial narrative voice (perhaps the closest we get to Austen’s own), constantly makes in-jokes with readers about the action. It’s Austen’s most meta-fictional text, playing with readers’ expectations about novels (for example, joking that her novel, ironically, “is a new circumstance in romance” despite depicting nothing “new in common life”).

Its “defence of the novel” passage is a proto-feminist rallying call-to-arms for female authors to celebrate each other’s work. Northanger Abbey’s meta-fictionality reveals much about Austen’s aim and style as an author, making it a must-read for all Austen-lovers. Oh, and it’s funny. Damned funny.

Persuasion (1817)

Championed by Richard de Ritter, lecturer in English literature, University of Leeds

Persuasion contains the greatest love letter in all English literature. It is the culmination of a slow-burning romance between the heroine, Anne Elliot, and Captain Frederick Wentworth, the man she has loved for eight long years. “You pierce my soul,” Wentworth writes to Anne with striking vulnerability: “I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late.” (Spoiler: he is not too late.)

The brilliance of Persuasion lies in the depiction of its complex heroine. At 27, Anne Elliot is older and wiser than Austen’s earlier protagonists. Disregarded by her comically narcissistic family, the depth of Anne’s personality is revealed by Austen’s prose style, which is at its most luminous and expressive. Readers are plunged into the mind of the novel’s heroine. We witness her innermost thoughts and feelings as she negotiates the awkwardness, excitement and, finally, the sheer joy of embracing a future with Wentworth.

Persuasion is the final novel that Austen completed before her death in 1817: she was at the peak of her powers. It is her most moving and her greatest work.

Now the experts have made their case, it’s your turn to decide which of Austen’s six completed novels is her best work. Vote in the poll below to and see if our other readers agree with you.

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The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What was Jane Austen’s best novel? These experts think they know – https://theconversation.com/what-was-jane-austens-best-novel-these-experts-think-they-know-252669