I'm one of the many, many fans of Jane Austen's works. I can't really say what makes her books so fascinating to me (well, apart from Emma, which does exactly what the author intended it to do, that is get on my nerves via the insufferable protagonist). Is it the glimpse into a world of the past, but not so far in the past that there's too much conjecture? The slightly different etiquette and societal rules? Or the fact that, in the end, it's straight-up lovely happy-endy chick lit, and thus just a read that's good for the soul?
In the end, it doesn't really matter. I've read Pride and Prejudice, which is my favourite of her books, more times than I remember to count, and we have several versions of it as a film, and those do get viewed again and again too.
If you like Jane Austen stuff, maybe this video about some of her surviving letters, showing a glimpse of her personal life, will delight you as well: