Charles Dickens! Jane Austen is very boring, Dickens is dramatic but very thoughtful.

I imagine that getting castrated feels a lot like reading a Jane Austen book. Having to read Pride and Prejudice back in high school was brutal. While reading Shakespeare or Dickens was more difficult from what I remember, it seemed like every page you ask yourself "why do I/we care?" with Jane Austen. 

In fairness though, I'm a much bigger fan of reading nonfiction. 

It's like comparing apples and oranges,it's a matter of taste.I don't like Jane Austen so much because I had to read her at school, but I do think she is a good writer.Dickens is a far more popular writer because his stories have a wider scope, deal with more different kinds of characters in different locations. Austen describes the smaller world of women in English society and is critical of the way society treated women in her time but in a subtle way.Dickens describes the whole of British society and therefore I think he is more popular.His stories are more exciting and dramatic.

Charles Dickens 

If you want a British female writer to go against Dickens it'd be better to choose a Bronte sister, in my opinion. 

Jane Austen is a good writer but I dislike reading her, it's all so trivial and silly.