ABSTRACT
Cassandra Austen’s manuscript notes of the dates of composition of her sister’s novels (now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York) record that the composition of Sense and Sensibility, the first of Jane Austen’s novels to be published, was begun in November 1797; family tradition has it that an earlier version, sometimes referred to as Elinor and Marianne, was written in about 1795 and in the form of letters (but, if so, it is hard to imagine between whom the letters can have passed, since in the published novel the two chief characters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, are never separated). James Edward Austen-Leigh’s Memoir tells us that Sense and Sensibility was revised and prepared for publication in the first year of Jane Austen’s residence at Chawton, 1809–10. The choice of this novel for her first publication must have resulted from the fact that of the three novels then written, First Impressions (the first version of Pride and Prejudice) had already been rejected by a publisher, and Susan (the first version of Northanger Abbey) had been sold to a publisher who had however not brought it out. Henry Austen’s ‘Biographical notice’ says that ‘it was with extreme difficulty that [Jane Austen’s] friends ...could prevail on her to publish her first work’, and also that she was so persuaded that the sale of Sense and Sensibility ‘would not repay the expense of publication, that she actually made a reserve from her very moderate income to meet the expected loss’. The choice of publisher, Thomas Egerton of Whitehall, may result from a connection made over James and Henry Austen’s Oxford periodical The Loiterer, for which (from No. 5 onwards) Egerton was the London distributor. The publisher of Jane Austen’s first novel did not take a financial risk in bringing it out; it was published on commission (‘for the author’, as stated on the title-page), the author paying the expenses of printing and publication and taking the receipts, subject to the payment of a commission to the publisher for handling the book; Jane Austen retained the copyright.
