Persuasion, Northanger
Abbey_ and _Mansfield Park_, are names far more in consonance with the
quiet tone of her easy and unobtrusive art.

_Elinor and Marianne_ was originally written about 1792. After the
completion--or partial completion, for it was again revised in
1811--of _First Impressions_ (subsequently _Pride and Prejudice_),
Miss Austen set about recasting _Elinor and Marianne_, then composed
in the form of letters; and she had no sooner accomplished this task,
than she began _Northanger Abbey_. It would be interesting to know to
what extent she remodelled _Sense and Sensibility_ in 1797-98, for we
are told that previous to its publication in 1811 she again devoted a
considerable time to its preparation for the press, and it is clear
that this does not mean the correction of proofs alone, but also a
preliminary revision of MS. Especially would it be interesting if we
could ascertain whether any of its more finished passages, _e.g._ the
admirable conversation between the Miss Dashwoods and Willoughby in
chapter x., were the result of those fallow and apparently barren
years at Bath and Southampton, or whether they were already part of
the second version of 1797-98. But upon this matter the records are
mute. A careful examination of the correspondence published by Lord
Brabourne in 1884 only reveals two definite references to _Sense and
Sensibility_ and these are absolutely unfruitful in suggestion. In
April 1811 she speaks of having corrected two sheets of 'S and S,'
which she has scarcely a hope of getting out in the following June;
and in September, an extract from the diary of another member of the
family indirectly discloses the fact that the book had by that time
been published. This extract is a brief reference to a letter which
had been received from Cassandra Austen, begging her correspondent not
to mention that Aunt Jane wrote _Sense and Sensibility._ Beyond these
minute items of information, and the statement--already referred to in
the Introduction to _Pride and Prejudice_--that she considered herself
overpaid for the labour she had bestowed upon it, absolutely nothing
seems to have been preserved by her descendants respecting her first
printed effort. In the absence of particulars some of her critics have
fallen to speculate upon the reason which made her select it, and not
_Pride and Prejudice_, for her debut; and they have, perhaps
naturally, found in the fact a fresh confirmation of that tradition