A Memoir of Jane Austen

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remedied, because it gave her notice when anyone was coming.°
She was not, however, troubled with companions like her own
Mrs. Allen in ‘Northanger Abbey,’ whose ‘vacancy of mind and
incapacity for thinking were such that, as she never talked a
great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and therefore,
while she sat at work, if she lost her needle, or broke her thread,
or saw a speck of dirt on her gown, she must observe it,
whether there were any one at leisure to answer her or not.’° In
that well occupied female party there must have been many
precious hours of silence during which the pen was busy at the
little mahogany writing-desk, 1 while Fanny Price, or Emma
Woodhouse, or Anne Elliott was growing into beauty and interest.
I have no doubt that I, and my sisters and cousins, in our
visits to Chawton, frequently disturbed this mystic process,
without having any idea of the mischief that we were doing;
certainly we never should have guessed it by any signs of
impatience or irritability in the writer.
As so much had been previously prepared, when once she
began to publish, her works came out in quick succession. ‘Sense
and Sensibility’ was published in 1811, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ at
the beginning of 1813, ‘Mansfield Park’ in 1814, ‘Emma’ early in
1816; ‘Northanger Abbey’ and ‘Persuasion’ did not appear till
after her death, in 1818. It will be shown farther on why ‘Northanger
Abbey,’ though amongst the first written, was one of the
last published. Her first three novels were published by Egerton,
her last three by Murray. The profits of the four which had been
printed before her death had not at that time amounted to seven
hundred pounds.°
I have no record of the publication of ‘Sense and Sensibility,’°
nor of the author’s feelings at this her first appearance before the
public; but the following extracts from three letters to her sister
give a lively picture of the interest with which she watched the
reception of ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and show the carefulness with
1 This mahogany desk, which has done good service to the public, is now in the
possession of my sister, Miss Austen. [The desk may be that purchased by JA’s father in
1794 (Fam. Rec., 83). It was bequeathed by Cassandra to her niece Caroline and descended
in the Austen-Leigh family. It can now be seen in the British Library.]