A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Explanatory Notes 237
the productions of two distinct creative periods–– JA’s early twenties and
her late thirties–– and that they were divided by a largely fallow interlude.
But another interpretation of the same evidence and dates might be that,
with the exception of NA (sold to a London publisher in 1803 under the
title of ‘Susan’), all the finished novels were the products of her mature
Chawton years, and that this intense burst of creative completion was
preceded by some twenty years of experimentation.
82 She was careful . . . when anyone was coming: an important detail on JA’s
working habits added in Ed.2. Cf. Caroline Austen’s recollections, in
MAJA 173.
Mrs. Allen . . . ‘ . . . to answer her or not’: an edited and not wholly
accurate quotation from NA, ch. 9.
Egerton . . . Murray . . . seven hundred pounds: Thomas Egerton, of the
Military Library, Whitehall, London, was JA’s first publisher, chosen
partly perhaps from a connection established through James and Henry’s
much earlier publishing venture, The Loiterer, for which Egerton had
been the London distributor. John Murray II (1778–1843) of 50 Albemarle
Street, London, was a hugely successful publisher and businessman
with a far more impressive imprint than Egerton. He was at this
time at the height of his powers, as Byron’s publisher and co-publisher of
several of Scott’s works. As well as issuing E, NA, and P, he brought out
in 1816 a second edition of MP. During her lifetime JA received around
£250 from S&S and P&P together, £310 from MP, and £71 partial
profits on E and a second edition of S&S. These were nothing like the
big profits some of her contemporaries were making, but nor were they
unrepresentatively modest. (See Jan Fergus, Jane Austen: A Literary Life
(1991), 193, n. 90, for totals of payments.)
no record . . . ‘Sense and Sensibility’: several letters descending from Cassandra
Austen to her niece Fanny, Lady Knatchbull, and therefore
unavailable to JEAL, mention the publication of S&S. They were first
published in Letters of Jane Austen, ed. Edward, Lord Brabourne (1884).
These are nos. 71, 95, and 96, in Letters. See also nos. 86 and 90, two
letters to Frank Austen, both first published in Sailor Brothers, 233–50.
83 Chawton . . . (1813): a discreetly edited extract, removing the gossip and
homely detail about headache, jelly, and sweet pears that would undermine
JEAL’s representation of JA at this point as a serious novelist. The
complete version is no. 79 in Letters, the original bequeathed by Cassandra
to Charles Austen. ‘[M]y own darling child’ is JA’s first copy of
P&P.
Falkener: JA wrote ‘Falknor’, possibly the local manager or coachman of
the London to Southampton coach service. See the humorous reference
to ‘the Car of Falkenstein’ in JA’s letter to Anna Austen, 29–31 October
1812 (Letters, 195).
my stupidest of all: in January 1813, when this letter is written, MP was
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