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 which she corrected her
compositions, and rejected much that had been written:--

Chawton, Friday, January 29 (1813).

'I hope you received my little parcel by J. Bond on Wednesday evening,
my dear Cassandra, and that you will be ready to hear from me again on
Sunday, for I feel that I must write to you to-day. I want to tell
you that I have got my own darling child from London. On Wednesday I
received one copy sent down by Falkener, with three lines from Henry
to say that he had given another to Charles and sent a third by the
coach to Godmersham . . . . The advertisement is in our paper to-day
for the first time: 18_s_. He shall ask 1_l_. 1_s_. for my two next,
and 1_l_. 8_s_. for my stupidest of all. Miss B. dined with us on the
very day of the book's coming, and in the evening we fairly set at it,
and read half the first vol. to her, prefacing that, having
intelligence from Henry that such a work would soon appear, we had
desired him to send it whenever it came out, and I believe it passed
with her unsuspected. She was amused, poor soul! _That_ she could
not help, you know, with two such people to lead the way, but she