Chronology
Every drafted work, year by year, alongside the events of the author's life. Runs of consecutive letters are folded into groups so you can skim past them or expand to read.
1788
The Mystery: An Unfinished Comedy. A one-act nonsense playlet from Volume the First, written in the late 1780s and dedicated to the Rev. George Austen; first printed in the 1871 Memoir — the one Volume the First piece published before 1930. Its scenes conspire in whispers and say nothing.
Juvenilia The Mystery: An Unfinished Comedy 17881790
Love and Freindship. The most famous of the juvenilia, dated 13 June 1790 in the manuscript of Volume the Second and dedicated to Eliza de Feuillide; first published in the 1922 volume 'Love & Freindship and Other Early Works'. A burlesque of the novel of sensibility, spelling and all.
Juvenilia Love and Freindship 17901791
The History of England. 'By a partial, prejudiced, & ignorant Historian', finished 26 November 1791, with Cassandra's watercolour medallions in the manuscript; first published 1922. A parody of Goldsmith's schoolroom history, reigning from Henry the 4th to Charles the 1st.
Juvenilia The History of England 17911792
Lesley Castle. An unfinished novel in ten letters written early in 1792 and dedicated to Henry Austen, whose mock banker's note ('Demand and receive') survives in the manuscript; first published 1922. A Collection of Letters. Five miniature epistolary fictions of about 1791-92 from Volume the Second, dedicated to Jane Cooper; first published 1922. Five voices — a mother, jilted and impertinent young ladies, Henrietta Halton — in one frame.
Juvenilia A Collection of Letters 1792 Juvenilia Lesley Castle 17921793
Scraps. The closing gathering of Volume the Second, dedicated about 1793 to the infant niece Fanny Catherine Austen as 'Opinions and Admonitions on the conduct of Young Women'; first published 1922. Five pieces: The Female Philosopher, The First Act of a Comedy, A Letter from a Young Lady, A Tour through Wales, and A Tale.
Juvenilia Scraps 17931794
Lady Susan. A short complete novel in letters, written about 1794-95 and left unpublished; first printed in the second edition of the Memoir in 1871. The widowed Lady Susan Vernon is Austen's one thorough charming villainess.
Novels Lady Susan 17941795
Three Charades. Jane's three riddling quatrains from the family charade-book, printed in 1895 as 'Charades &c. Written a Hundred Years Ago' — numbers XVIII, XIX, and XX of the booklet, whose key answers them hemlock, agent, and bank-note. The other thirty-nine charades are by other Austens.
Verse Three Charades 17951796
Letters of Jane Austen (Brabourne Edition). The first substantial collection of Austen's letters, edited by her great-nephew Edward, Lord Brabourne, in two volumes (Bentley, 1884): ninety-four letters of 1796-1816, mostly to Cassandra, with the late letters to Fanny Knight and Anna. This edition prints Austen's letters only, under Brabourne's numbering.
letters 1 letter
1803
Northanger Abbey. Finished by 1803 as 'Susan' and sold that year for £10 to Crosby & Co., who never printed it; bought back in 1816, lightly revised, and published posthumously with Persuasion in December 1817. Dated here by composition; Austen's own 1816 advertisement, kept in this edition, tells the story.
Novels Northanger Abbey 18031804
The Watsons. An unfinished novel of about 17,900 words written at Bath about 1804 and abandoned, perhaps at Mr. Austen's death in 1805; first published in the 1871 Memoir. This edition prints the pure Austen fragment only — the posthumous completions by other hands are excluded.
Fragments The Watsons 18041807
Verses from the 1807 Letters. Four pieces in Jane's hand printed at the end of Brabourne's 1884 second volume: her entry in the family game of rhymes on 'rose' ('Happy the lab'rer'), the lines on Sir Home Popham's court-martial of 1807, and the two Miss Bigg quatrains on hemmed pocket-handkerchiefs.
Verse Verses from the 1807 Letters 18071808
To the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy. Eleven elegiac stanzas written 16 December 1808, the fourth anniversary of the riding death of Anne Lefroy of Ashe — 'Beloved Friend' and mentor of Austen's youth — and Austen's own thirty-third birthday; first printed in the 1871 Memoir.
Verse To the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy 18081811
Sense and Sensibility. Austen's first published novel, issued anonymously ('By a Lady') by Thomas Egerton in October 1811. Begun in the 1790s as the epistolary 'Elinor and Marianne' and rewritten at Chawton, it sold out its first edition and earned its author £140. Light Verse from the Memoir. Three specimens of Austen's family verse first printed in the 1871 Memoir: the Gell-Gill rhyme of 1811, the epigram on a middle-aged flirt's marrying a Mr. Wake, and the mock panegyric 'In measured verse I'll now rehearse' on her niece Anna, of about 1810.
Verse Light Verse from the Memoir 1811 Novels Sense and Sensibility 18111813
Pride and Prejudice. Published by Egerton in January 1813, revised from 'First Impressions' (1796-97), which a publisher had refused unread in 1797. Austen sold the copyright outright for £110; it became the most celebrated of her novels in her lifetime.
Novels Pride and Prejudice 18131814
Mansfield Park. Written at Chawton 1811-13 and published by Egerton in May 1814, the first novel wholly composed in Austen's mature period. The first edition sold out in six months; John Murray's second edition of 1816 lost money.
Novels Mansfield Park 18141815
Emma. Written January 1814 - March 1815 and published by John Murray in December 1815 (title page 1816), with a dedication to the Prince Regent solicited through his librarian J. S. Clarke. The last novel published in Austen's lifetime. Opinions of Mansfield Park. Austen's own compilation, about 1814-15, of her family's and neighbours' verdicts on Mansfield Park, from Frank's careful praise to Mrs. Augusta Bramstone, who 'owned that she thought S & S. and P. & P. downright nonsense'; first printed complete by Chapman in 1926.
Novels Emma 1815 Documents Opinions of Mansfield Park 18151816
Persuasion. Begun August 1815 and finished August 1816, a year before Austen's death; published posthumously with Northanger Abbey in December 1817. Dated here by composition. Its first ending, which Austen cancelled and rewrote, is given in this edition as The Cancelled Chapter. The Cancelled Chapter of Persuasion. The first ending of Persuasion, finished 18 July 1816 and cancelled within days for the two chapters that now close the novel; first printed in the 1871 Memoir. The only surviving manuscript chapter of a published Austen novel. Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters. Austen's satirical scheme of a perfect novel, written about 1816 from the 'hints' of well-meaning advisers — J. S. Clarke's clergyman-hero among them; first printed complete by Chapman in 1926. In the manuscript Austen names each hint-giver in the margin. Opinions of Emma. Austen's compilation of verdicts on Emma, about 1816, closing with 'Mr. Jeffery (of the Edinburgh Review) was kept up by it three nights'; first printed complete by Chapman in 1926 (also given in Life and Letters, 1913).
Documents Opinions of Emma 1816 Novels Persuasion 1816 Documents Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters 1816 Fragments The Cancelled Chapter of Persuasion 18161817
Sanditon (Fragment of a Novel). Austen's last work, written January-March 1817 in the months before her death and left unfinished at twelve chapters; first printed complete by R. W. Chapman in 1925 as 'Fragment of a Novel'. The seaside-speculation comedy points at a new satirical direction. Venta (Winchester Races). Austen's last composition: six comic stanzas on Winchester races and St. Swithun's curse, dictated 15 July 1817, three days before her death; first printed in Jane Austen's Sailor Brothers (1906), from which this text is taken.
Fragments Sanditon (Fragment of a Novel) 1817 Verse Venta (Winchester Races) 1817