The Novels of Jane Austen

A brief chronology of the composition and publication of her major novels and other writings is provided below. For a summary of the plots of the novels, plus further analysis of themes and issues within the texts, please select from the following links. (The full text of the novels may be displayed on the Pemberley web-site via our Links page).

Emma

Mansfield Park

Northanger Abbey

Persuasion

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Steventon : 1775 - 1801

ca. 1788 - 1793

Juvenilia (including The History of England, Love and Freindship, Catharine ...)

1794 or 1795

Lady Susan, without the conclusion

ca. 1795

Elinor and Marianne, the earliest version of Sense and Sensibility, written in epistolary form

October 1796 - August 1797

Composition of First Impressions, original version of Pride and Prejudice

November 1797

Sense and Sensibility begun in its present form

1798 - 1799

Drafting of Northanger Abbey (then called Susan, later Catherine)

Bath and Southampton : 1801 - 1809

1803

Susan prepared and offered for publication

1803 - 1804

The Watsons (unfinished)

ca. 1805

Fair copy of Lady Susan (and possibly composition of the conclusion)

Chawton : 1809 - 1817

1809 - 1811

Sense and Sensibility revised and prepared for publication

November 1811

Publication of Sense and Sensibility

ca. 1812

Radical revision of Pride and Prejudice

February 1811 - summer 1813

Composition of Mansfield Park

January 1813

Publication of Pride and Prejudice

May 1814

Publication of Mansfield Park

January 1814 - March 1815

Composition of Emma

ca. 1815

Plan of a Novel

December 1815 - January 1816

Publication of Emma

August 1815 - August 1816

Composition of Persuasion

January - March 1817

Initial work on the unfinished Sanditon

December 1817 - January 1818

Posthumous publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion