Fragment of a novel written by Jane Austen, January-March 1817: Now first printed from the manuscript

The manuscript passed into the possession of Jane Austen’s niece Anna (Mrs. Ben Lefroy); and it was known to Mrs. Lefroy’s half-brother, James Edward Austen-Leigh, the author of the Memoir of Jane Austen first published in 1870. In the second edition (1871) Mr. Austen-Leigh added the cancelled chapter of Persuasion, the fragment called The Watsons, and Lady Susan, and in his concluding chapter gave an account of ‘The Last Work’.

Such an unfinished fragment cannot be presented to the public; but I am persuaded that some of Jane Austen’s admirers will be glad to learn something about the latest creations which were forming themselves in her mind; and therefore, as some of the principal characters were already sketched in with a vigorous hand, I will try to give an idea of them, illustrated by extracts from the work.

In the account which follows, the fragment is described in some detail; the verbatim quotations amount to perhaps twenty pages of this edition. The present owner[1] of the manuscript has reached the conclusion that, since so much has long been before the public, it is right that the whole should no longer be withheld.

[Footnote 1: A grand-daughter of Anna Lefroy.]

Some explanation may be thought necessary of the way in which the fragment is printed. It approximates to the manner of 1817, and the result is somewhat less in bulk than one of the three volumes in which Mr. Egerton or Mr. Murray would doubtless have issued the work if it had been completed for publication. The printer, however, would have made certain departures from his copy: he would have expanded the contractions; he would have broken up the chapters into paragraphs; and he would, in a greater or less degree, have regularized the spelling and the punctuation. It has seemed best not to do this in 1925, but to print the author’s manuscript as nearly as possible in the last form it attained. It may be thought pedantic to reproduce irregularities which the author would not have wished to retain; but it seemed more important to avoid another danger. To have smoothed out the manuscript into a specious semblance of finality would have been to prejudice, in some degree, the question how far it did, in fact, represent the author’s final intention. This edition, printed as it is, is open to no such objection. It is, for critical purposes, virtually a facsimile of all that Miss Austen wrote and did not erase.

It will be seen from the textual notes, printed at the end of the volume, that the manuscript contains a very large number of erasures and interlineations. It is so neat, and so uniformly spaced, that it is almost everywhere possible to distinguish what was first written from what was added, or substituted, between the lines. These corrections are not such as could have resulted from subsequent revision of a fair copy previously made. In very many places the author has changed her mind currente calamo; has begun a sentence in one form and finished it in another. The number and nature of such changes create a presumption, at least, that we are dealing with a first draft.

The manuscript consists of three quires. The first and second, which are sewn together, are of 16 and 24 leaves respectively, measuring 7½ in. × 4¹¹⁄₁₆ in. The watermark, which occurs several times in both quires, is KENT 1812.

The first quire contains Chapters 1-3. The third chapter appears to end, on f. 16^v, with an incomplete sentence; but the concluding words, that Loveliness was complete, were written at the foot of f. 1^r. The second quire contains Chapters 4-8 and part of Chapter 9.

The third quire (marked 2 on the first page) is of 40 leaves, 6⅜ in. × 4 in. It bears a large ornamental watermark, and also the name JOSEPH COLES and the date 1815. Folios 21-40, i. e. the latter half of the quire, are blank; a fact which suggests that no part of the manuscript is lost. This quire contains the remainder of Chapter 9 (beginning with the words _with a thousand regrets_--p. 117 of this edition) and Chapters 10-12.