THE METHOD in which Jane Austen first three nov-
els were produced makes it a matter of uncertainty to
decide the order in which they should be considered. The
schoolgirl's sketch, Elinor and Marianne, was followed by
the youthful but mature First Impressions; First Impressions
by Elinor and Marianne rewritten as Sense and Sensibility;
Sense and Sensibility by Northanger Abbey; then, after an
interval of eight years, Sense and Sensibility was "prepared
for the press," and immediately after that First Impressions
was arranged for publication and renamed Pride and Prej-
udice.

Our ignorance as to how much rewriting was involved
in this preparation for the press, must make any method of
arranging the first three novels on a chronological plan a
question of personal opinion. A good case could be made
out for placing Northanger Abbey at the head of the list,
as the earliest example of a completed work; for though,
with Persuasion, it was actually published the last of all the
finished works, we know that it had not been retouched to
any extent because the preface apologizes to readers of 1817
for anything that may seem out of date in a story written in
1803. Of the other two, one cannot but feel that, whatever

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