our indifference will soon be mutual unless his regard, which appeared to spring from knowing nothing of me at first, is best supported by never seeing me” (letter of November 17, 1798; see Jane Austen’s Letters).

In fact, it is questionable whether she even desired marriage. “Oh what a loss it will be when you are married,” she wrote to her favorite niece, Fanny, “You are too agreeable in your single state, too agreeable as a Niece. I shall hate you when your delicious play of Mind is all settled down into conjugal & maternal affections” (letter of February 20, 1817; see Jane Austen’s Letters). She is known to have accepted one marriage proposal, from a younger and quite well-off brother of friends whom she was visiting. From the mercenary point of view, she had everything to gain from marrying this young man, including presiding over a large house and estate in Hampshire. But the next morning she retracted her assent to his proposal, explaining that she did not feel enough for him to marry him. The only other rumored romance, of a brief love affair later in life cut off in its earliest stage by the suitor’s death, hinted at by her sister and part of the family tradition, has not been substantiated.

In general the letters reveal a strong endorsement of both romantic love as a basis for marriage and also the necessity of dealing realistically with the economic pressures faced by single women with few other options open to them:

There are such beings in the World perhaps, one in a Thousand, as the Creature You and I should think perfection, Where Grace & Spirit are united to Worth, where the Manners are equal to the Heart & Understanding, but such a person may not come in your way, or if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a Man of Fortune, the Brother of your particular friend, & belonging to your own County.... And now, my dear Fanny, having written so much on one side of the question, I shall turn around and entreat you not to commit yourself farther, & not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection (November 18, 1814).

I have no doubt of his suffering a good deal for a time, a great deal, when he feels that he must give you up;—but it is no creed of mine ... that such sort of Disappointments kills anybody (November 18, 1814).

Single Women have a dreadful propensity for being poor—which is one very strong argument in favour of Matrimony” (March 13, 1817; see Jane Austen’s Letters).

One of the very few ways in which “spinsters” could earn money in Regency society was by writing, if they were lucky enough to have someone intercede to negotiate good terms and if their writing could then produce something like a profit. It was very difficult for women to publish in the eighteenth century, when they risked accusations of vulgarity (which could be adverse to their reputations and marriageability), yet there was an explosion of popular and, after the novelist Fanny Burney’s success, serious writing by the time Austen tried to publish.

The first three works Jane Austen produced—early versions of Sense and Sensibility in 1795, of Pride and Prejudice in 1796 and 1797, and of Northanger Abbey in 1798—were satires on sentimental and Gothic popular fiction. In 1797 her father wrote to the publisher Cadell, sending a manuscript of “First Impressions,” the early version of Pride and Prejudice, but received no reply. This must have been discouraging. The next attempt was not made until 1803, when “Susan” (later revised as Northanger Abbey) was sold to the publisher Crosby for £10. But though it was advertised, it was never actually published, and later Jane had to buy it back for the £10 advanced, a large sum for her.

After producing unsold manuscripts of the first three novels, there was an apparent hiatus in Austen’s writing for ten years, for reasons that are not clear. This period coincides with her unwilling removal from her birthplace in Steventon to Bath at her father’s retirement, when she was twenty-five. She did not resume writing until after her father’s death, which necessitated the removal from Bath. From that point her brothers, including her wealthy brother Edward, contributed small amounts toward the upkeep of Jane and her sister and mother, settling them in the small but busy village of Chawton, where