Jane Austen and Fiction, 1787–1809

Abstract

Although the aim of my study is to contextualize Austen’s later novels in terms of the fiction of the 1810s, it is nevertheless important to examine her earlier relationship with the antecedent novel market. Such an analysis is crucial to our understanding of both the mature novels and the continuous development of her oeuvre. This chapter will consequently examine three stages in Austen’s early literary career, each demarcating her development from satirist of existing literary models to an innovating author fundamentally engaged with the contemporary fictional landscape. The first section will briefly detail Austen’s early role as an interpreter of contemporary fictions, notably through her juvenilia, while the second and third sections will discuss her unsuccessful attempts to publish in 1797 and 1803.

I own I do not like calling [Camilla] a Novel: it gives so simply the notion of a mere love story, that I recoil a little from it. I mean it to be sketches of Characters & morals, put in action, not a Romance.

Frances Burney (1795)

I have received a very civil note from M^rs Martin requesting my name as a Subscriber to her Library … As an inducement to subscribe M^rs Martin tells us that her Collection is not to consist only of Novels, but of every kind of Literature &c &c…She might have spared this pretension to our family, who are great Novel-readers & not ashamed of being so;—but it was necessary I suppose to the self-consequence of half her Subscribers.

Jane Austen (1798)