When were Austen's works written?

Lady Susan

This witty epistolary novella, with its older you-love-to-hate heroine (a single mother in her thirties!), was written around 1794 (when Austen was eighteen).

Northanger Abbey

Catherine Morland, her "almost pretty" head ever in a gothic novel, was to her author - not Catherine! but Susan for nearly two decades (until later revisions). Scholar Cecil Emden argued the novel was probably begun about 1794, when Austen was eighteen (the same age as her protagonist come the end of the novel). Austen's beloved sister Cassandra remembered the novel being finished by 1798 or 1799. Further developments and revisions may have been made between 1799 and 1803 (when the novel was sold for publication). The publishers failed to publish Jane Austen's Susan and her brother Henry bought back the manuscript in 1816. There is evidence of further revisions in 1816 and 1817, when at last the main character and working title were changed to Catherine. Austen never saw the novel published. It was her brother Henry who gave it the title we know it by today - Northanger Abbey - and arranged its posthumous publication in late 1817.

Sense and Sensibility

As early as 1795 (when nineteen - the same age as the novel's sensible heroine Elinor), Austen wrote the first draft of a reportedly then epistolary novel. It's working title was that of its contrasting heroines - Elinor and Marianne. Likely between 1797 and 1798, the novel was revised into a narrative form. Put to one side, whilst its author suffered Bath and her father's ill health and death; Sense and Sensibility was revised again, (in the stability provided by a Hampshire cottage) in 1809 and 1810. It was published in 1811.

Pride and Prejudice

Originally titled First Impressions, Austen wrote (what would become) her most famous novel between 1796 and 1897 (she began writing it aged twenty - the same age as the novel's heroine Elizabeth Bennet). Thirteen or more years passed, before Austen made significant revisions - including a change of title to Prejudice and Prejudice - between 1811 and 1812.

Mansfield Park

The first novel of Austen's not to have drafts written by a young Austen in the 1790's, Mansfield Park was written between 1811 and 1813, and published in 1814.

Emma

Emma was written by Austen between 1814 and 1815, and published later that year.

Persuasion

The last novel completed by Austen was written between 1815 and 1816, with a working title of The Elliots, and published posthumously in 1817 as Persuasion.