Austen, who loved to record people’s opinions of her writing, enthusiastically reported that this first post-publication reviewer “was amused” and “really does seem to admire Elizabeth.” For her own part, Austen could not have been more proud of her heroine.
That same day, she and her mother read half of the first volume out loud to a guest - without revealing the identity of the author, which was still pretty much a family secret.
The novel was anonymously published on January 28, 1813, and Austen received her copy on the 27th. “I have got my own darling Child from London,” she announced with obvious joy in a letter she wrote to her sister Cassandra at week’s end. IN THE FINAL WEEK of January, 200 years ago, the not-yet-famous 37-year-old author Jane Austen was at Chawton Cottage, awaiting the publication of Pride and Prejudice, her second novel to appear in print.
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