A Memoir of Jane Austen

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CHAPTER VI
Habits of Composition resumed after a long interval––First publication––
The interest taken by the Author in the success of her Works
IT may seem extraordinary that Jane Austen should have written
so little° during the years that elapsed between leaving Steventon
and settling at Chawton; especially when this cessation from
work is contrasted with her literary activity both before and
after that period. It might rather have been expected that fresh
scenes and new acquaintance would have called forth her
powers; while the quiet life which the family led both at Bath
and Southampton must have afforded abundant leisure for
composition; but so it was that nothing which I know of, certainly
nothing which the public have seen, was completed° in
either of those places. I can only state the fact, without assigning
any cause for it; but as soon as she was fixed in her second
home, she resumed the habits of composition which had been
formed in her first, and continued them to the end of her life.
The first year of her residence at Chawton seems to have been
devoted to revising and preparing for the press ‘Sense and Sensibility,’
and ‘Pride and Prejudice’; but between February 1811
and August 1816,° she began and completed ‘Mansfield Park,’
‘Emma,’ and ‘Persuasion,’ so that the last five years of her life
produced the same number of novels with those which had been
written in her early youth. How she was able to effect all this is
surprising, for she had no separate study to retire to, and most
of the work must have been done in the general sitting-room,
subject to all kinds of casual interruptions. She was careful that
her occupation should not be suspected by servants, or visitors,
or any persons beyond her own family party. She wrote upon
small sheets of paper which could easily be put away, or covered
with a piece of blotting paper. There was, between the front
door and the offices, a swing door which creaked when it was
opened; but she objected to having this little inconvenience