Jane Austen During her time at Chawton, Jane Austen published four generally well-received novels. Through her brother Henry, the publisher Thomas Egerton agreed to publish "Sense and Sensibility", which, like all of Jane Austen's novels except "Pride and Prejudice", was published "on commission", that is, at the author's financial risk. When publishing on commission, publishers would advance the costs of publication, repay themselves as books were sold and then charge a 10% commission for each book sold, paying the rest to the author. If a novel did not recover its costs through sales, the author was responsible for them. The alternative to
A Memoir of Jane Austen status, centred in home, writing only in the intervals permitted from the important domestic duties of a devoted daughter, sister, and aunt". However, the manuscripts published alongside the biography suggest another portrait, one of a struggling author who endlessly revised and of a "restless and sardonic spirit". The book had an "immediate" and "incalculable" effect on the public's perception of Jane Austen. It generated interest in the works of an author which, for half a century, had been read almost entirely by the literary elite, and Austen's popularity increased dramatically. The publication of the "Memoir" also spurred the reissue of