Jane Austen "before 1796" and was told through a series of letters. Without surviving original manuscripts, there is no way to know how much of the original draft survived in the novel published anonymously in 1811 as "Sense and Sensibility". Austen began a second novel, "First Impressions" (later published as "Pride and Prejudice"), in 1796. She completed the initial draft in August 1797, aged 21; as with all of her novels, Austen read the work aloud to her family as she was working on it and it became an "established favourite". At this time, her father made the first attempt to publish
Reception history of Jane Austen the family records and traditions immediately available to them. Their book therefore offers bare facts and little in the way of interpretation. During the last quarter of the 19th century, the first books of critical analysis regarding Austen's works were published. In 1890 Godwin Smith published the "Life of Jane Austen", initiating a "fresh phase in the critical heritage", in which Austen reviewers became critics. This launched the beginning of "formal criticism", that is, a focus on Austen as a writer and an analysis of the techniques that made her writing unique. According to Southam, while Austen criticism increased in