The Female Quixote The Female Quixote The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella is a novel written by Charlotte Lennox imitating and parodying the ideas of Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Published in 1752, two years after she wrote her first novel, "The Life of Harriot Stuart", it was her best-known and most-celebrated work. It was approved by both Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson, applauded by Samuel Johnson, and used as a model by Jane Austen for "Northanger Abbey". It has been called a burlesque, "satirical harlequinade", and a depiction of the real power of females. While some dismissed Arabella as a
Persuasion (novel) "Persuasion" that she had a novel "which may appear about a twelvemonth hence." John Murray published "Persuasion", together with "Northanger Abbey", in a four-volume set, printed in December 1817 but dated 1818. The first advertisement appeared on December 17, 1817. The Austen family retained copyright of the 1,750 copies, which sold rapidly. Henry Austen supplied a "Biographical Notice" of his sister in which her identity is revealed and she is no longer an anonymous author. The Canadian scholar Sheila Johnson Kindred suggested parts of the novel were inspired by the career of Austen's brother, Charles Austen, a Royal Navy officer,