Reception history of Jane Austen
Also read again and for the third time at least Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the  and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The Big Bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going, but the exquisite touch which renders (makes) ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting from the truth of the description and the sentiment is denied to me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early!Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published together in December 1817. They were reviewed in the British Critic in March 1818 and in the Edinburgh Review and Literary Miscellany in May 1818. The reviewer for the British Critic felt that Austen's great use of realism was proof of a limited imagination. The reviewer for the Edinburgh Review thought differently. He praised Austen for her " invention". He was also pleased with Austen's stories because they mixed familiar scenes with surprising twists. Austen scholars have pointed out that these early reviewers did not know what to make of her works. For example, they wrongly understood her use of irony. Reviewers thought Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were stories of virtue overcoming vice.