In October 1796 Austen began composing 'First Impressions,' the original manuscript that would later become 'Pride and Prejudice.'
In October 1796, Jane Austen, then twenty years old, began writing a novel titled First Impressions. Composed over roughly ten months, the manuscript would eventually be radically revised and published in 1813 as Pride and Prejudice, one of the most beloved novels in the English language.
The original title referenced a common eighteenth-century moral theme—the danger of judging character too quickly—which remained central even after the novel's transformation. Austen wrote the book at Steventon Rectory, reading drafts aloud to her family, whose reactions and suggestions likely shaped her revisions.
This early composition is historically significant as the genesis of what would become Austen's most commercially successful and culturally influential work. It demonstrates her rapid maturation as a novelist within just a few years of her juvenilia, moving from parody to fully realized social comedy with complex, psychologically rich characters such as Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.
The eventual fate of this manuscript—rejected by a publisher in 1797, then substantially reworked over the following fifteen years—illustrates the difficult, often invisible labor behind Austen's eventual success, achieved without the benefit of formal literary networks typically available to male authors of her era.