In late 1817, publisher John Murray arranged the posthumous joint publication of 'Northanger Abbey' and 'Persuasion,' with a biographical notice revealing Austen's authorship.
In December 1817, following Jane Austen's death five months earlier, her brother Henry Austen arranged with publisher John Murray for the posthumous publication of her two remaining unpublished novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, together in a four-volume set.
Crucially, Henry included with this edition a 'Biographical Notice of the Author,' the first public document to formally identify Jane Austen by name as the author of all her novels—Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma had all been published anonymously during her lifetime.
This arrangement is historically significant as the moment Austen's authorship was made known to the reading public, transforming her from an anonymous 'Lady' novelist into a named literary figure whose reputation could be properly credited and built upon by subsequent generations of readers and critics.
The posthumous publication also preserved two of her most mature and stylistically distinct works: Northanger Abbey, her early satire of Gothic fiction, and Persuasion, her final completed and most emotionally resonant novel. Without Henry's efforts, these works might have remained unpublished manuscripts, significantly diminishing the scope of Austen's literary legacy as understood today.