On January 28 1813, the Morning Chronicle ran an advertisement announcing the publication of Pride and Prejudice in three volumes with a price of 18 shillings. The author is not identified but Jane Austen had been working on the novel over the last sixteen years. She began writing the book in 1796 under the title of First Impressions. She sold the novel’s copyright to the publisher Thomas Egerton for £110. Egerton would make considerably more from the sale of the novel. Very roughly, £110 in 1813 values would be worth from £3,735.60 to £5,600 in today’s values. As a consequence, Jane Austen’s most popular novel was not her most financially successful novel. This was a state of affairs that Miss Austen would not have found amusing.
Pride and Prejudice Illustrations by C.E. Brock.
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