A NOTE ON THE TEXT
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE AUTHORESS, TO NORTHANGER ABBEY
This little work was finished in the year 1803, and intended for
immediate publication. It was disposed of to a bookseller, it was even
advertised, and why the business proceeded no farther, the author has
never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it
worth-while to purchase what he did not think it worth-while to publish
seems extraordinary. But with this, neither the author nor the public
have any other concern than as some observation is necessary upon those
parts of the work which thirteen years have made comparatively
obsolete. The public are entreated to bear in mind that thirteen years
have passed since it was finished, many more since it was begun, and
that during that period, places, manners, books, and opinions have
undergone considerable changes.