Mr Watts is a single man in possession of a good fortune who is in want of a wife, and Mrs Stanhope is mother of a family of girls who is very much in want of a son-in-law. This satiric narrative of courtship and self-interest by the young Jane Austen reads like a humorous trial run for Pride and Prejudice.

Edited by Joseph Wiesenfarth, Laura Maestrelli and Kristin Smith; with illustrations by Juliet McMaster.