The writing, though begun in 1798, spread over a long period, for the book was not finished until 1803, by which time Jane herself was settled in Bath. It was then offered to a Bath bookseller, the equivalent of a publisher in our day. He gave ten pounds for it, probably because of the local colour, but evidently after reading it he found it lacked that melodramatic flavour to which he was accustomed; and it is also highly probable that he did not at all comprehend the delightful flavour of irony. The book remained with him, luckily in safety, until thirteen years had passed, when it was bought back by Henry Austen on his sister’s account for the same sum that had been given for it. When the transaction had been completed he told the bookseller that it was by the author of _Sense and Sensibility_, which had attracted much attention, whereat the man must have experienced the regret he deserved to feel, as he had missed the honour of introducing Jane to the public, an honour that would have linked his name with genius. The book did not appear until 1818, when the author was in her grave, and it was the first to bear her name on the title-page. It was published in one volume with the last of her writings, _Persuasion_. In a preface written before her death, she says of _Northanger Abbey_—Thirteen years have made it “comparatively obsolete, places, manners, books, and opinions have undergone considerable changes.” It is evident, therefore, she did not attempt to bring it up to date. This preface is prefixed to the first edition, as is also the biographical Memoir by her brother which has already been referred to. The few closing years of the eighteenth century, the last spent at Steventon, while these three works were in hand, must have been bright ones to Jane; she had found an outlet for all the vivacious humour that was in her, and must have lived in the world of fancy with her characters, which were all very real to her, quite as much as in the material world.