What was the original title of the manuscript that became Pride and Prejudice?

The original title of the manuscript that became Pride and Prejudice was First Impressions.

Jane Austen began writing First Impressions in 1796, when she was about 20 or 21, and completed the initial draft in August 1797. Her father attempted to submit it to the London bookseller Thomas Cadell in November 1797, but Cadell rejected it immediately. No original manuscript survives, so details of Austen’s earliest draft remain partly conjectural.

Austen later revised the work extensively, especially in 1811 and 1812, and changed its title to Pride and Prejudice before publication. The new title is often linked to a phrase appearing prominently in the final chapter of Fanny Burney’s novel Cecilia, though the exact reason for the change cannot be proved with certainty.

The title First Impressions is sometimes confused with Austen’s other early works. The Watsons was an unfinished novel, while Sense and Sensibility was a separate novel published in 1811. Pride and Prejudice was finally published anonymously in three volumes on 28 January 1813.