Thomas Cadell rejected Jane Austen’s early Pride and Prejudice manuscript in 1797.
At that time, Austen’s novel was known as First Impressions. Her father, the Reverend George Austen, wrote to the London bookseller and publisher Thomas Cadell on 1 November 1797, offering a three-volume manuscript and comparing its length with Fanny Burney’s Evelina. Cadell declined the proposal by return of post, apparently without reading the manuscript.
The rejection did not end the novel’s history. Austen substantially revised First Impressions more than a decade later, changed its title to Pride and Prejudice, and sold the copyright to Thomas Egerton. Egerton published the novel in January 1813, after Austen had already appeared in print with Sense and Sensibility.
A common mix-up is Thomas Egerton, who published Pride and Prejudice, rather than Thomas Cadell, who rejected its early version. Cadell’s rejection concerned the manuscript’s original form and title, not the finished 1813 novel.