INTRODUCTION
The world, created and peopled by Jane Austen, is imperfect only in being too small. We pass through the magic door into fairyland, and hardly have we shed the muddy vesture of our vulgar, strident conflict beyond, than we find ourselves once more faced with the necessity of resuming it. What would not those of us who love Pride and Prejudice give for the discovery of another half-dozen novels by the same hand, comparable with it?
A year or two back, with a presumption which it now unnerves me to recall, I endeavoured in the columns of the London Mercury to spring upon the literary fancy a forgotten rival to Jane Austen. I argued with Mr. Birrell that "to admire by tradition is a poor thing. Far better really to admire Miss Gabblegoose's novels than pretend to admire Miss Austen's," and I undertook to produce a lost novel by another hand which would recreate the enchanted atmosphere of Pride and Prejudice in some measure and might even justify, in the hearts of those who appreciate Mr. Birrell's courage, the bold verdict, "Better than Sense and Sensibility."
And now the bread so light-heartedly thrown on the waters has returned to me after many days and I am called on to make good my boast to a wider and necessarily more critical public.
Emily Eden, the author of The Semi-attached Couple, was one of fourteen children of the first Lord Auckland. The seventh daughter, she was born at Westminster on March 3rd, 1797.
v
