Over the course of the century a continuous stream of such stories poured forth from the presses, proving an ideal literary stimulus for Jane Austen. She, like the rest of her family, was an avid reader of novels; throughout her letters she refers frequently to incidents and characters from novels, with the evident expectation that her correspondent will readily catch the reference. These novels influenced her in different ways, providing both positive examples to emulate and negative examples to avoid; in fact, much of her earlier writing involves satires of the various absurdities she perceived in many novels.

The novelists of the eighteenth century who exercised the greatest influence on Jane Austen were Samuel Richardson and Fanny Burney. Richardson, who wrote in the 1740's and 1750's, was the century's most influential novelist in general, the man whose efforts did more than anyone's to establish the novel as a genre deserving serious aesthetic and moral evaluation. His three novels—Pamela, Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison (the last of which was Jane Austen's particular favorite) —are distinguished by a deep insight into the intricacies of human psychology, vividness and realism in the presentation of scenes and dialogue, and an engagement throughout with vital issues of morality. Such qualities are undoubtedly what attracted Jane Austen, whose works display them as well. Fanny Burney wrote in the later decades of the century, producing three novels—Evelina, Cecilia, and Camilla — that provide the closest model for Jane Austen's efforts: they are all generally humorous novels, centering around the romantic tribulations and choices of a young heroine and offering in addition a series of supporting figures who provide both comic relief and a picture of various social and personality types. Jane Austen alludes to Burney's novels often in her letters and draws on elements of them in her own works; in fact, the title of Pride and Prejudice probably derives from a critical passage in Cecilia, whose hero's relationship to the heroine has some affinities with Darcy's relationship to Elizabeth.

At the same time, Jane Austen departs from these two novelists in crucial ways. Her satirical sketches ridicule the very features that most frequently mar their novels: strong doses of sentimentality and melodrama, overly perfect heroes and heroines, preachi-ness and sententiousness in the exposition of moral points, the use of improbable coincidences and contrivances to advance the plot (a feature especially marked in Fanny Burney), and extreme prolixity (a particular problem for Richardson, whose second and third novels are both over 2000 pages long). Jane Austen attempts to avoid each of these flaws in her own work. Her stories are carefully constructed and reasonably compact. They also maintain a restrained tone throughout, avoiding ardent appeals to the reader's emotions and allowing the moral themes and messages to emerge naturally from the story. Finally, her stories always strive to be true to life: her protagonists, while virtuous, are not super-humanly so, and the actions of the characters fall within the range of normal probability. An ideal of verisimilitude was already an important aspect of the new novel genre, but, as in the cases of Richardson and Burney, many authors' interest in providing drama and excitement or in espousing certain ideals made them, amidst their ostensible stories of real life, introduce people and incidents that would rarely if ever be found in reality. In contrast, Jane Austen shows, both in her novels and in the comments on novel writing in her letters, a consistent commitment to creating stories that, down to the smallest details, correspond to life as it actually occurs.

The basic situation Jane Austen uses for each of her works allows her to fulfill that demand for realism, while also crafting a plot that gives shape to the novel and keeps the reader's attention. Essentially each of her novels centers around a group of unmarried young men and women, gathered in the same place, who will experience various attractions, rivalries, and misunderstandings before at some point being matched with a suitable partner. The situation is one that, while not found everywhere, is common enough, and it provides many opportunities for plot developments. She further focuses the action by centering attention on one of the young women (except in Sense and Sensibility, which has two heroines), and presenting the romantic dilemmas or choices facing this woman. In each case, though a man exists who is ideally suited to her, some barrier impedes the joining of these two until the end of the story. Some have argued that the ubiquity of such a barrier in Jane Austen's plots suggests a belief in the inherent difficulty of establishing a solid love or intimate relationship between two people. But there is no clear hint ofthat in her novels: she presents a number of couples in supporting roles whose love and marriage seem to have been accomplished, sometimes before the novel commences, without any hitches. The more obvious reason why Jane Austen always entangles her main characters in difficulties is the same one that has spurred countless writers of romantic stories not to show the course of true love running smooth —namely, that two lovers who quickly perceive their compatibility and then marry happily provide a dull basis for any but the briefest tale.

Jane Austen also follows a consistent pattern in the choice of difficulties for her principal lovers. While family quarrels, differences in social background, forces of circumstance, or the machinations of other characters sometimes play a role in impeding her lovers, neither these nor any other external factors determine the story as they do in so many romantic tales. Jane Austen always shows her characters operating with relative freedom: they are subject to certain pressures and restraints, but they are able to make crucial decisions, especially decisions about love and marriage, on their own. This emphasis on freedom stems in part from her realism, for much of the evidence from her own life and letters and the lives of those around her indicates that people of the class she wrote about usually enjoyed a fair degree of liberty in making their marital choices. The emphasis also reflects her strong interest in moral questions. Jane Austen is a writer who consistently judges her characters by a firm set of ethical standards; she is particularly concerned to judge her principal characters, and to explore both the merits or flaws of the actions they take and the motivations behind those actions. To do this it is vital to allow her principals freedom of choice, and thereby to make them ultimately responsible for whatever good or bad they experience. Thus it is always the mistaken choices of either the hero or heroine that create the difficulties they suffer, and these mistakes in turn that shape the main outline of the plot.

It is in this last aspect that Pride and Prejudice stands out from Jane Austen's other novels. In the central romantic plots in her other novels, the error that prevents the consummation of the principals' love —whether it be a commitment to an unworthy lover, an indulgence in a foolish fantasy, or an unwarranted hostility or resentment toward the other —comes primarily from one of the principals.