In a letter to her niece Fanny Knight in March 1817, Austen wrote that she had a novel "which may appear about a twelvemonth hence."[6] John Murray published Persuasion together with Northanger Abbey in a four-volume set, printed in December 1817 but dated 1818. The first advertisement appeared on 17 December 1817. The Austen family retained copyright of the 1,750 copies, which sold rapidly.[6] The later editions of both were published separately.
The book's title is not Jane Austen's but her brother Henry's, who named it after her early death. There is no known source that documents what Austen intended to call her novel. Whatever her intentions might have been, Austen spoke of the novel as The Elliots, according to family tradition, and some critics believe that is probably the title she planned for it.[7]
Henry Austen supplied a "Biographical Notice" of his sister in which her identity was revealed; she was no longer an anonymous author.
