In her letters, Austen was as open about her admiration of and indebtedness to Richardson as she was Frances Burney.

(At fifteen, my favorite Austen novel was Mansfield Park. I have since used this as evidence that, at fifteen, I was prig. By eighteen, when I took my only college literature class, an Austen seminar, it had switched to Pride and Prejudice. By the end of the class, it was Persuasion, and I have not been persuaded since to alter my affections.)