Chapter 1 considers Austen’s interest in novelistic length, as articulated in her early writing, especially in ‘Catharine, or the Bower’, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice. Austen’s early fiction returns repeatedly to the subjects of fictional length and organization, often with reference to history writing. The chapter goes on to consider the genesis of Pride and Prejudice and the “contractions” that Cassandra Austen remembered her sister having made. Austen’s interest in narrative organization resonates with contemporary critical writing on the novel, especially the criticism of Anna Barbauld who evoked picturesque theory in describing successful narrative construction.