[2] It has been said that "in the Plan and the correspondence from which it arose, we have the most important account of what Jane Austen understood to be her aims and capacities as a novelist".
[7] Another suggestion, made following the announcement of the engagement of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, was an historical novel on the House of Coburg.
Austen tactfully side-stepped these suggestions with disclaimers about her talents, quipping that she "could no more write a Romance than an Epic Poem.
[1] The work was also influenced by some of Austen's personal circle with views on the novel of courtship, and names are recorded in the margins of the manuscript;[9] they included William Gifford, her publisher, and her niece Fanny Knight.
Some of its aspects parody contemporary works by authors such as Sophie Cottin, Fanny Burney, Anna Maria Porter, and Mary Brunton.