The text is that of the 1813 first edition, accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations.

This Norton Critical Edition also includes:
- Biographical portraits of Austen by members of her family and, new to the Fourth Edition, those by Jon Spence (Becoming Jane Austen) and Paula Byrne (The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things).
- Fourteen critical essays, eleven of them new to the Fourth Edition, reflecting the finest current scholarship. Contributors include Janet Todd, Andrew Elfenbein, Felicia Bonaparte, and Tiffany Potter, among others.
- "Writers on Austen"--a new section of brief comments by Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and others.
- A Chronology and revised and expanded Selected Bibliography.