Dr. Johnson, Samuel Richardson, as well as the most popular woman novelists of the period, Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth, were among Jane Austen’s favourite writers. In her narrative technique Austen was perhaps most influenced by the novels of the last two novelists: Burney’s Cecilia and Camilla, Edgeworth’s Belinda. Instead of adopting the epistolary form which was made popular by Richardson, Burney and Edgeworth both turned to Fielding’s omniscient narration as a narrative technique. Although the early drafts of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice—of which none survived—might have been written in epistolary form in the beginning, when revising them for publication Austen decided on third person narration. The omniscience of the narrator is limited, however, since the narrator focuses primarily on the consciousness of a particular character, usually the heroine of the novel. We readers can see mainly what the heroine sees and interpret the manners, speech and actions of the other characters accordingly. This is the narrative technique used in practically all of Austen’s novels (except the epistolary Lady Susan). For the purposes of characterizing not only her heroines, but other characters as well, she uses the method of free indirect discourse to represent what they are saying or thinking in third person, and colouring to mimic their word use and style of speech. In Sense and Sensibility, for instance, the sister-in-law of the Dashwood sisters is trying to convince her husband that there is no need to keep his promise to his late father, and the girls do not need any financial support.