I listened to Austen's letters over the last month. Her wit is extraordinary (though sometimes mean), and can take the mundane details of clothes, budgets, and visits and make them fascinating. The reader (via Librivox) brought her letters to life, making it feel as if Austen was writing to you. Finishing the final letter felt like saying a heartbreaking goodbye to a beloved friend.

I loved hearing the names of familiar characters in her neighbors and friends, and I wished I had a biography open beside me while I was listening so I could find out all the details about the family events she references.

I now want to go and re-read every single one of her books, which is the highest praise I can give to a collection of letters.

This is a must read for any Austen fan. Not only does the author put the letters in chronological order, but she has extensive notes for each letter (in the back, which I wish they were footnotes instead), plus an alphabetical listing of all the people mentioned in the letters, who they were, and their relationship to Jane Austen. It's important to read the letters because everyone makes such a fuss over the supposed love affair of Tom LeFroy and Austen. Except she met him a handful of times, he was most likely all ready engaged to his wife, he left and got married. Yes, it probably hurt Jane to have someone led you on, but she seems to have gotten over it for the man's mentioned only 3 times in these letters. Three times in 2 years doesn't sound like much of a love affair. Of course, many letters were destroyed, but from what we do have, one gets the sense that Jane was terribly witty, funny, sassy and what we see in the novels is a toned-down version of herself.

I feel odd rating a collection of letters and numerical ratings are so subjective, but I would probably give this a 4/5 in terms of my enjoyment! This was such a fascinating look into Jane Austen's life, family, work/writing, etc. Some of the letters weren't as interesting which is to be expected, but some were absolutely fascinating!!!

I enjoyed reading these, the problem is of course they need to be put in context of time and place. We lack the true insight from Jane's letters because we have little knowledge of her correspondents replies.

OK, so I mostly skimmed through most of the book. Although I was quite diligent in reading the first parts [and even came across my all-time favorite Jane Austen quote], I found that without knowing exactly what was happening at the time[who, what, where, etc] it wasn't exactly scintillating reading. Plus, the enormous time gaps between letters [thanks to sister Cassandra's pyromania] made it difficult for me to stay interested. Lots of talk about trimmed caps and gowns-Jane must have been quite the fashionista for her era. Great for historians who are interested in following along with her life. I was just too lazy to pull out the biographies.

"She was the sun of my life, the glider of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow...."-Cassandra Austen on her sister Jane.

This was so good! Jane is wonderfully herself. Her humor is similar to what appears in her books (though a bit darker). I loved seeing how much she clearly loved her sister and niece. Recommended for super fans of her books!

An extensive collection of Austen's letters. It took awhile to get through them all. A devotee of her work, Austen's letters were a disappointment to me for their content, which was mostly meaningless family gossip and other minutia. Very little references to her novels, no characters in the letters I could identify in any of her books, nothing terribly interesting. I guess her letters were revealing in themselves what late 18th and early 19th century life was really like for the average female...boring for the most part!

A must-read for any Jane Austen fan. Knowing about her relationships with her many family members is necessary if you want to understand her on any level. Her letters are interesting, witty, and fun to read. Such a treat!

It was interesting to read some of these letters, but some of them were just daily updates to her sister and got a little boring (especially since her sister burned most of the juicy letters late in life).

Reading Jane's letters is like sneaking a snarky gossip with your co-worker over the water cooler. The only problem is, SHE is intimately acquainted with every person about whom you are gossiping... you the reader, however, are more or less in the dark. Even with the extensive and informative footnotes in the back, there's a definite feeling of eavesdropping and not quite understanding the context of what you're hearing. However, it is delightful and funny and definitely gives one a solid sense of Jane's charming - if snarky and sarcastic - personality. It's the next best thing to knowing her personally. If only that were possible!

A great read for any Austen fan! I particularly enjoyed reading her love advice and when she'd mention her characters.

I'll have to hunt down an unabridged version sometime. Of course Jane's sharp-witted letters were a delight. Though I generally like Fiona Shaw, I don't think she was quite the right narrator...or perhaps her reading just wasn't quite right. And the random occasional sound effects were just weird (I think a factor of this production being originally made for cassette, but would've been weird there too). I wept unashamedly (and still am) at the concluding letter from Cassandra to their niece Fanny describing Jane's death. The only tragedy published under Jane's name. Oh how I long to meet her in the resurrection!