The other part of Jane Austen -- all those letters she wrote. It's a pity that her sister Cassandra destroyed many of them, but enough of them were save. One of the top scholars about Jane Austen has done the editing here. The Folio Society edition is a gorgeous one as well.

This is a great scholarly resource, especially given the biographical Index. Next time I read this, I will bookmark that for reference. This time, I marked the footnotes, and while some of them were interesting, many of them were simply "inserted superscript." I wish there was a good way to separate the two.

Excellent. Conscious of every word she puts down, as one might expect such a great stylist to be. I can't help but hold it against Cassandra Austen that she burnt a good number of Jane Austen's letters. Written with a good deal of irony and sensitivity; the snippets -- few as they are -- regarding her art and the art of others are quite invaluable. The only thing that irked me was 1. the loss of letters, attributable to CEA, and 2. the proliferation of dashes and lack of paragraphing which made several letters difficult to read. I should have given it 5 stars had the collection simply had *more* on her aesthetics, but as it is... Of course this is a scholarly inclination and I think I should not have minded it as much if I had not been working on her academically

It feels a bit unfair to be rating someone’s personal correspondence. Unfortunately reading these letters without having access to the replies is a bit like being privy to someone’s stream of consciousness.

This book took quite a commitment. I think I checked it out four times, plus renewed it each time I was able to. Because I read it over such a long stretch, it's hard for me to remember my impressions of the beginning. I do remember thinking how clever Jane Austen was, which comes through in her letters as much as in her books.

And towards the end, especially as her books started being published and she started writing more letters (or at least, more of them were preserved) to her nieces and nephews, I was quite enchanted. It does feel a bit like eavesdropping, to read someone else's letters, and I wonder at what point a person is famous enough or has been gone long enough that it's OK to read their mail. But I'm glad I was able to read hers.

a great resource as to what Austen was thinking and reading when she was writing. Unfortuneately it is a flawed resource as her sister Cassandra was a very strict editor and cut away those parts she deemed "unsuitable." All in all, there is some very funny stuff left behind.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and the narrator was fantastic. This collection does not include any historical or personal context for the letters, however, so I was glad that I'd just read Lucy Worsley's "Jane Austen at Home." Taken together, these two books offer a rich portrait of her life.

When I found this book in the university library, I had a quiet fangirl attack (of course, I was in the library). I wanted to read these, because I’m always curious about writers’ private lives. It’s one thing to read their work, and quite another to read stuff that was meant for family and friends.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. In Jane Austen’s novels, there’s a lot of attention paid to the little details in the character’s daily lives. And in the letters there’s a lot of detail. It was great picturing the way people lived in old times (my inner historian is talking here). There’s a lot about the dresses, and the meals and the dances. Austen’s wit was all over these letters, and some of the ironic comments that often appear in her writing survived her sister’s censorship. It was pretty clear what she thought about the people she wrote about.

Probably my favorite parts were the ones in which she talked about her books. I remember right now one passage in which she’s discussing her visit to a portrait gallery, and finding a portrait that resembled Jane Bennet (she also lamented not finding a Lizzy). I do the same with my own characters, and finding some picture that resembles my mental image of a character always makes me really happy. So, yay! Jane Austen was like me! (okay, I might be exaggerating here, but still pretty cool).

In general, this book accounts for a good picture of what Jane Austen was, her relationships with her nephews and nieces, and especially her sister, are shown here as directly as they can ever be. I really enjoyed that aspect: how she trusted Cassandra with everything, and to her encouragement to one of her nieces, Anna Lefroy (yes, like that Lefroy), to become a writer.

In a way, reading this book made Jane Austen more real. I mean, I’ve always been pretty sure of her existence, but she was always so far away. These letters made me feel as if I was there, receiving them and so on. I knew she was a brilliant fiction writer, but she was brilliant in her letters as well. She was obviously a very good observer and realized everything that went on around her. She put the same attention to details in her real life than she did to the details in her novels.
The edition I read was incredible useful for anyone who wants to learn about Jane Austen’s life in more depth. There’s a lot of notes explaining the references she made in the letters, and a biographical and topographical indexes if you need more information. That was great for when I needed more details. There’s a lot of study here, and it works pretty well. You can get a picture of the world our favorite writer lived in.

I’d recommend this book for all those dedicated Austen fans. It gives you a great inside look to her life and her work. Janeites, this is essential for our lives.

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

I REPEAT, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.

Do not read it unless you are prepared to fall in love with Jane Austen more than you probably already do, if you're even considering reading this book. Do not read this book unless you are prepared to laugh at her wit and her humor in the letters. Do not read this book unless you are prepared to, once in a while, utter an amused (and scandalized), "Jane!". Do not read this book unless you are prepared to start feeling like she truly is one of your closest friends.

Do not read this book unless you are prepared to slowly become aware of her maturing through the mere tone in her letters. Do not read this book unprepared for the growing, heavy sensation of doom as the book begins to near its end. Do not read this book unless you are prepared to cry bitterly over the last few letters, recounting her death.

If you are prepared for all these things, then please, read this book. Read this book and learn to love Jane Austen all the more dearly.

Life for women in 18th-19th century rural Britain was pretty uneventful. And that movie, "Becoming Jane," is a disgrace.

When reading Jane Austen's letters I have felt they lacked a more personal feeling, they felt like events of people with hardly any comments but telling of scenery. When I was about done, I decided to look up what Wikipedia mentioned about her life and death. I posted below why the letters seemed dry, the purging of undesirable comments.

"There is little biographical information about Jane Austen's life except the few letters that survive and the biographical notes her family members wrote.[7] During her lifetime, Austen may have written as many as 3,000 letters, but only 161 survived.[8] Many of the letters were written to Austen's older sister Cassandra, who in 1843 burned the greater part of them and cut pieces out of those she kept. Ostensibly, Cassandra destroyed or censored her sister's letters to prevent their falling into the hands of relatives and ensuring that "younger nieces did not read any of Jane Austen's sometimes acid or forthright comments on neighbours or family members".[9][d] Cassandra believed that in the interest of tact and Jane's penchant for forthrightness, these details should be destroyed. The paucity of record of Austen's life leaves modern biographers little with which to work."

I am glad I read them and especially the letters from Cassandra talking to Fanny about her death. I wonder what illness she really had and how much she suffered. Having recent pain and health problems, I had a special feeling for how much she suffered but kept up her spirits and tried to continue to write. I wonder if she knew when her time time was near.

I did not read this edition but from a collection of her works.

"And now I come to the saddest letters of all, those which tell us of the end of that bright life, cut short just at the time when the world might have hoped that unabated intellectual vigor, supplemented by the experience brought by maturer years, would have produced works if possible even more fascinating than those with which she had already embellished the literature of her country. But it was not to be. The fiat had gone forth, — the ties which bound that sweet spirit to earth were to be severed, and a blank left, never to be filled in the family which her loved and loving presence had blessed, and where she had been so well and fondly appreciated. In the early spring of 1817 the unfavorable symptoms increased, and the failure of her health was too visible to be neglected. Still no apprehensions of immediate danger were entertained, and it is probable that when she left Chawton for Winchester in May, she did not recognize the fact that she was bidding a last farewell to “Home.” Happy for her if it was so, for there are few things more melancholy than to look upon any beloved place or person with the knowledge that it is for “the last time.” In all probability this grief was spared to Jane, for even after her arrival at Winchester she spoke and wrote as if recovery was hopeful; and I fancy that her relations were by no means aware that the end was so near. "

"Since Tuesday evening, when her complaint returned, there was a visible change, she slept more and much more comfortably; indeed, during the last eight-and-forty hours she was more asleep than awake. Her looks altered and she fell away, but I perceived no material diminution of strength, and though I was then hopeless of a recovery, I had no suspicion how rapidly my loss was approaching. "

"She felt herself to be dying about half an hour before she became tranquil and apparently unconscious. During that half-hour was her struggle, poor soul! She said she could not tell us what she suffered, though she complained of little fixed pain. When I asked her if there was anything she wanted, her answer was she wanted nothing but death, and some of her words were: “God grant me patience, pray for me, oh, pray for me!”

"I was able to close her eyes myself, and it was a great gratification to me to render her those last services. There was nothing convulsed which gave the idea of pain in her look; on the contrary, but for the continual motion of the head she gave one the idea of a beautiful statue, and even now, in her coffin, there is such a sweet, serene air over her countenance as is quite pleasant to contemplate. "

"The last sad ceremony is to take place on Thursday morning; her dear remains are to be deposited in the cathedral. It is a satisfaction to me to think that they are to lie in a building she admired so much; her precious soul, I presume to hope, reposes in a far superior mansion. May mine one day be reunited to it! "

Nel mondo di Jane

Leggere l'epistolario di uno scrittore è sicuramente uno dei modi migliori per conoscerlo, entrare nel suo mondo e nel suo tempo, capire come lavora, come scrive, come legge. In altre parole, come funziona il suo processo creativo. Amo moltissimo Jane Austen e sono sempre stata curiosa di leggere le sue lettere, così quando mi è capitata in mano questa bella edizione, che raccoglie la parte più significativa della sua corrispondenza, ho deciso di provare.
Le lettere sono indirizzate quasi tutte alla sorella Cassandra, con la quale l'autrice aveva un rapporto strettissimo, e si sono rivelate una lettura altalenante. Alcuni momenti sono molto interessanti e divertenti, soprattutto le lettere in cui la Austen apre uno spiraglio sul suo lavoro e ci parla delle sue opere, di come nascono, del loro percorso verso la pubblicazione e di come sono accolte da familiari, amici, conoscenti. Qua e là c'è qualche momento davvero memorabile, quando Jane fa sfoggio della sua meravigliosa ironia e riesce a far ridere di gusto anche nei contesti più banali. Particolarmente degna di nota, poi, è la corrispondenza con il reverendo Clarke, ammiratore delle sue opere, cappellano e bibliotecario del principe reggente, al quale Jane Austen dedica Emma, e con la giovane Fanny Knight, figlia di un fratello dell'autrice, a cui Jane indirizza semiseri consigli d'amore.
Ci sono anche molti momenti, però, in cui la lettura si trascina: molte lettere sono infarcite di dettagli poco rilevanti per il lettore comune di oggi (ad esempio il prezzo delle stoffe o della carne), piene di nomi spesso tutti uguali (ho perso il conto di quante Elizabeth e Mary ci siano) e allusioni a fatti misteriosi. Per capirci qualcosa è necessario un continuo rimando alle note e ai glossari e alla lunga diventa un po' pesante.
È una lettura che sicuramente non consiglio a tutti, ma agli appassionati di Jane Austen, quelli che leggono e rileggono i suoi romanzi di continuo e sono disposti anche ad accettare qualche pagina un po' più noiosa pur di entrare nel suo piccolo, grande mondo e conoscerla meglio. Se non altro, vale la pena di leggere per arrivare ai momenti più vivaci a cui ho accennato e che sono veramente piacevoli. Magari si può diluire la lettura nel tempo, affiancandola ad altre. L'edizione Theoria, comunque, è molto ben fatta ed è arricchita da un'introduzione piena di informazioni interessanti. Complimenti alla casa editrice, ha fatto un ottimo lavoro.