Lettere emozionanti che aggiungono un tassello importante alla conoscenza di una grande scrittrice amata da sempre...

I thought this book was interesting, mainly to learn what type of things author Jane Austen did during her lifetime. I do wish the publisher has included footnotes throughout the book to give a better insight to the things that were referred to in her letters. I think footnotes would have made the letters that more interesting.

Before anyone goes thinking they love Jane Austen -- or hate her -- this is a must-read! Full of HER, unfiltered. Much to like, but it does make me wonder what the letters sister Cassandra burned had to say.

I was disappointed when I learned that Cassandra burned most of their most intimate correspondence, there wasn't enough substance left for my taste

Äntligen läste jag ut den här! (Den har fått ligga några månader). Austen skriver rätt humoristiskt även till sin familj men över 500 sidor brev är inte jätteintressant att läsa…

I appreciated the copious notes and the index of people that really made this collection of letters easier to understand and come alive.

At first it was a bit tedious. Then I got into how different correspondence is now than it was then.
* How letters were written
* How her topics changes within the letter
* How much there was on each topic
* The time lapse between writing and getting a reply
* The time to write a letter
* The expense
Toward the end I found more depth in the letters as she was more mature and more insight into her outlook on life and society.

I listened to a librivox recording of this book.

Quant'è bello rileggere Jane Austen dopo tanto tempo, è come ritrovare una vecchia amica così lungamente ricordata.
Ho scelto questo titolo per celebrare il mio centesimo libro letto quest'anno (2021) e l'ironia tipica della Austen è, dopo duecento anni, ancora così rinfrescante.

Got this for a Christmas present! Woot!


First part of my Review: The Editing. Le Faye's work is a concise, scholarly job; this book deserves the reputation it has. It is as heavily detailed and full of excellent minutiae as JA's letters. Included are all the lists you'll need to understand the reading: places mentioned in the letters, general index, list of initials used in reference, bibliography, even a biographical index of the people JA talks about. One thing struck me here: JA had such an incredible amount of extended family (it seemed like almost everybody over several generations had anywhere from 8 to 17 children!), and I wondered: Didn't any families populate the SE corner of England except Austens??

My one fault with the book was the presentation. It got so old flipping back every other page to read the background of the letters. If it were presented differently, with perhaps the historical information (date written and from where, what happened to the original MS, when published, etc.) preceding the text of the letter within the pages, and the footnoted information (who JA's talking about, etc.) as actual footnotes at the bottom of the page, I have no doubt the ease of reading would increase 100%!

(Note: my copy is the 3rd edition from 1997, not the current 4th edition which I specifically did not want. The new publication may include those presentation improvements -- I would hope!)

Second part: The Letters Themselves. Jane Austen's correspondence was very interesting. Reading this, I felt I was really living in the time period. The minutiae of making orange wine and mead, returning social calls, keeping your clothes fashionable, and how to accommodate their overnight guests grew to be overwhelming (and I only read about it, not did it!) Where did this girl find time to write?? Most of the letters (to about 1806) are from Jane to her sister Cassandra, and only concerned those small aspects of their daily lives (or the lives of their relatives and nearest friends); they made for sluggish reading. I did wish Jane would have a thought that wasn't sheer gossip!

But as the years went by, and as more letters to maturing nieces and nephews were included, the book grew that more interesting. Toward the end Jane spoke on some issues of the day - a possible war, thousands killed in a catastrophe, a fashionable Scandal, or the Importance of Being an Aunt - and this became the Jane I recognized. In her dealings with the Carlton House librarian J S Clarke regarding dedicating Emma to the Prince Regent, I LOL'd! If P&P hadn't already been published, I'd swear she copied the character of Mr. Collins from that intruding, busybody clergyman James Stanier Clarke! Jane's tact when dealing with him was superb! Several letters give advice to girls in love or budding novelists. (Critiqued by Jane Austen! Wouldn't that be a coup?!) With these subjects I seem to be reading Jane's own journal, not just little ideas in a document that could be passed around and read by any who came to call. She's opening up, letting the bars down, allowing me to see her real thoughts. So at the end, hearing her struggle to overcome her illness, reading her will and then the letters from Cassandra regarding Jane's death - I feel that I have lost a real friend. I had got to know Jane Austen a little bit better.

This is a superb resource and Deirdre Le Faye essentially gave her life to organising Jane Austen in a way that's accessible and clear to the academe much in the same way R.W. Chapman did in the 20th century. Five stars to her -this is a review of the letters as a literary project.

My supervisor once told me to my mild disbelief that many in the know treat JA like a sort of super sentient Miss Bates -that 'the flow' of Miss Bates's trivial, gossipy speech in Emma is characteristic of the way Austen herself was and spoke more than any of the elegant phrases and poses of Elizabeth Bennett suggest. At least in the letters to her sister Cassandra, I am surprised but this opinion is true. Endless names, endless events, endless goings-on are produced and rapidly folded away to the point of nausea. The first Miss Bates monologue that we take to be a hilarious exaggeration -in the same style as Lucky's monologue from Waiting For Godot- seems really to be an instance of the natural mode of Austen's writing. The Miss Bates monologues then would have been extremely easy for JA to write; it's simply her talking at the accelerated way in which she chattered with Cassandra, who was almost her second self or her unconscious.

The interesting thing is that the partially destroyed or effaced letters reveal another side to Austen, one that we only see every so often in the novels: 'We have used Anna as ill as we could, by not letting him leave us before tomorrow morning, but it is a Vile World, we are all for Self & I expected no better from any of us.' Beneath the veneer of the omnipotent moral busybody and occasional genius, is there a human deeply aware of the unequal and even violent nature of reality?

Seeing as the number of letters we have is barely 1/10 of those estimated to have existed, something is afoot.

There was a coverup.

A great reading by Mrs Croft '95 Fiona Shaw!

As a self confessed voyeur, I thoroughly enjoyed reading these letters. There's nothing titillating -- aside from a few heartbreaking moments, the letters mainly consists of lots of chatter about absolutely mundane aspects of life. The voice, however, is what is so charming. Nothing is measured here. And I cannot help but wonder, how much we reveal of ourselves when we speak about nothing. Jane Austen's letters reveal a woman I would greatly like to know better.

Didn't get full marks though because the book itself isn't designed for readability. I'm not a Austen scholar and so names, dates, and places are not well known facts to me. Having footnotes rather than Appendices would've greatly helped, as would a family tree and a timeline would've added to the experience.