One hundred and fifth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   How many marriage proposals did Jane Austen turn down?   The story of poor Harris Bigg-Wither, whose December 1802 proposal Austen accepted and then rejected the next day, is reasonably well-documented. Austen’s niece Caroline heard the story from her mother, who witnessed the aftermath, and years later, Caroline shared the details with her brother, James Edward Austen-Leigh, as he worked

One hundred and fourth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   Jane Austen, it seems, took a rather jaundiced...

Physical copies of Jane Austen’s letters are rare commodities. Of the 160 letters whose text we have, seven are known only from copies...

One hundred and third in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   Every family has its private jokes:...

It’s fair to say that Jane Austen was a prolific letter-writer. Deirdre Le Faye, who edited the standard edition of Austen’s...

One hundred and second in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   The letter Jane Austen wrote to her 23-year-old...

One hundred and first in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   How improper were Jane Austen’s letters?   By...

One hundredth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   As we Janeites never tire of pointing out, Jane Austen...

The material traces of Jane Austen’s life are so scarce that devoted Janeites—or people seeking to profit off Janeite devotion--tend to...

Some five years ago, my local chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America sponsored a discussion of Jane Austen at Home , the...

A few weeks ago, I ran across a 2011 article in which the wonderful Scottish novelist Ali Smith explained why she seldom grants...

Ninety-ninth in an occasional series  of excerpts from Jane Austen's letters.   Exactly 226 years ago today, the 23-year-old Jane Austen...