Jane Austen's Letters

Austen's last extant letter to Cassandra, her only sister and closest confidante, was written when Austen was ill and near death at age 41. She bequeathed to Cassandra "every thing [sic] of which I may die possessed or which may be here after due to me." Regrettably, Cassandra later burned a substantial part of her inherited cache of letters. Of the surviving corpus of 164 letters, all of which are in this collection, most illuminating are the 96 written to Cassandra, which offer a kind of prism through which to seek to understand Austen's psyche. These candid letters are pitted with personal comments that are unquestionably acerbic, spiteful, snobbish, and malicious. Alternatively, Austen is a witty gossip, sensitive to the barometer of fashion, a keen observer of social foibles, and a faithful reporter of domestic affairs. Le Faye's editing is scrupulous and exhaustive. Although no new letters have emerged since the third edition (1997), which Le Faye also edited, she here incorporates additional biographical, social, and historical information in her extensive notes. There are biographical, topographical, and—new to this edition—subject indexes.