A letter from Jane Austen to her sister, in which she shares domestic news and neighbourhood gossip, is to go on display at the author’s former home.
Dated 1798, the letter is one of around 160 by Austen that survive, and one of the earliest in existence. It came to Cheffins Auctioneers through the estate of a Cambridge resident who acquired it in 2000.
Consisting of four pages, written on a single large folio sheet folded three times, the letter will be displayed at Austen’s house in Chawton, Hampshire, where she lived for the last eight years of her life. It will be part of an exhibition, beginning on 22 March, that explores Austen’s relationship with her sister.
Martin Millard, director of Cheffins, described the letter as “typical in its domestic style: it is lively, vivid, funny and a brilliant window into her personality”.
The Pride and Prejudice author wrote the letter from Steventon, her family home at the time, to her sister Cassandra, who was staying with their elder brother, Edward Austen Knight, at Godmersham Park in Kent towards the end of October 1798. It was written the day after Austen’s return from Kent, where she and her parents and Cassandra had spent two months visiting Edward and his family.
At the time of the letter, their mother was ill, leaving Austen in charge of the household. In the letter, she writes about her new responsibilities with mocking self-importance: “I am very grand indeed; I had the dignity of dropping out my mother’s Laudanum last night, I carry about the keys of the Wine & Closet; twice since I began this letter, have had orders to give in the kitchen: Our dinner was very good yesterday, & the Chicken boiled perfectly tender; therefore I shall not be obliged to dismiss Nanny on that account …”
Austen also tells her sister that their laundry lady is leaving, and a new servant “undertakes our purification”. “She does not look as if anything she touched would ever be clean, but who knows?” she writes.
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The author also tells Cassandra about some local news, including that “Mrs Hall of Sherbourn was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she expected, oweing to a fright”. Austen ends the sad anecdote with a funny comment, saying: “I suppose she happened unawares to look at her husband…”
The author also shares the errands she’s been on, including buying Japanese ink, and her plans to “begin operations on my hat, on which You know my principal hopes of happiness depend”.
Austen’s house in Chawton, where the letter will be displayed, acquired it through the Acceptance in Lieu scheme administered by the Arts Council and negotiated by Cheffins, to settle £140,000 in tax. The scheme allows those who have a bill for inheritance tax, or one of its earlier forms, to pay by transferring important cultural, scientific or historic objects and archives to the nation.