Jane Austen certainly belongs to my favourite authors. Unfortunately, due to her early death, there are only six finished books (and two unfinished ones) written by her which I have read several times. However, there are still other writings, as these "Selected Letters".
This book might not have been meant for publishing, they are just letters Jane Austen wrote to friends and family, mainly to her sister Cassandra. However, they give a great idea of life at the time and also how the author found a lot of her stories.
I really enjoyed hearing about Jane's life!
From the back cover:
"'Little Matters they are to be sure, but highly important.'
Letter-writing was something of an addiction for young women of Jane Austen's time and social position, and Austen's letters have a freedom and familiarity that only intimate writing can convey. Wiser than her critics, who were disappointed that her correspondence dwelt on gossip and the minutiae of everyday living, Austen understood the importance of 'Little Matters', of the emotional and material details of individual lives shared with friends and family through the medium of the letter. Ironic, acerbic, always entertaining, Jane Austen's letters are a fascinating record not only of her own day-to-day existence, but of the pleasures and frustrations experienced by women of her social class which are so central to her novels.
Vivien Jones's selection includes very nearly two-thirds of Austen's surviving correspondence, and her lively introduction and notes set the novelist's most private writings in their wider cultural context."
One of my favorite authors too, she died much too young, just think of what her later books would have been like.
ReplyDeleteI know, it's so sad. She'll live on forever in our minds and probably generations to come but it's such a shame she had to leave us so early.
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