Jane Austen Downunder - scabies and all - an exploration of Austen’s ‘Australian’ letter.

The English author Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) left comparatively few letters. Only 161 are known to survive out of an estimated 3000 she wrote. These surviving letters are highly prized for the clues they may offer to the novelist’s life and writings. A majority of the known letters are addressed to Austen’s sister Cassandra and, somewhat surprisingly, one of the earliest extant letters can be found at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. This letter is one of the pieces in the NLA’s foundation collection, the Petherick Collection. It was written to Austen’s sister Cassandra from Bath in 1799 and gives an intimate glimpse of the author. The letter reveals much about Jane Austen and life in the Regency period. When she writes to her sister in this letter, Jane Austen covers a range of topics, from scabies to hat decorations. She also discusses First Impressions, a work presumed to be an earlier version of Pride and Prejudice. This presentation will explore the contents of this early Austen letter and speculate how it came to be in Australia. It will also examine what happened when Janet Lee held Austen’s letter in her own hands, and the way the letter has influenced the Creative Artefact, Love Tokens