Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo

Author:Beth Pattillo [Pattillo, Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408492468
Publisher: Chivers
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

My first thought was that it was a forgery. The paper fluttered in my shaking hands. “She can’t have written to him,” I said to Hester, who was watching me with a bemused expression. “Not unless—” I fell silent at the implication of the piece of paper in my hand.

“Not unless she was engaged to him,” Hester finished for me. “The plot thickens, as they say.”

I looked again at the date on the letter. It had been written from Bath shortly after her family moved there in May 1801. I knew, without having to consult any of my research books, that no Austen letters survived from the period between that move in May and the autumn of 1804, a lengthy gap that had never been adequately explained.

Most scholars attributed her silence to Austen’s dislike of Bath. But it had never made sense to me that an avid correspondent like Jane Austen would simply abandon the practice because she was unhappy with her living situation. In fact, the opposite seemed more likely to me—that she would have written a greater number of letters in her attempts to stay connected to Steventon and her Hampshire friends.

… when I see you again at the ball on Wednesday. My new dress displeases Cassandra, but I like it above all things and shall consider myself in the first stare of fashion …

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