Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Letter from Jane Austen, Southampton, to Cassandra Austen, 1809 January 24 : autograph manuscript signed.

BIB_ID
282327
Accession number
MA 977.25
Creator
Austen, Jane, 1775-1817, sender.
Credit line
Purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr. in 1920.
Description
1 item (4 pages) ; 23.2 x 37.7 cm (unfolded)
Notes
With postmark and wafer, addressed to Miss Austen, Edwd Austen's Esqr, Godmersham Park, Faversham, Kent; written from Castle Square.
Includes 10 lines of cross-writing on p. 1.
"Jane" and "Jany 24 1809" are written in the address panel in an unknown hand.
Forms part of a collection of 41 letters from Austen to her sister and two prints (MA 977.1-43).
High reserve.
Inscriptions/Markings
Watermark: GATER 1808 on wove paper.
Provenance
Bequeathed by Cassandra Elizabeth Austen to Fanny, Lady Knatchbull, in 1845; inherited by Lord Brabourne, 1882; probably in the Puttick & Simpson sale of 26-8 June 1893; Alfred Morrison sale, 10 December 1918, lot 2154; purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr. from the New York dealer Ernest Dressel North in 1920.
Summary
Mentioning a letter she has received from her brother Charles; expressing pleasure that her niece Fanny is enjoying her letters, but expressing concern that "the knowlege of my being exposed to her discerning Criticism, may not hurt my stile"; complaining about a leaking closet; commenting on her mother's attempts to get her servants to move with them to Chawton; describing a ball; noting the death of Sir John Moore in Spain. The letter also contains references to Hannah More's Coelebs in search of a wife, Burney's Cecilia, "Ed. Cooper's Sermons," Homer, Virgil, and Ovid.