Today is Jane Austen’s birthday! She was born in Steventon on December 16th, 1775, an auspicious day for any lover of her writing – like me. I’ve hardly been subtle about my love for Jane Austen on this blog, and am relishing that, over the past year or two, more and more of my time is spent with her work and researching her. It’s a privilege I will never get tired of.

Recently, for a project I’m working on by myself, I’ve been in the company of her letters. I’ve read them before, dipped in and out of them, but always quickly, never to truly grasp what she is telling us about her life, her times, her opinions and her writing. Letter writing was of course not only an art form during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, but an incredibly necessary channel of communication.

Austen was a prolific letter writer, and letters often play a significant role in her novels (Captain Wentworth’s being my most favourite of all) but very few have been left behind. Why? Supposedly, many of them were destroyed by Austen’s sister and closest friend Cassandra Austen, perhaps to protect Jane’s legacy and reputation, and then those that were left – numbering only around 160 of the presumed thousands that may have once existed.

As a side note, what is wonderful is that we are soon to have an adaptation of Gill Hornby’s Miss Austen, a novel which deals with the what and why of Cassandra’s suggested “editing” of Jane’s remaining letters. Keeley Hawes will play Cassandra.

But, in honour of Austen’s birthday today, I wanted to share some of my favourite snippets from her letters to show you what a witty, brilliant storyteller and biting commentator she was, outside of her novels. She had a caustic and dry sense of humour, a self-deprecating way of writing about herself, and a deep joy – and relatable annoyance – in her connection with her family and friends, as well as the innate ability to characterise brilliantly all those around her.

Hopefully you find them as funny, as tongue-in-cheek, as thought-provoking, and illuminating as I did.

On her own exceptional letter-writing skills

“I am very much flattered by your commendation of my last Letter, for I write only for Fame, and without any view to pecuniary Emolument.”

14th-15th January 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On visiting London, the centre for all things good and moral…

“Here I am once more in this Scene of Dissipation & vice, and I begin already to find my Morals corrupted.”

23rd August 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On Cassandra Austen’s own very fine comic abilities

“I could die of laughter at it [Cassandra’s previous letter], as they used to say at school. You are indeed the finest comic writer of the present age.”

1st September 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On the preferred qualities in a good female friend

“Miss Fletcher and I were very thick, … There are two Traits in her Characters which are pleasing; namely, she admires Camilla [a novel by Frances Burney], & drinks no cream in her Tea.”

15th-16th September 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On trying to keep cool and collected when it’s scorching outside

“What dreadful Hot weather we have! – It keeps one in a continual state of Inelegance.”

18th September 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On having – too much – fun at balls, and evading unappetising dance partners

“You scold me so much in the nice long letter which I have this moment received from you, that I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend [Tom Lefroy] and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together. I can expose myself, however, only once more, because he leaves the country soon after next Friday, on which we are to have a dance at Ashe after all.” … “I danced twice with Warren last night, and once with Mr. Charles Watkins, and to my inexpressible astonishment, I entirely escaped John Lyford. I was forced to fight hard for it, however.”

9th-10th January 1796, to Cassandra Austen

On really having too much fun at balls

“I beleive I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to day; – You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing by attributing it to this venial Error.”

20th-21st November 1800, to Cassandra Austen

On sharing thoughts in a letter

“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth; I have been talking to you almost as fast as I could the whole of this letter.”

3rd-5th January 1801, to Cassandra Austen