Library Notes - Jan 2020

Jane Austen's Manuscripts

If you haven't had the opportunity to see Jane Austen's manuscripts in the British Library, the BBC offers a short video describing her particular style. Or, watch as a fragment of her handwriting is revealed.

Manuscript of chapters 10 and 11 from Persuasion, Written by Jane Austen, Held at the British Library, Public Domain in most countries other than the UK.

From the British Library - “These two chapters are unique in being the only surviving manuscript pages of a novel Jane Austen planned and completed for publication. They offer an alternative ending to Persuasion and were finished, according to a note at the end of Chapter 11, on 18 July 1816. Austen subsequently became dissatisfied with this ending and rewrote the chapters, some time between 18 July and 6 August. The rewritten ending is the one that was published in the first edition of the novel in 1818.”

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You can view all of Jane Austen's works in facsimile on the site Jane Austen's Fiction Manuscripts,

Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts: https://janeausten.ac.uk/index.html

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Jane edited her manuscripts with pins: In 2011, Oxford's Bodleian Library acquired the manuscript of Austen's abandoned novel, The Watsons.

Thanks to the website, Open Culture, we know and can see that Jane Austen used pins to edit her manuscripts.

Two links lead to manuscripts from her unfinished novel, The Watsons.