The mystery of Jane Austen’s letters, destroyed to protect it

Everyone – or almost – love Jane Austen. And everyone – but everyone – His sister Cassandra hate of ​​having Instructed thousands of letters That the two had exchanged and that they could reveal everything we don’t know and we will never know about the most famous English writer.

Scholars do not forgive To Jane’s older sister of having burned a treasure of information on one of the most reserved existences in the history of literature. A letter that survived the massacre and dated January 1796, reveals for example the crush on a Jane Austen twenty year old for “a very elegant young man, Beautiful and pleasant “. Tom Lefroy was an Irish lawyer with whom Jane had danced three times and couldn’t wait to meet again.

In another letter to Cassandra a few days later he offered to leave their friend Mary “all my other admirers” because he had eyes only for Tom. However, Tom had to leave the country and in the same letter Jane wrote that it was “Once the day I will flirt for the last time with Tom Lefroy, And when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow as I write to this melancholy idea. ”

The authentic portrait of the writer lost forever

These letters, the oldest of Jane we have, suggest A young lively, peak and funny woman who loves parties and the dance and the attention of men. It is a vivid and precious picture because even if Jane was a prolific correspondent and it is estimated that he wrote Thousands of letters during his life, there are only 160 remain.

Years after Jane’s death in 1817 for an unknown disease, Cassandrato which his sister had written every day, He burned almost all his letters. His gesture infuriated historians and biographers: Jane Austen is one of the greatest English -speaking writers, second only to Shakespeare.

His six novels, witty, fulminating and pioneering in form and content, are still very popular today, as well as the countless cinematographic adaptations. Yet beyond the basic biographical facts, the information on Jane is relatively scarce.

Was it, how was it stated, a radical secret? A lesbian? Was it poisoned? How much more would we know about her if Cassandra, her main paladin in life and guardian of her flame after her death, had kept her letters? Which secrets had to contain So Cassandra thought was it better to burn them?

The mystery rebuilt in a TV series

The mysterious act of destruction is now in the center of Uthat Serie TV, ‘Miss Austen’in four episodes based on the novel of the same name by Gill Hornby who took care of Cassandra after moving to Kintbury and discovered that “Miss Austen” was engaged to the son of the vicar of the local church.

“I have a theory, which I exposed in the novel, which I think of Reggio” on the reason for the bonfire of the letters, said Hornby to the BBC, “but there are other prosaic reasons. One is that these letters were full of news, gossip. The two sisters shared everything, including judgments on sisterciars, prying hints of annoying relatives and Cassandra wanted to prevent the publication of the letters from ending up hurting someone or to show Jane not under the best light “.