It was the accepted practice that when a person died, the relatives
retrieved their letters to the deceased, if they had been kept. Letters
were seldom solely for the person to whom addressed, particularly females.
The letters were usually read aloud to the family. Postage was expensive so
few sent letters to multiple people at the same address unless one had a
birthday or other special day.
Cassandra did cut up letters to give people just the autograph and some
letters no doubt were lost.
Cassandra and Jane usually lived together and i is only that Cassandra
was asked to help Edward after his wife died and that she helped out
elsewhere that we have any letters at all. Instead of blaming Cassandra
for destroying mythical letters, she should be honoured for preserving so
many.
Nancy
On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 10:01?PM Dorothy Gannon via groups.io
<dorothy.gannon@...> wrote:
Ellen, I well remember the Fanny wars. At the time I'd have said I wasn¡¯t
especially fond of the novel, but it was due to your defense of MP that I
went back and reread it for the first time. Up till then, it was the only
Austen novel I hadn¡¯t read multiple times. I¡¯ve since come to appreciate
the richness of the writing and the characters, and that Austen was really
trying something new.
Nancy wrote:
The other subject on which I am adamant is that Cassandra didn't burn
Jane's letters to her , but she burned her letters TO Jane.
Never thought of that, Nancy. It almost makes more sense, tho.
Dorothy
