When she wasn’t penning novels, Jane Austen was was a prolific and entertaining letter writer. Sadly most of her correspondence was destroyed by her elder sister Cassandra, shortly before she died. This surviving example was written by 24-year-old Jane and describes a ball she attended the night before.
‘I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand today. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing by attributing it to this venial error…’
Letter to Cassandra, 20 November 1800
