Letters on Fiction to Anna Lefroy

Summary

PS to a letter from Mrs Austen, ?mid-July 1814

?Chawton to Steventon

My dear Anna—I am very much obliged to you for sending your MS. It has entertained me extremely, all of us indeed; I read it aloud to your G. M.—& A^t. C. —and we were all very much pleased.—The Spirit does not droop at all. Sir Tho:—Lady Helena, & S^t. Julian are very well done— & Cecilia continues to be interesting inspite of her being so amiable.—It was very fit that you should advance her age. I like the beginning of D. Forester very much—a great deal better than if he had been very Good or very Bad.—A few verbal corrections were all that I felt tempted to make—the principal of them is a speech of S^t. Julians to Lady Helena— which you will see I have presumed to alter.—As Lady H. is Cecilia's superior, it w^d. not be correct to talk of her being introduced; Ceciliamust be the person introduced—and I do not like a Lover's speaking in the 3^d. person;—it is too much like the formal part of Lord Orville, &I think is not natural. If you think differently however, you need not mind me.—I am impatient for more—& only wait for a safe conveyance to return this Book.—Yours affec^ly, J. A.

Wednesday 10–Thursday 18 August 1814

Chawton to Steventon

My dear Anna

I am quite ashamed to find that I have never answered some questions of yours in a former note.—I kept the note on purpose to refer to it at a proper time, & then forgot it.—I like the name “Which is the Heroine?” very well, & I dare say shall grow to like it very much in time—but “Enthusiasm” was something so very superior that every common Titlemust appear to disadvantage.—I am not sensible of any Blunders about Dawlish. The Library was particularly pitiful&wretched 12 years ago, & not likely to have anybody's publication.—There is no such title as Desborough— either among the Dukes, Marquisses, Earls, Viscounts or Barons.—These were your enquiries.