The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen

This handsome celebration of Austen's letters is illustrated with portraits, facsimile letters, topographical engravings and fashion plates, all helping to bring to life the world Jane Austen inhabited.The letters, with an accompanying commentary by Penelope Hughes-Hallett, are separated into six periods of Jane Austen's life, between the years 1796, when she was twenty, and 1817, the year of her death. 

Penelope Hughes-Hallett was born in Jane Austen's village of Steventon in Hampshire. Before her death she lectured in English Literature for the Open University and the Oxford University Department of External Studies. Her special interest was 19th-century children's literature, and in 1988 she published an anthology, Childhood. She also assisted Valerie Eliot in editing TS Eliot's letters.