– British Library Celebrates Jane Austen’s Writing Desk
Jane Austen’s writing desk (below) will be the centrepiece of the
British Library’s Millennium exhibition, Chapter and Verse: A
Thousand years of English Literature, thanks to Joan Austen Leigh,
a great great great niece of Jane Austen and co-founder of JASNA. The
desk, a small chest which opens to reveal a writing surface and storage
space for inkpot and writing implements, was presented in October by
Joan and her daughters, complete with Jane Austen’s spectacles in
their case and her sewing kit, known as a ‘housewife’ (pronounced
‘huzzif’).
In papers found at Chawton Cottage, Deirdre Le Faye discovered that
the Reverend George Austen purchased the handsome mahogany piece in
Basingstoke for his youngest daughter, possibly as a birthday gift. Her
sister Cassandra was the first to receive it as a legacy. Ownership then
passed from aunts to nieces until Joan Austen Leigh received it from her
aunt, reinforcing Jane Austen’s remarks about ‘the importance of
aunts.’
At a gala reception celebrating the receipt of the desk, two more
precious pieces of Jane Austen memorabilia in the possession of the
library were on display: a letter in Jane’s own hand and the two
cancelled chapters of Persuasion. [Her History of England,
illustrated by Cassandra, is part of the inaugural Treasures of the
British Library exhibition marking the relocation of the British Library
from the British Museum to its vast new red brick facility in Euston
Road.]
Claire Tomalin, the distinguished biographer of Jane Austen ... said
that the presence of Jane Austen’s writing desk at the British
Library’s Millennium exhibition would demonstrate that ‘All you need
if you are a writer is a desk, a pencil and of course a great brain.’
Elsa A. Solender
Jane Austen’s Writing Desk from Freydis Jane Welland’s essay in Persuasions No. 30 “The History of Jane Austen’s Writing Desk” Photo Courtesy of the British Library. JASNA’s journal 2008.
