Bear with me, this is my first group read for a long time. . .

I think you raise a really good point. I remember reading Caroline Austen's remarks about her aunt's life and feeling so envious. Wouldn't we all like to have been a relation of Jane Austen's and to be sitting on an inheritance of her amazing letters. But I suppose we view her through the lens of time and in a very different light.

During this group read I am really studying these letters and underlining funny/significant moments with a pencil (the student in me will never die!). Her Victorian relations would not have done so because they knew her and there was no value in them. To us they are gold - the more so because there are so many missing.