] I'm reading Deirdre Le Faye's excellent `Jane Austen's Letters', in which she provides an invaluable Biographical Index of the people mentioned in them. I am struck by the lack of famous names.

.... I am continuously struck about how sheltered (perhaps not the right word?), provincial and small the society in which JA appeared to live, was. It was not public knoweldge that she was a novelist, or anyone of note, or indeed even connected to anyone of note. In her situation, she really had very little opportunity of access to high society.