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T hough Jane Austen wrote hundreds of thousands of words, we only know so much about the author herself. There are some larger facts: she was born 250 years ago on December 16, 1775, the seventh of eight children. Her father, a clergyman, died when she was 29, leaving Austen, her mother and sister, Cassandra, without income and at the whims of relatives’ care. She wrote six novels. She never married. Austen died of an illness at 41 and became, after her death, one of the most popular novelists of all time.
“It’s hard to think of another author with this much attention placed on their works in the popular sphere,” says Dr. Kalika Sands, VP and Head of Books and Manuscripts, Americas. In addition to the numerous television and movie retellings of Austen’s novels, a few works like the film Becoming Jane and the PBS series Miss Austen have dramatized the author’s life story too. Audiences can’t get enough of her. “There’s a strong appetite for anything to do with Jane Austen because she was so good at observing human nature and also very funny,” Sands says. Perhaps, she adds, it’s the fact that we know so little about Austen that has stoked so much curiosity about her life. “How do you get closer to this person when there’s, in reality, very little evidence left?”
Scholars have tried to understand Austen by dissecting the plays she saw and the books she read or had access to in her brother’s and father’s libraries. There are also letters from Austen’s friends and family members – to her or about her – and a biography written posthumously by Austen’s nephew in 1871. There’s so little out there compared to the demand for information, the smallest scrap of Austen is a worthwhile clue.
This makes anything Austen herself wrote particularly valuable – not just for its rarity but for the insight it provides into Austen’s life and what she thought about it. Of an estimated 3,000 letters Austen wrote during her lifetime, only 161 remain. The rest were destroyed by her sister Cassandra, likely to keep Austen from being pilloried for her views – a fate that had recently befallen other female authors of the time period, like Frances “Fanny” Burney.
A remarkable sale of three items that give important insight into Austen are up for auction in “By a Lady” at Sotheby’s in October 2025. “So little evidence of Jane Austen’s life survives that anything with this personal aspect is rare in general and rare on the market,” says Sands.
“How do you get closer to Jane Austen when there’s, in reality, very little evidence left?”
One of these is a humorous poem, only one of 18 in existence. The fact that it was written in Austen’s hand and signed by her makes it a rarity in the Austen canon, Sands says. The poem, commonly known as “Lines on Maria Beckford,” pokes fun at the doctor her friend sees to cure her headache. It’s a short, rhyming piece that was written on the back of a piece of paper filled with Austen’s sister Cassandra’s writing. One can easily imagine Austen grabbing for a blank page to write it down – or ripping it out of a notebook her sister was using – while the women joked together about the doctor, whom the Austens may have visited themselves for past cures.
Another item that brings a new side of Austen to light is a copy of Emma with particularly important provenance. Austen read widely, and many of her surviving letters to Cassandra talk about and critique books she’d finished. Yet we don’t know much about Austen’s relationship – or lack thereof – with other contemporary writers. In 1815, Austen published her fourth book, Emma, the last of her novels to be printed during the author’s lifetime. She had her publisher send copies to family members as well as notable figures like the Prince Regent. One copy, however, was sent directly from Austen to author Maria Edgeworth, an author of such importance to Austen that she mentioned one of Edgeworth’s books in Northanger Abbey. It’s the only one of Austen’s works given by her to a fellow writer.
The Edgeworth copy was passed down through the family until it descended to Professor Marilyn Butler, the first female head of a formerly all-male college at Oxford or Cambridge College, and a noted scholar of women writers, Edgeworth and Austen in particular. The Edgeworth-Butler copy of Emma is direct evidence of Austen’s relationship to her literary community and also literature’s growing respect for Austen. “It’s difficult to think of a better association copy,” Sands says. “Butler did so much not just for Austen’s reputation but other women writers of the period.”
Finally, a deeply personal letter written by Austen to Cassandra shortly after the death of their father, George Austen, is also for auction at Sotheby’s. Letters, during Austen’s lifetime, were a primary mode of communication, and they frequently show up in her work as a literary device. For Austen to write a book without letters in it would be like setting a book in 2025 without mentioning texts or emails.
As a woman of words, it’s no surprise that Austen took great care and pride with her own correspondence. Though a small portion of the letters Austen wrote in her lifetime remain, Austen fans have found as much to love about them as her published books. She didn’t just update her recipients, but entertained them with the same sharp wit and social observations that made her books come alive. Once she wrote an entire letter with every word spelled backwards as an amusement for her niece Cassy.
“What a different set are we now moving in! But seven years I suppose are enough to change every pore of one’s skin & every feeling of one’s mind.”
In this particular letter, Austen includes life updates but also reflects on the change in their financial and social situation. “What a different set are we now moving in! But seven years I suppose are enough to change every pore of one’s skin & every feeling of one’s mind,” Austen wrote.
It’s hard not to see parallels between Austen’s changed situation and her characters in Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion, who also find themselves at everybody’s mercy in terms of financial stability. Sands says, “When you’re searching to know this author who’s written fiction that resonates so deeply, it’s nice to see these points of connection.”
It’s hard to overstate how much these objects, along with similar materials existing in private collections or museums, have done to help our understanding of Austen the novelist and Austen the person. It’s been 250 years since Jane Austen was born, and it’s unlikely anyone will turn up any truly new information about the novelist. Yet people still try to get closer to her however they can.
Austen, noted Helena Kelly in her book about the author, was the only novelist of the period to write novels set in the real world in a contemporary environment. Today’s readers can still visit real streets or locations Austen wrote of her characters visiting. And they do, books or collections of letters in hand, hoping to understand her a little better.
