theanitaalvarez's Reviews (1.77k)

When I found this book in the university library, I had a quiet fangirl attack (of course, I was in the library). I wanted to read these, because I’m always curious about writers’ private lives. It’s one thing to read their work, and quite another to read stuff that was meant for family and friends.

I wasn’t disappointed at all. In Jane Austen’s novels, there’s a lot of attention paid to the little details in the character’s daily lives. And in the letters there’s a lot of detail. It was great picturing the way people lived in old times (my inner historian is talking here). There’s a lot about the dresses, and the meals and the dances. Austen’s wit was all over these letters, and some of the ironic comments that often appear in her writing survived her sister’s censorship. It was pretty clear what she thought about the people she wrote about.

Probably my favorite parts were the ones in which she talked about her books. I remember right now one passage in which she’s discussing her visit to a portrait gallery, and finding a portrait that resembled Jane Bennet (she also lamented not finding a Lizzy). I do the same with my own characters, and finding some picture that resembles my mental image of a character always makes me really happy. So, yay! Jane Austen was like me! (okay, I might be exaggerating here, but still pretty cool).

In general, this book accounts for a good picture of what Jane Austen was, her relationships with her nephews and nieces, and especially her sister, are shown here as directly as they can ever be. I really enjoyed that aspect: how she trusted Cassandra with everything, and to her encouragement to one of her nieces, Anna Lefroy (yes, like that Lefroy), to become a writer.

In a way, reading this book made Jane Austen more real. I mean, I’ve always been pretty sure of her existence, but she was always so far away. These letters made me feel as if I was there, receiving them and so on. I knew she was a brilliant fiction writer, but she was brilliant in her letters as well. She was obviously a very good observer and realized everything that went on around her. She put the same attention to details in her real life than she did to the details in her novels.
The edition I read was incredible useful for anyone who wants to learn about Jane Austen’s life in more depth. There’s a lot of notes explaining the references she made in the letters, and a biographical and topographical indexes if you need more information. That was great for when I needed more details. There’s a lot of study here, and it works pretty well. You can get a picture of the world our favorite writer lived in.

I’d recommend this book for all those dedicated Austen fans. It gives you a great inside look to her life and her work. Janeites, this is essential for our lives.

Emily Dickinson is one of those mysterious figures in Literature. I've always been very curious about her. Her life is just so incredible, so different. She locked herself in her house little by little, and wrote amazing poetry that was only published after her death.

I liked these letters because I could get a glimpse of that woman who left her mark upon Literature and yet, nobody know much about her. I loved reading about her relationship with her siblings, with her sister-in-law, with some supposed love interests and so on. I'm always very curious about the lives of the authors I like, especially those like Emily Dickinson or J.D. Salinger, who actively rejected public life. It's just so incredible.

I like to know that an author is somehow a real person. I got that feeling from this book. Emily Dickinson was a genius (and there's no way to deny it), but she was also a woman with friends and family, who might have fallen in love more than once. She lived, despite her reclusion and her secrets. And I really loved getting to know her a little bit more.