Tony over at London Calling has this great post discussing how the Bodleian Library is going to be posting Jane Austen's manuscripts online.
The only possible sour thing about this is, of course, reading Austen's handwriting. It may be perfectly legible, but anyone who is a historian of a non-modern era knows that manuscript reading can be a chore if the writer was sloppy. I've never seen Austen's manuscripts before, so I have no idea what it's going to look like, but hopefully it doesn't make me think of 17th century Jesuits. That stuff will give you a headache three words in. Hopefully Austen is as purposeful in her handwriting as she is in her prose.
Hi Eliza. Thanks for bringing this to peoples attention. Don't worry, there is a typed transcription of the text alongside Jane's copy.
ReplyDeleteThe transcriptions keep all the crossings out, mistakes, punctuation, added words etc.
Tony