Intimate Glimpses at Classic Women Authors’ Handwriting
By Nava Atlas | On September 27, 2015 | Updated January 27, 2024 | Comments (0)
There’s something quite intimate in seeing the handwriting of revered authors whose works we’re accustomed to seeing in print. Here’s a sampling of letters, notes, manuscript fragments, and diary entries of classic women authors we know and love.
. . . . . . . . . .
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was barely 21 when her best-known work, Frankenstein, was published in 1818. Here’s a handwritten draft from 1817.
. . . . . . . . . .
Charlotte Brontë
Here’s a list kept by Charlotte Brontë of books — presumably, the ones she read, or those that her family owned. This list was written around 1833, when the budding author was seventeen, more than a decade before she burst on the literary scene with Jane Eyre.
. . . . . . . . . .
Jane Austen
Jane Austen always did a lot of scratching out on her original manuscripts. Here is Chapter 10 of Persuasion, from the collection of the British Library. She completed the book around 1816 and it was published posthumously. Many consider Persuasion to be her finest work, though Pride and Prejudice is the most widely read.
. . . . . . . . . .
George Eliot
George Eliot‘s magnum opus, Middlemarch, was published in full in 1874 after being serialized. This first page from chapter one was likely written some time in the late 1860s or around 1870.
. . . . . . . . . .
Louisa May Alcott
This inscription by Louisa May Alcott is a dedication to her young fans, most likely from the 1870s. The beloved author is best known for Little Women (1868), though she would also have liked to be remembered for her dark “sensation tales.”
. . . . . . . . . .
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Here’s an envelope is addressed by Francis Hodgson Burnett, from a letter sent in 1897. This American and British author was incredibly prolific; her best-known works are The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.
. . . . . . . . . .
Edith Wharton
A manuscript page from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, which was published in 1905. It was her first novel, and its success set the stage for many more to come.
. . . . . . . . . .
Virginia Woolf
Draft of Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The book was published in 1925 and is generally considered the most accessible work of fiction by this groundbreaking British author.
. . . . . . . . .
Daphne du Maurier
Here’s a spread from Daphne du Maurier‘s notebook. It’s unclear whether the room descriptions are for “real life” or for one of her books, but as you can see, this is dated 1947. This esteemed British author is best known for the romantic thrillers Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn.
Leave a Reply