File under: Say it ain't so

[Joel S. Berson]

Another article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8080832/Jane-Austens-famous-prose-may-not-be-hers-after-all.html#disqus_thread

By Anita Singh, Arts Correspondent.

Although here the author doesn't know her grammar from her spelling:

"Amongst Austen's grammatical misdemeanours was an inability to
master the 'i before e' rule. Her manuscripts are littered with
distant 'veiws' and characters who 'recieve' guests."

I note that this article says "The manuscript for Persuasion, the
only one of her novels to survive in its unedited form, looks very
different from the finished product;" and "Sadly, the manuscripts for
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, her most famous
novels, were destroyed after being set in print."  Are Sutherland's
conclusions based on just one novel?  (Letters, after all, are not
generally written for publication, with the same care as book
manuscripts.  Just read some of my email!)

And I see Persuasion was posthumously published!  Raises some
interesting questions about just what the extant manuscript
represents (a beta release?), and whether and what kind of editing
was present for the earlier novels.

Joel

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