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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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Letter Writing in Jane Austen’s Time

June 9, 2007 by Vic



During Jane Austen’s time, letters were written on sheet of paper that were folded and sealed, as in this sample. The recipient of the letter had to pay for the delivery. Therefore, the fewer pages that were used, the less expensive the cost, since the fee was based on the size of a letter and the distance it traveled.

Envelopes were not used. They would have added an additional sheet of paper and cost more for the recipient. To keep the letter affordable, people also wrote in a cross letter style as shown below.
Hand made papers were made in molds, hence one could readily observe the paper marks and ribbing from the parallel wires in the mold. Often these “laid” papers also bore distinctive watermarks. Double click on the image below to view these distinctive markings up close.

Writing implements included the quill pen, an inkstand filled with ink, pen knife, and sometimes a writing box.

Roller blotters made their appearance during the 19th century. Before this time, writers dried wet ink by sprinkling grains of sand over the words.


Creating quill pens was an art, since the nib had to be carefully cut with a knife so that the hollow core would hold just the right amount of ink and release it steadily under pressure. If the writer wrote for any length of time, fingers on the writing hand would often become ink stained. Quill pens, most commonly obtained from the wing feathers of a goose, had to be sharpened often with a pen knife. The average quill pen lasted for only a week before it was discarded.

After folding the paper, a sender would seal the letter with a custom wax seal stamp, that in some instances bore the family crest or the sender’s initials. The address on the outside remained simple, directing the bearer of the letter to the city or town, street, and the name of the receiver.
This is a photo of Jane Austen’s writing table and chair at Chawton, where she wrote the bulk of her novels and, I imagine, her letters as well.

Find out more about letter writing here:

Jane Austen’s Writing (Sloping) Desk

The Writing Implement of Jane Austen: The Quill Pen

London Mail and Postal Service: The Georgian Index

18th and 19th Century Wooden Seal Boxes

Cutting a Quill Pen

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Posted in jane austen, Regency letters, Regency Life, Regency World | Tagged 19th century postage, Jane Austen's letters, Letter Writing in Jane Austen's Time, letter writing in the regency era, quill pens | 11 Comments

11 Responses

  1. on May 23, 2008 at 02:05 Seen Across the Ether: Letter Writing « Jane Austen’s World

    […] For my other post on Letter Writing in Jane Austen’s time, click here. […]


  2. on June 20, 2008 at 20:53 Blue

    Hello, Do you know what the hot pressed paper Caroline Bingley used in her letter to Jane would have been?


  3. on January 21, 2009 at 07:23 elsje

    goodmorning,
    do you know more about the letterfolding ?
    I do research about the letterfolds
    all the best
    xxxe


  4. on January 21, 2009 at 10:16 Vic (Jane Austen's World)

    Letterfolding is described in this link: Envelope and letterfolding – http://www.ghh.com/elf/


  5. on April 9, 2009 at 01:27 Jane Austen’s Writing (Sloping) Box « Jane Austen’s World

    […] Letter writing in Jane Austen’s time. […]


  6. on September 9, 2009 at 21:12 The Postal Service in 18th Century Britain: Letters and the Penny Post « Jane Austen’s World

    […] in a cross writing style to conserve space. (See the first image and click here to read my post on Letter Writing in Jane Austen’s Time.) Envelopes would have been considered an additional sheet, so these very early letters did not […]


  7. on October 10, 2009 at 22:44 The Marshmallow Larva: A Breathing, Squirming Body-Pillow Companion « Psyence

    […] many of us depend—and justly so. Do you really want to go back to the era of Jane Austen, when handwritten correspondence was pretty much all you had to work with, and many a day was passed with palms pressed to the […]


  8. on January 1, 2010 at 15:19 A Woman’s Wit: Jane Austen’s Letters « Jane Austen's World

    […] Letter Writing in Jane Austen’s Time […]


  9. on March 6, 2011 at 05:04 :: LWM – The Letters of Jane Austen, Week One :: « ANNIE HORN

    […] yourself some paper: Writing letters in Jane Austen’s time  Modern […]


  10. on April 12, 2012 at 14:17 lyssa

    Thank you for all the helpful information! I was just wondering how the paper would have been made?


  11. on December 24, 2012 at 14:26 Persuasion sign ups for January! « jackiemania

    […] found this most enjoyable and interesting post on Jane Austen and Letter Writing on Jane Austen’s […]



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