How could the creator of the perfect fictional sentence write those tumbling-over-themselves letters? Marvellous, of course, but helter-skelter and far from poised. Might they be called nervous writing? In the best possible aesthetic and excited way? ‘I could lament in one sentence & laugh in the next,’ Austen wrote to Fanny Knight apologising for her erratic state and erratic style – for the nerves of writing.

I have become a fan of Jane Austen’s letters, mischievous portmanteau accounts of a life filled with people – some too fat, some too short-necked, some just too nondescript for comment – and random things, from muslins and sofas to honey, cakes and wine. The letters are unpredictable, skipping from lace collars to a brace of pheasants, from ale to ailments. Austen displays in herself those little grievances we all have as duty bangs against desire, but she never stays long in irritable mode. Soon, she’s off and away to green shoes or missing gloves.