I think what I love most about Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Letters (which I will eventually – probably – discuss at length) are the glimpses they give into her wonderfully imaginative, unconfined mind. She bounces from topic to topic with absolute grace and indulges in delightful flights of whimsy. Getting a letter from her must have been like receiving a present. Speaking of presents…
One of the topics she returns to again and again are the characters created by Jane Austen. She loved Austen’s novels (she even wrote a book about them) and was as comfortable with Austen’s characters as with her own friends and family. So comfortable, in fact, that she knew just how they behaved in their post-novel lives – and how they compared to her own real-life acquaintances, as she explained in a letter to her friend George Plank:
…you have the nicest hand with a parcel. I can’t think of anyone to match you in parcelling except perhaps Henry Tilney, to whom I attribute all the graces. Mr Knightley’s parcels would never come undone, true; but think of all the paper & string involved. Elinor had to do up all Edward’s; Edward required a good deal of buttoning and unbuttoning, though she enjoyed his dependence on her: the butler did all Marianne’s & Colonel Brandon’s. Mr Darcy did exactly three parcels a year, for Lizzy’s birthday, for New Year’s day, & for their wedding anniversary. The product was excellent, but he took hours to achieve it. And locked the library door. (7 April 1961)
Isn’t that just delightful?
The Captive Reader 
Not unnaturally seized with a desire to read what she wrote about Jane Austen (though I think Austen was solicitious about Fanny as well as Anne), I was lucky enough to actually find a cheap copy on Abebooks! (There was a one cent copy in Canada, but they were sniffy about sending it south of the border.) So, thank you for a most pleasurable tip!
This was on my library list, but now you have me thinking that I really must buy a copy to keep,
That IS delightful! I have no idea what these letters are (I await a post telling me more) but I would like to know more.
Captain Wentworth would of course be very handy with parcels!
That does sound delightful. And somehow, this makes me feel a little less intimidated by Sylvia Townsend Warner’s work, which I often eye but never dare pick up.
[…] correspondent, filling her letters with richly-detailed annecdotes, self-deprecating humour, and the most delightful flights of whimsy. I’ve yet to read a single one of her novels but, after reading this and the wonderful […]
[…] Still, my favourite post was actually one that wasn’t tagged as #AusteninAugust – The Captive Reader’s quote on parcelling in Jane Austen’s fiction was sweet and very funny, I know I will want to […]