"Can't remember the 'i before e' rule? Don't worry, neither could Jane Austen.
The beloved novelist — author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma — is known for her polished prose, her careful phrasing and her precise grammar. 'Everything came finished from her pen,' Austen's brother, Henry, said in 1818, a year after his sister's death.
But now — though it may pain die-hard Austen fans — it turns out that Austen may have simply had a very good editor. Kathryn Sutherland, a professor at Oxford University, has been studying more than 1,000 original handwritten pages of Austen's prose. She's found some telling differences between the handwritten pages and Austen's finished works — including terrible spelling, grammatical errors and poor (often nonexistent) punctuation.
Sutherland talks about the manuscripts — now compiled in a digital archive — with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly."
The beloved novelist — author of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma — is known for her polished prose, her careful phrasing and her precise grammar. 'Everything came finished from her pen,' Austen's brother, Henry, said in 1818, a year after his sister's death.
But now — though it may pain die-hard Austen fans — it turns out that Austen may have simply had a very good editor. Kathryn Sutherland, a professor at Oxford University, has been studying more than 1,000 original handwritten pages of Austen's prose. She's found some telling differences between the handwritten pages and Austen's finished works — including terrible spelling, grammatical errors and poor (often nonexistent) punctuation.
Sutherland talks about the manuscripts — now compiled in a digital archive — with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly."
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