In a day before biro pens and laptops, what did Jane Austen use to write her letters and manuscripts?

 

Jane's writing tool was a quill pen, which were typically made from goose feathers at the time. Although quill pens were depicted as full length elgant feathers, the feather part of the quill was usually mostly removed. I imagine this is because it would be easier to see what you were writing. The quill pen would become blunt when writing and require sharpening with a pen knife, but the average quill pen would last around a week before thrown away. Given the amount of writing Jane did, I imagine that she went through a great number of pens in her lifetime!  

 

She would dip the quill pen into an inkwell, the ink of which was the commonly available ink - iron gall, composed of tannin (gallic acid), iron sulfate, gum arabic, and water.  It was easy to make and therefore inexpensive, which was useful for her writing. The ink appears pale gray when exposed to the air, then darkens to a rich blue-black colour.

 

It is noted that eventually iron gall ink changes to a brown colour, which can be seen in Jane's surviving manuscripts and letters. Iron gall ink can become increasingly acidic, damaging the paper, but this is dependent on it's original composition. Luckily many of Jane's surviving letters remain in excellent condition and haven't suffered from iron gall damage, but some have suffered, meaning tears, creases and breaks along the original folds. This tells us that the quality of ink she used throughout her lifetime varied.  

 

Unlike ink, paper was costly at the time. Many including Jane would use every inch of the paper they wrote on for letters, using a cross hatch method, which involved writing in a horizontal direction then writing between in a vertical direction. Of course postage was also costly at the time so the more paper used for letters, the more you would have to pay for postage, which also favoured the cross hatch method.

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Jane's letters were written on laid and wove papers, which are a pressed criss cross mesh of material, and were cream coloured, thin and strong. It is believed they are most likely composed of recycled cotton and linen rags, and hot pressed set with gelatin to produce a smooth non-absorbant service for writing in ink. 

 

Her letters also display a variety of watermarks, which are signs that she purchased her paper through English paper mills distributed through local stationers. Many paper mills at the time were located nearby in Kent. 

 

Whilst at Chawton, Jane used a small round table to write her novels and letters at, which can be found on display at the museum today. However, she also had a portable writing desk (currently on display in Basingstoke). The portable desk had compartments for paper, ink, etc. which would have made transporting her writing materials easy and could be placed on a table or her lap to write when she was away from home.