Fans of Jane Austen are to be given the chance to see the novelist’s will as part of the National Archives’ Love Letters exhibition.
The author, famed for works such as Pride And Prejudice and Emma, died at the age of 41 in 1817 and left “everything of which I may die possessed” – except for two other bequests – to her “dearest sister” Cassandra.
The National Archives holds death duty accounts which show Austen’s estate was worth £661 2s – around £49,000 in today’s money – after debts, probate and funeral expenses.
Vicky Iglikowski-Broad, principal records specialist in diverse histories at the National Archives said: “Jane Austen’s will reveals the depth of her affection for her sister, her lifelong companion and ally.
“Her own health rapidly failing, we see her leaving the bulk of her estate to Cassandra – rather than her brothers – at a time when women’s finances were often precarious.”
In April 1817 three months before she died, Austen wrote her 90-word will on a small sheet of writing paper, which she folded and hid among the papers on her desk.
She also left everything “which may be hereafter due to me” to Cassandra, who received a further £515 17s 7d (around £38,500) when Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published five months after Jane died.
Her only other bequests were £50 (around £3,700) to her favourite brother Henry, who had gone bankrupt when his bank collapsed, and another £50 (£3,700) to Henry’s housekeeper, Francoise Bigeon.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, with commemorations including the unveiling of a statue in Winchester Cathedral where the author is buried.
The Love Letters exhibition covers 500 years of “devotion, longing and heartache” including Oscar Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas’s petition to Queen Victoria pleading for the release of the playwright, a 1956 letter from Charles Kray defending his sons Ronnie and Reggie, and Edward VIII’s Instrument of Abdication
– Love Letters opens at the National Archives in Kew in London on January 24 until April 12 2026. Entrance is free.
