![]() ![]() ![]() (Though her tombstone alludes to a “long illness supported with the patience and the hopes of a Christian”, her cause of death remains a mystery, despite the sleuthing efforts of several present-day physician fans.) “Sickness is a dangerous Indulgence at my time of Life”, she chides herself, bravely wry at age 41. In a letter just five days after she stopped working on Sanditon, Austen wrote of having been “very poorly” with an assortment of ailments including fevers. The book, Sanditon, halts partway through chapter 12 with an abruptness that suggests ill health was to blame rather than any artistic misgivings. She was working on a comedy which skewered a new health fad at emergent English seaside resorts – ‘taking the waters’, as it was known. Jane Austen put down her pen as a novelist on 18 March 1817. ![]()
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