Jane Austen wrote most of her novels at Chawton Cottage in the dining parlor, at a small side table. Her novels were a secret from everyone except her immediate family.

The Squeaky Hinge  It has been passed down through her nieces and nephews that she particularly asked that the annoying squeak in the hinge of the door (above) not be oiled, because it gave her the warning she needed to tuck her pages out of the view of a surprise visitor. (QD1, Diamond # 16)

The graves of Jane Austen's sister Cassandra, and their mother (below)  "Cassandra stayed on alone at Chawton, living largely in her memories of the past, surrounded by the same old furniture, reading the same old favorite books, sewing and teaching the village girls to read, as when her mother and sister were alive.The young Austens were to remember her as a white-haired old lady dressed in black satin, whose countenance, at the mention of her sister Jane, involuntarily lit up with a look of love."

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