Jane Austen's Writing Table

Source: The Jane Austen House, Chawton Hampshire

This beautifully slim writing table is where Jane Austen wrote all six of her novels. It is on view at the Jane Austen house in Chawton Hampshire, and it is surprisingly small and unassuming.

No one knows why exactly she chose such a small table, but a clue perhaps is in the size of her manuscripts. She wrote all of her stories on small booklets, which she constructed from larger pieces of paper.

Source: The Bodleian Libraries

Unlike Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen didn’t have a room of her own.

She wrote in the dining room of her home, near a window for light. Because of this great lack of privacy, writing on such small paper, and on an equally small desk, allowed her to easily hide what she was working on if she was disturbed.

Source: The Jane Austen House, Chawton Hampshire