Physical description

Form:

Codex; quarto

Paper.

Collation not attempted. Throughout, the leaves of Austen's manuscript have been bound onto modern stubs. There are three thick modern flyleaves at the front and three at the back of the volume.

The manuscript is written throughout in legible, italic hand (presumed to be Austen's autograph).

The manuscript is a quarto volume, bound in a modern brown leather binding. A small title plate on the front cover reads 'E BIBLIOTHECA BIRCHIANA'. On the spine is 'K. AUSTEN'S MISCELLANIES', 'BIRCH COLLECTION', 'BRITISH LIBRARY', 'ADDITIONAL MS. 4454'.

The manuscript has been foliated, correctly, at the top right hand corner of each verso (not flyleaves); foliation date June 1874. Katherine Austen's contemporary paginations (ink) begin with page 1 on fol. 6r. Until fol. 56, she paginates rectos only, for the most part; from fol. 56, both rectos and versos are paginated, with only minor inaccuracies. This echoes her increasing use of versos for text as the manuscript progresses (see msContents). This manuscript description uses foliation references. [Where Austen has cross-references to other pages in her manuscript, I have indicated the relevant folio number.]

Provenance

Part of a collection of MSS (British Library, Additional MSS 4101-4478) collected by Thomas Birch (b. 1705, d. 1766), and bequeathed by him to the British Museum, of which he was a Trustee from 1753 until his death.