Thousands Volunteer to Help Jane Austen Museum Solve Mystery of ‘Spidery’ Script in Brother’s Biography

[Michie]

Pages from the Francis Austen manuscript – credit Jane Austen’s House Museum

An interesting event happened in the domain of classic English literature recently when a 78-page memoir of Jane Austen’s brother came into the hands of the Jane Austen House Museum, who were having difficulty reading the handwriting.

Comparing it to a citizen science project, the museum initially invited anyone interested in helping to email a request for a single page to transcribe, but despite being dead for over 200 years, the response from Austen fans was simply extraordinary, as the numbers who stepped up to help nearly broke the museum’s email server.

Sir Francis Austen had a long career in the Royal Navy, and a manuscript biography of his life and a book of watercolor paintings he made were both acquired at auction by the Jane Austen House Museum with financial backing from a national non-profit.

Continued below.

Thousands Volunteer to Help Jane Austen Museum Solve Mystery of 'Spidery' Script in Brother's Biography

The manuscript is written in the third person, and the last third was likely done with an arthritic, spidery, hand that's difficult to read.

www.goodnewsnetwork.org