Jane died on July 18, 1817, at this house on College Street in Winchester. She was forty-one. Jane and Cassandra were staying on the first floor (what we Americans would call the second floor) with the bay window. The house is now a private home. (And I have been told that if you are ever in Winchester, please don’t knock and ask to see the room where Jane died — the couple who owns the house are tired of getting inquiries like that! I can’t say that I blame them.)
This is from a letter Jane wrote to a dear friend a couple months before she died:
“In short, if I live to be an old Woman I must expect to wish I had died now, blessed in the tenderness of such a Family, & before I had survived either them or their affection.–You would have held the memory of your friend Jane too in tender regret I am sure.–But the Providence of God has restored me–& may I be more fit to appear before him when I am summoned, than I should have been now!”
letter to Anne Sharp
May 22, 1817 [159]
Ms. Place at Janites on the James has posted more information about Jane’s death, including a picture of her memorial in Winchester Cathedral.
Cool blog!