Jane Austen plainly was not among the great letter-writers, nor did she aspire to be; her letters were not written for posterity (or for publication) and deal mainly with household and family matters, local news, items of social gossip - in fact, very much the deliberately confined, domestic area of her novels. Her favourite, correspondent was her sister Cassandra, and the two when not together wrote to each other constantly, very much as people today keep in touch via the telephone. Major topics are generally avoided - there are very few comments on politics or public events, and though Jane had deep religious and moral convictions she did not choose to preach or argue about them. Even the occasional visits to London are low-keyed, and when she asks permission (which was granted) to dedicate Emma to the Prince Regent, her approach is impeccably formal, though not fawning. The letters have always appealed most to confirmed Austenites, who read them mainly as a subsidiary to the novels; their innate interest for the general reader is relatively limited.