Jane Austen Couldn't Punctuate
To judge from her handwritten drafts of Persuasion, "Austen hardly punctuates at all, so what you get is a much more urgent form of language, which becomes more restrained when it is edited. … There tends to be an awful lot of clauses and sub-clauses. There is the odd comma, but they aren't always in the most rational places. There are no paragraphs." The Times (UK) via The Australian 08/20/10

Posted August 19, 2010 09:33 PM