Chawton House - 'A gateway to early English women's writing'

Chawton House, in Hampshire, England, belonged to Jane Austen's elder brother, who was adopted by childless, wealthier relatives.

He became their heir and took their name, and as Edward Knight he became a substantial landowner, able to house his widowed mother and spinster sisters Jane and and Cassandra in the small, square bailiff's house in the middle of Chawton village.

Jane Austen sat in the parlor, right on the village street, and wrote, in secret, on a table the size of a tea tray.

Time passes.

Chawton House was purchased in 1987 by Sandy Lerner, the co-founder of Cisco Systems.

She turned it into a study center for English women's writing before 1840.

The center's library houses the works of almost 1,500 authors; about 50 of the novels are the only known extant copy.

It took Lerner four years of battling local authorities before she received the permissions necessary to create the study center.

She's created a wonderful resource, with a superb website, as you'll find if you spend a little time on it.

On it? Or at it? In it?

I wonder what the correct preposition really is.

I'm not sure "on" is correct, the more I think about it.

Perhaps MBS will chime in and offer her thoughts.

MBS? Bueller? Anyone? But I digress.

FunFact: Sandy Lerner quit using email two years ago.

[via Jan Dalley and The Financial Times]