Philadelphia Walter has been staying with her aunt Philadelphia Hancock and her cousin Eliza de Feuillide. She tells her brother James about plans for Christmas plays at Steventon, Jane Austen’s childhood home. Eliza wants her to join the cast; Philadelphia would rather watch. The excerpt records planned performances, not proof that these particular plays were staged.

Philadelphia Walter to James Walter

SEP 19, 1787

They [i.e. the Comtesse and her mother] go at Christmas to Steventon and mean to act a play, Which is the Man? and Bon Ton. My uncle's barn is fitting up quite like a theatre, and all the young folks are to take their part. The Countess is Lady Bob Lardoon [sic] in the former and Miss Tittup in the latter. They wish me much of the party and offer to carry me, but I do not think of it. I should like to be a spectator, but am sure I should not have courage to act a part, nor do I wish to attain it.

This is part of a letter to the writer’s brother James, dated 19 September 1787 in Austen Papers, p. 123; the theatrical plans appear on p. 126. The fuller printing itself contains omissions. “They” means Eliza de Feuillide and her mother Philadelphia Hancock, not Jane and Cassandra Austen.

Extract from Life and Letters (1913), p. 64.