JANE AUSTEN WAS BORN 233 years ago today, but when TSP thinks of her we cannot help but also think of her big sister, Cassandra, who played such a key role in Jane’s life and success.
We were delighted to see that the Jane Austen Society of North America has made this critical link between siblings the subject of their annual essay contest (entries due May 1, 2009). Jane’s books are filled with sibling stories, the call for entries says, and “some siblings act as foils to each other; others are in competition; still others are mutually supportive and encouraging.”
Indeed.
Celebrate Jane’s birthday by reading what Marion Roach Smith of “She Said, She Said” has to say about Cassandra, the older sister by two years, who at age 70 committed perhaps her greatest act of sisterly devotion when she burned some of Jane’s letters.
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First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
