"If the heroine of one novel be not patronised by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?"
Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey
Jane Austen is one of England’s best known novelists, whose six novels are read the world over. While her sister and six brothers lived into their seventies, eighties and nineties; Jane Austen died in her early forties. It was assumed that Austen died of Hodgkin's disease, but a recent renovation of the room in which she died points to a more sinister end. A poisonous residue was found permeating the walls of the room. It must have been sprinkled nightly upon the author’s candle, for this poison works slowly and subtly. Symptoms of the author’s fatal illness began to appear a year before her death. Traced upon the walls of Austen’s bedchamber, also in this residue, were the words, “Never shall you make another heroine suffer as I have. You shall never write another word!” Far from dying of kidney disease, Jane Austen was murdered by one of her immortal heroines. For the author to rest in peace, we must unravel the mystery of her murder.