Crossed letter à la Jane Austen

This swap originated with Swap-bot member, quillandparchment. An attempt has been made to reach her and request permission to revive her swap. However, she has not logged on the site since April 2016 and has not responded to messages. I'm reviving it with all good intentions and would be happy to relinquish it back to her should she ever return to the site.

This swap is for those of us who have longed to receive and write a crossed letter like Jane Austen would have written in Regency England.

What, pray tell, is a crossed letter (also called cross-hatched)? Paper and postage were quite expensive in Jane's day (not much has changed, really). To save money, letter writers would write on a page using all available space, then turn it 90 degrees and continue writing on top of what they just wrote. If they were really pinching pennies, they would write their third page on the same page by turning it 45 degrees instead of 90 degrees to write diagonally.

Surprisingly, these aren't as difficult to read as one might assume. For this swap, please write a crossed letter to your partner. The letter should be at least two "pages" (that is, 1 page, crossed at least once).

Please include the following:

• Introduce yourself.

• What inspired you to write a crossed letter?

• What do you enjoy about the Regency period?

• Do you have a favorite Jane Austen novel or adaptation?

Make your letter interesting and do try to use legible handwriting as it's quite important that your partner be able to read it!