There is still time to address the widespread unease felt at the ‘Disneyland’ sculpture of Jane Austen that the Cathedral proposes to install in the Inner Close. 

At the public consultation and in your letters columns (March 14 and previously), objections have been raised to the inappropriate dress and strange demeanour of the writer envisaged so far, as well as to its proposed location. 

Can I suggest a much better option would be to develop the project developed by the Hampshire sculptor Robert Truscott, pictured here: a bronze maquette showing Jane Austen at her desk, clothed appropriately for her day, and exercising the skill for which she is known world-wide – observing the social world of her time and milieu with wit, incision and a narrative brilliance unequalled in her day. 

Truscott’s maquette can be finished at almost any scale and size, placed indoors or outside, and at a fraction of the immense cost put aside for the ‘Disney’ version that so many people revile. Any takers?

Brandon Taylor,
West End Terrace,
Winchester

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