] .... And I've always thought that women in the regency usually had shorter hair than shown in this picture. All in all, a very remarkable plate. Any thoughts on it?

I too am amazed. Thinking about it, Susannah Harker and Jennifer Ehle are shown with hair almost that long in P&P2 (but only when they're getting ready for bed.) When I first saw the film, I wondered how they were supposed to have been able to arrange all that long hair into the dainty little pony-tails they later wore when they were in day or evening dress.

How about this? I was in the Lincoln Center restrooms years ago, and there was a girl there with waist length hair who managed to make it magically 'disappear' as follows, while I watched fascinated. (Boy is this going to be hard to describe.)

First she combed her hair and fastened it into a single pony tail at the nape of her neck. It fell nearly to her waist. Then she pulled this 'tail' up the middle of the back of her head and fastened it firmly just above the half-way point, with a wide barrette. (Slide, for the English)

This is the bit where it gets hard to describe.

Gathering up the hair that was left (which was now pointing upwards, remember) she formed it into a loop, pointing back down towards the middle of her head. Then she used a second barrette to fasten the ends of this loop of hair to a place just above where she'd put the first barrette.

When she 'let go,' the loop of hair fell down into place, hiding both barrettes. Her original waist-length hair had been reduced to what looked like a neat little pony tail only four inches or so long. I resembled the sort of thing ballerinas wear, which is what I suspect she was. (I'd been to see the Royal Ballet, and many members of the audience were clearly dancers thelselves.)

So - perhaps Regency ladies did have their hair longer than we realise, but maybe they were able to 'get rid' of it in a similar fashion?

To get this back to Jane Austen, we know that even when she was young, she kept her hair long enough to wear in plaits. (braids) She wrote to Cassandra in 1798, when she was only 23:

I have made myself two or three caps to wear of evenings since I came home, and they save me a world of torment as to hair-dressing, which at present gives me no trouble beyond washing and brushing, for my long hair is always plaited up out of sight, and my short hair curls well enough to want no papering.