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The survival of Jane Austen's letters is a testament to both preservation efforts and familial intervention. Her niece Cassandra Austen burned many letters immediately after the author's death, protecting what the family considered too intimate for public consumption. The remaining 160 or so letters, edited by her sister Cassandra and later family members, offer glimpses into Austen's wit, social observations, and creative concerns. 'The Watsons,' her unfinished novel discovered in her papers after death, runs to approximately 24,000 words and reveals Austen experimenting with domestic comedy and social critique in ways that influenced her later novels. 'Lady Susan,' a novella-length work published posthumously, demonstrates Austen's sharp characterization and her ability to handle morally ambiguous female protagonists. Researchers have used textual analysis and physical examination of surviving manuscripts to reconstruct what was lost, studying the paper, ink, and handwriting of Austen's surviving pages. The Austen Papers, housed at various institutions, continue to yield new information through advanced imaging techniques that reveal erasures and revisions beneath visible text. Scholars debate what other works Austen may have written and destroyed, analyzing her diary entries and letters for references to missing compositions.