Jane Austen’s House in Chawton is displaying two newly-acquired Austen letters for the first time as part of two new exhibitions.

Jane Austen in Love and Jane Austen in London will run until March 5. Jane Austen in Love explores Jane’s relationship with Tom Lefroy, a handsome young Irishman, when they were both just 20 years old.

Soon after her flirtation with Tom Lefroy, Jane began writing First Impressions – later published as Pride and Prejudice – and created the character of Mr Darcy, a template for flawed romantic heroes to this day.

The exhibition brings together for the first time the letter in which Jane told her sister Cassandra ‘I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy’ with Tom’s portrait by George Engleheart, which is on private loan from Judy and Brian Harden. It also includes costumes worn by Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy in the film Becoming Jane.

Jane Austen in London centres around a letter written from Jane to Cassandra on September 15 to 16, 1813, from their brother Henry’s house in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.

It is a long, chatty letter in which she reveals the details of everyday life, from shopping trips and visits to the theatre to a hair appointment and a painful trip to the dentist.

While Jane Austen lived in Hampshire for most of her life, she greatly enjoyed visiting London, where she revelled in the luxuries of a big city.

Jane Austen’s House director Lizzie Dunford said: “We’re delighted to share these fabulous new letters with our visitors as part of two distinct but equally fascinating exhibitions. They are windows into Jane’s life when she was a lively 20-year-old, enjoying balls and flirtations, and again when she was a mature woman of 37, enjoying London’s shops and theatres.”

Jane Austen’s House curator Sophie Reynolds said: “It’s thrilling to show Tom Lefroy’s portrait alongside the very letter in which Jane Austen tells her sister she is going to ‘dance her last’ with him. It’s a bright, sparkling letter that could have been written by Lizzy Bennet herself.”

Letters 2 and 87, as they are known in Deirdre LeFaye’s Standard Edition of Jane Austen’s Letters, are jointly owned with The Bodleian Libraries and are part of the Blavatnik-Honresfield Library, a collection of manuscripts, letters and printed books collected from the late 19th century by industrialists William and Alfred Law.

The library was saved for the nation following a successful campaign to prevent its sale and potential dispersal, and bought by the Friends of the National Libraries who then donated every manuscript and printed book to writers’ houses and libraries across the UK.