Princess Alexandra visited Chawton House Library last week to view its unique collection of works by early English women writers. Dressed in a kingfisher blue jacket over an elegant black skirt and a delicate mushroom- coloured hat with black chiffon ribbon, Princess Alexandra appeared genuinely excited at the prospect of viewing the newly restored house and the library's carefully- preserved treasures on Thursday. She was received by the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Mary Fagan JP, who presented the High Sheriff of Hampshire, Peter Andreae, Hampshire County Council chairman John West, East Hampshire District Council chairman Yvonne Parker-Smith and trustee Gilly Drummond. At the beginning of the tour, Princess Alexandra was introduced to the library's acting director Graeme Cottam and Richard Knight, whose family lived at Chawton House for more than 400 years and who owns the freehold of the property. The Princess was eager to know if the house had a ghost, and she was not disappointed. Mr Knight assured her that in the interconnecting bedrooms, where he spent his childhood, there was indeed a lady with a candle. Five-year-old Rosella Cottam had the nerve- wracking job of presenting the Princess with a bouquet of red and yellow rosebuds, which she handed over shyly, to the delight of the royal visitor. During the visit, the Princess was able to view a very rare manuscript of a play written by Jane Austen entitled Sir Charles Grandison, which is the only complete manuscript to have survived from the author's adult writing career. Librarian Helen Scott also showed the Princess a representative selection of items from the collection including first editions by Katherine Philips of Poems. By the incomparable, Mrs K.P. and the Memoirs of the late Mrs Robinson, written by herself. With some posthumous pieces. Chawton House is an Elizabethan manor house which belonged to Jane Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight, and which Jane knew well as the "Great House". It was Edward who, in 1890, offered his mother and two sisters a home at the cottage in Chawton where Jane began the most prolific period of her writing life. For more than 400 years, the Knight family lived at Chawton House but during the last century the house and grounds fell into a very dilapidated state and much of the land was sold. The decline was halted in 1993 with the sale of a long lease to a new charity established by the American entrepreneur, philanthropist and passionate leader, Sandy Lerner. Ms Lerner was determined to restore the house and grounds and to donate her collection fo over 7,000 volumes so that the public might study them in an environment evocative of the period in which they had been written. Ten years later, after extensive conservation work, the house reopened as Chawton House Library. As Princess Alexandra took her departure from the "Great House" she was presented, as a memento of her stay, with a copy of the Knight Family Cookery Book by five-year-old Tirion Mobbs-Morgan.