18th Century authors, like Jane Austen for instance, wrote with quill pens. These were typically made of goose feathers. This page explains Austen’s tools and includes an image of one of her letters written with cross-writing to save paper and postage: https://www.themorgan.org/blog/jane-austens-writing-technical-perspective.

If you’re so inclined, you can make your own quill pen from these instructions: https://regia.org/research/church/quill2.htm #JaneAusten #Writing #QuillPens 2/14