The son of Jane Austen's 'favourite niece' Fanny Knight, Lord Brabourne, had inherited a large number of letters from Jane Austen including some to her sister Cassandra and others to members of the Knight family. The Letters of Jane Austen (1884) publishes these letters for the first time, and sets them in a family context drawn from the reminiscences of those who knew Austen personally. This second of two volumes presents a series of letters written between 1808 and her death in 1817, that is, mostly in the years she was settled at Chawton in Hampshire; in addition Brabourne includes a little group of poems, and other family documents. The letters cover the years of her career as a published author, and include many fascinating comments about her own and others' writings, as well as observations about the world around her.
