Personal Aspects of Jane Austen

Early in the twentieth century, public interest in Jane Austen (1775-1817) was considerable. Although the popularity of her work had remained modest in her lifetime, she was sufficiently well known by the centenary of her death to have provoked toxic reviews from Henry James and Mark Twain along with the reserved support of E. M. Forster. Previous biographies had been riddled with inaccuracies: she was called 'narrow', was said to have disliked children and animals, and to have led a quiet, almost monastic life. Many of these mistakes could be traced back to the unashamedly idealised biography written by her nephew, but while contrary accounts emerged later in the form of her letters, the old misapprehensions endured. In this neglected addition to Austen literature, first published in 1920, Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh (1838-1922) corrects many of these errors, advocating a closer critical reading of her great aunt's novels.