<p>James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir of his aunt Jane Austen was published in 1870, over fifty years after her death. Together with the shorter recollections of James Edward's two sisters, Anna Lefroy and Caroline Austen, the Memoir remains the prime authority for her life and continues to inform all subsequent accounts. These are family memories, the record of Jane Austen's life shaped and limited by the loyalties, reserve, and affection of nieces and nephews recovering in old age the outlines of the young aunt they had each known. They still remembered the shape of her bonnet and the tone of her voice, and their first-hand accounts bring her vividly before us. Their declared partiality also raises fascinating issues concerning biographical truth, and the terms in which all biography functions.<br><br> This edition brings together for the first time these three memoirs, and also includes Jane's brother Henry Austen's "Biographical Notice" of 1818 and his less known "Memoir" of 1833.</p>

A Memoir of Jane Austen: And Other Family Recollections (Oxford World's Classics)

Biographies & Memoirs

James Edward Austen-Leigh

Community & Culture

Oxford University Press, USA

Fugitive Pieces: Trifles Light as Air

Jane Austen Society

Memoir Of Jane Austen

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

<p>How is this book unique? </p>
<ol>
<li>Font adjustments &amp; biography included</li> <li>Unabridged (100% Original content)</li> <li>Illustrated</li>
</ol> About A Memoir Of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh A Memoir of Jane Austen is a biography of the novelist Jane Austen published by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. A family project, the biography was written by James Edward Austen-Leigh but owed much to the recollections of Jane Austen's many relatives. Composition: In the late 1860s, the Austen family decided to write a biography of Jane Austen. The death of Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving sibling, and the ageing of those who had any memory of her prompted the family to gather their papers and to begin recording their memories. Public interest in Jane Austen was also developing and the family became concerned that an outsider or another branch of the family would produce a biography. James Edward Austen-Leigh, as the son of the eldest branch, "in a spirit of censorship as well as communication", thus began the project. With the help and support of his sisters and Jane Austen's nieces, he collected materials. The biography was largely the work of James Edward Austen-Leigh, his half-sister Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen Lefroy and, his younger sister Caroline Mary Craven Austen, and their cousin Cassy Esten. As Austen scholar Kathryn Sutherland points out in her "Introduction" to the Oxford edition of the Memoir, however, Austen-Leigh's biography is specific to the Steventon or Hampshire Austens, for whom Jane Austen is "nature-loving, religious, domestic, [and] middle class". The Godmersham or Kentish Austens viewed Jane Austen as more "inward and passionate...gentrified, improved willy-nilly by contact with her fine relations".Moreover, as Caroline wrote, "the generation who knew her is passing away".Much of the biography is based on the memories of those who had only known Jane Austen when they were children and she was their older aunt; the rest is based on written records passed down through the family. As Sutherland explains, "the major ingredients of the Memoir, as well as its reverent colouring, are owed, in one way or another, to Cassandra Austen."Cassandra was the executor of Jane's will and was responsible for the preservation and destruction of all remaining letters and manuscripts after Jane's death.According to Caroline Austen, one of Jane Austen's nieces, Cassandra "looked [the letters] over and burnt the greater part, (as she told me), 2 or 3 years before her own death—She left, or gave some as legacies to the Nieces—but of those that I have seen, several had portions cut out".Thus, while writing the Memoir, Austen-Leigh did not have access to large numbers of Jane Austen's letters. Furthermore, the rest had been scattered as bequests; a complete collection of Jane Austen's letters was only gathered in 1932.

A Memoir Of Jane Austen: By James Edward Austen-Leigh - Illustrated

Literature & Fiction

Classics

Independently published

<p><h2>How is this book unique?</h2> <ul> <li>Font adjustments & biography included</li> <li>Unabridged (100% Original content)</li> <li>Illustrated</li> </ul> <h2>About A Memoir Of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh</h2> A Memoir of Jane Austen is a biography of the novelist Jane Austen published by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. A family project, the biography was written by James Edward Austen-Leigh but owed much to the recollections of Jane Austen's many relatives. Composition: In the late 1860s, the Austen family decided to write a biography of Jane Austen. The death of Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving sibling, and the ageing of those who had any memory of her prompted the family to gather their papers and to begin recording their memories. Public interest in Jane Austen was also developing and the family became concerned that an outsider or another branch of the family would produce a biography. James Edward Austen-Leigh, as the son of the eldest branch, "in a spirit of censorship as well as communication", thus began the project. With the help and support of his sisters and Jane Austen's nieces, he collected materials. The biography was largely the work of James Edward Austen-Leigh, his half-sister Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen Lefroy and, his younger sister Caroline Mary Craven Austen, and their cousin Cassy Esten. As Austen scholar Kathryn Sutherland points out in her "Introduction" to the Oxford edition of the Memoir, however, Austen-Leigh's biography is specific to the Steventon or Hampshire Austens, for whom Jane Austen is "nature-loving, religious, domestic, [and] middle class". The Godmersham or Kentish Austens viewed Jane Austen as more "inward and passionate...gentrified, improved willy-nilly by contact with her fine relations".Moreover, as Caroline wrote, "the generation who knew her is passing away".Much of the biography is based on the memories of those who had only known Jane Austen when they were children and she was their older aunt; the rest is based on written records passed down through the family. As Sutherland explains, "the major ingredients of the Memoir, as well as its reverent colouring, are owed, in one way or another, to Cassandra Austen."Cassandra was the executor of Jane's will and was responsible for the preservation and destruction of all remaining letters and manuscripts after Jane's death.According to Caroline Austen, one of Jane Austen's nieces, Cassandra "looked [the letters] over and burnt the greater part, (as she told me), 2 or 3 years before her own death--She left, or gave some as legacies to the Nieces--but of those that I have seen, several had portions cut out".Thus, while writing the Memoir, Austen-Leigh did not have access to large numbers of Jane Austen's letters. Furthermore, the rest had been scattered as bequests; a complete collection of Jane Austen's letters was only gathered in 1932.</p>

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