A Memoir of Jane Austen and Other Family Recollections

by James Edward Austen-Leigh, Caroline Austen, Henry Austen

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.

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Classics, Memoir, Biography Memoir, History, Literature

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1869

About the author

1798-1874

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read - I'd recommend reading some more modern biographies of Jane Austen first, but this is well worth a read.

[Duane Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Austen-Leigh was a nephew of Jane Austen and his account of her life, her memoir, is gracious and flattering, as you would expect from a proud relative. He wrote this from his personal recollections, but he was only 19 when she died and this document was written over 50 years after her death. So his depth of material was somewhat limited and he even states in the first chapter, "Of events, her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of it's course". He also admits his limitations as a writer and this being written in a late Victorian style, many people may find it challenging. But if you are a big Jane Austen fan, as I am, you may find some interesting facts here. I enjoyed reading the deleted chapter from Persuasion. 3 stars is the best I can do.

PS: I have also read Carol Shield's biography of Jane Austin. It was good, certainly better written than this one, but it still left me thinking there must be something better out there. After all, we are talking about one of the most popular writers ever. She is certainly derserving of a first rate biography.

[❀⊱RoryReads⊰❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pompous, saccharine, Victorian memoir of Jane Austen by her clergyman nephew Mr Collins James Edward Austen-Leigh. Unfortunately, he has decided to promote her as the ideal Victorian spinster, who never did a wrong thing in her life. He claims the family were "never troubled by disagreements", which if you've read Jane Austen's Letters by Deirdre Le Faye (editor) you know this is clearly not the case. Jane wrote in one of her letters to her niece that "Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.." I think if Jane Austen had read this memoir, (after being for a period "sick and wicked") she would have had a good long laugh.

[Rikke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book isn't important or even interesting because of the words in it. What makes this book important are the words that are deliberately left out, cut from a picture that didn't fit.

This is a memoir of Jane Austen written by her own family. It was written because the Austen-family feared that if they didn't write it, someone else would. It is written in the vain hope of securing a fitting image of a prestigious author – even if it means reshaping the actual image.

And in fact, James Edward Austen-Leigh literally did alter the only remaining image of Jane Austen in order to write this memoir. The only image of Austen was a rough sketch made by Jane Austen's sister Cassandra. In the sketch Austen looked cross and annoyed; her features were all angles and her elbows were crossed. Austen-Leigh felt that Cassandra's sketch wouldn't do and requested a new one, specifically made for his memoir. Cassandra's sketch was sent to an artist, it was redrawn, and a new Jane Austen emerged; a much more mildly looking and doe-eyed woman, who could live up to her new image.

The remaking of the sketch is, in many ways, symbolic of Austen-Leigh's entire memoir. He leaves important facts out, doesn't mention the bankruptcy of Jane Austen's brother, cuts off Jane Austen's letters whenever they get problematic and constantly tries to underline the fact, that Jane Austen wasn't merely a writer. According to Austen-Leigh she was first and foremost a homely woman, a loving aunt and a sensible daughter.

A reoccurring image is that of Austen's hands, creating something more womanly fitting than words and novels.

“Jane Austen was succesful in everything that she attempted with her fingers. None of us could throw spilikins in so perfect a circle, or take them off with so steady a hand. Her performances with a cup and ball were marvellous.”

“But the writing was not the only part of her letters that showed superior handiwork. In those days there was an art in folding and sealing. No adhesive envelopes made all easy. Some people's letters always looked loose and untidy; but her paper was sure to take the right folds, and her sealing-wax to drop the right place.”

“Whatever she produced was a genuine home-made article.”

The last line almost sounds like an advertisement for an old-fashioned cooking product. James Edward Austen-Leigh clearly wanted to transform Jane Austen to 'dear aunt Jane', and he partly succeeded. It is so interesting to read this memoir critically and wonder how it influenced Jane Austen's afterlife.

[Shayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is quite a charming account of Jane Austen's life, written years after her death by her nephew, assisted by two of his sisters. It's diffident, and gently affectionate; noticeably careful in what it says, but not descending into hagiography. By her nephew's account Jane was a much-loved daughter, sister and aunt, warm-hearted and certainly witty, but not someone who would stand out in a crowd. "... she was to be distinguished from many other amiable and sensible women only by that peculiar genius which shines out clearly enough in her works, but of which a biographer can make little use," Austen-Leigh tells us.

As well as many biographical details, the memoir includes several letters from Jane to other family members, and these are a delight: witty and entertaining, as well as affectionate. There are also some snippets about her characters that Jane shared with her family: "She would, if asked, tell us many little particulars about the subsequent career of some of her people." The letters and character details, as well as extracts from the unfinished "Sanditon", are what I enjoyed most in the memoir, but Austen-Leigh's occasional comments on changing habits of everyday life are also interesting to anyone drawn to social history.

There's a certain amount of self-censoring; Jane's brother Henry's bankruptcy, for instance, is only hinted at. My favourite piece of bowderisation is in Austen-Leigh's quote from a letter of Jane's. His version has "Give my love to little Cassandra [a niece]! I hope she found my bed comfortable last night". He left off the last few words of that sentence: "and has not filled it with fleas."

Victorian reticence aside, it's a pleasure to read an account of Jane by someone who actually knew her.

[Hazel-Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very, very enjoyable read. Definitely a must-read if you are a Jane Austen fan. I found it to be both enlightening and touching, with a lovely written voice from James Edward Austen-Leigh. The inclusion of various snippets from letters added to the understanding of Jane as a person and also heightens my personal disappointment that so much correspondence from her was destroyed. While I understand the reasons for doing so, I so wish we had more of her as a person to draw from.

It saddens me to reflect on how young she died and to then consider what additional novels were lost to us due to this. It's evident she was well beloved by all those who knew her and even half a century after her death, was well remembered by family and friends.

[Elliot A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Technically it wasn’t really part of my research, since it is now agreed that this is a very whitewashed, highly edited version of Jane Austen’s life, but it is nonetheless very interesting to read how the biographies and the creation of a very distinct image of Jane all began relatively shortly after her death.

I appreciated Caroline Austen and Anna Austen Lefroy’s recollection of their aunt Jane; however short they were.

At the risk of sounding slightly sexist, I have to caution readers when perusing the sections of this memoir that were written by Jane’s male relatives (nephew and brothers), since they try very hard to paint a picture of feminine demure, fragility and perfection. Jane was a person with high spirit, wit and intelligence, and these claims make her out to look like a small spinster, who dabbled in story writing, but who obtained the greatest pleasure from keeping house. Very untrue, indeed.
Having said that, it is still worth a look, if one reads it with a grain of salt.

Overall, I would suggest it, since it is so often referred to in biographies written about Jane.

ElliotScribbles

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The primary work in this valuable collection is the "Memoir" by James Edward Austen-Leigh--a nephew of the great author. Though it was written decades after the death of Jane Austen, it remains an immensely valuable first-hand source. It is not a biography in the modern sense at all; rather it is a recollection culled from various family sources emphasizing the genuine love Jane Austen inspired in those who were intimately acquainted with her.

There can be no doubt but that this book recalls a very domestic Jane Austen indeed. It is questionable if JEAL actually understood how great a literary figure his aunt was. He mentions that those who most appreciate her

" . . . see her safely placed . . . in her niche, not indeed amongst the highest orders of genius, but in one confessedly her own, in our British temple of literary fame . . . ."

How far this is from the comment of F. R. Leavis in his first chapter of "The Great Tradition":

"Jane Austen is one of the truly great writers, and herself a major fact in the background of other great writers."

and

"She not only makes tradition for those coming after, but her achievement has for us a retroactive effect: as we look back beyond her we see in what goes before, and see because of her, potentialities and significances brought out in such a way that, for us, she creates the tradition we see leading down to her. Her work, like the work of all great creative writers, gives a meaning to the past."

Still we get significant (if edited) insights from her letters. JEAL does include extracts from the very funny "Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters." However, he omits some of the gentle humour shown by Jane Austen even on her deathbed when she composed some comic verses three days before she died. (You can find them in R.W. Chapman's "Minor Works" as well as the "Plan".)

As to her death, her nephew does convey the bafflement and anguish created by that final illness which took her away at the height of her powers. In all likelihood it was either Addison's or
Hodgkin's Disease--neither of which was understood in the 19th century. A summary of what is known will be found here:

http://mh.bmj.com/content/31/1/3.full

The edition I have chosen has a number of advantages. It includes other family reminiscences, illustrations, a family tree, a very fine introduction by Kathryn Sutherland and her excellent explanatory notes which are enormously effective in expanding the context of the "Memoir".

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Austen has been a favourite author of mine for a long time now. Ashamedly, I have neglected to read any biography on her which I sought to rectify with this lovely little memoir and other family recollections. I thought this would be appropriate for my first read as I'm yet to finish all of her novels. Many biographies tend to spoil the novel's in full which I seek to avoid until I've managed to get through them all. I thought this memoir, written by her nephew, would be great to start off with.

To begin with, I really loved the first section of the book. It the main memoir written by James Edward Austen-Leigh. It was very sweet, and you really got the feel he loved and admired his aunt. It was comforting to read such assertions and, because of this, I thoroughly enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book. However, I didn't so much like the other family recollections. They were quite dull to read and very repetitive. It is quite obvious James used these as the foundations for his memoir, so reading over some of the quotes he picked out became a little tedious and boring. Although, some of the things the other family members (another nephew and a niece) included was interesting, I just thought it could have been better without, or at least omitted the bits that he repeated.

My only other issue with this is the reliability. It's very apparent that James is trying to paint his aunt into being the conventional 18/19th century woman. Highly religious, angelic, quiet, meek and doesn't venture outside of the ordinary female entertainment (so knowing nothing of politics, economy, and so on). He obviously wanted to preserve Jane's image, and wanted to do this through a positive outlook, but you could tell it was a little exaggerated. I wanted to know the real Jane - who cares what the uptight Victorian society has to say (I mean, she is dead!!).

Other than that, I really enjoyed this! It's so fun unpicking your favourite authors bit by bit through biographies and memoirs like this. I liked knowing the life and story behind my favourite authors, especially those from the 19th century, as life was so different then. I'd definitely recommend.

[Sherwood Smith]

I avoided reading this for the longest time, assuming it would be content-free hagiography. Was I wrong! Though it is very much late Victorian in tone, it's the crispy, slightly ironic but altogether compassionate view that one sometimes sees in those whose lives spanned most of the 1800s.

Read in conjunction with Deirdre Le Faye's edition of the Letters, it is an especial treat.

REREAD: I especially appreciated the reminiscences about life in Steventon and at Chawton. And the fact that Jane entertained kids with fantasy stories.

[Fabiola · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+*
Come da titolo, non una biografia, ma un ricordo, anzi, dei ricordi, essendo qui contenuti scritti di James Edward Austen-Leigh (la parte più corposa), Henry Austen, Anna Lefroy e Caroline Austen.
Sono contenta di averlo letto, perché alcuni punti contengono chicche interessanti che un lettore appassionato è felice di apprendere (come, a esempio, il capitolo X cancellato e poi riscritto di Persuasione, oppure chi fossero gli autori preferiti di Jane o, ancora, le confidenze fatte alla famiglia su come ella immaginasse il futuro dei suoi personaggi una volta conclusi i libri), ma, preso nella sua interezza, poco ci dice in realtà circa la vita dell’autrice (in quanto tutto è basato sui ricordi – a volte vaghi – degli allora giovanissimi nipoti e anche “a causa” della riservatezza della zia quando era in vita).
Il libro si ripete molto, perché James Edward cita moltissimo i ricordi delle sorelle Anna e Caroline, nonché dello zio Henry (il quale si era occupato di tutte le pubblicazioni della sorella Jane); inoltre, personalmente, non ho particolarmente apprezzato la scrittura di James Edward.
In conclusione, uno scritto carino che un amante di Jane Austen sarà anche contento di leggere, nonostante non sia ricco di eventi concreti e nonostante sia chiaro che i parenti abbiano santificato e semplificato un po’ troppo l’immagine di questa donna brillante con uno spirito sicuramente fuori dall’ordinario (soffermarsi a parlare continuamente delle sue immense virtù religiose e della sua astrale abilità nel ricamo… e dai, anche meno. Cioè, applausi anche per il ricamo, ma questa ci ha dato tra i migliori romanzi esistenti sulla faccia della terra e qui indugiamo su quanto perfetta donna del focolare fosse? Forse tutto lo spirito della famiglia all’epoca era confluito in un’unica persona).

[Dr.J.G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Memoir of Jane Austen
and Other Family Recollections;
by James Edward Austen-Leigh, Caroline Austen,
Henry Austen, Anna Austen Lefroy,
Kathryn Sutherland (Editor).
.......
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CONTENTS (From book)
List of Illustrations
The Austen Family Tree
Introduction
Note on the Texts
Select Bibliography
A Chronology of the Austen family
J. E. AUSTEN-LEIGH A MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN (1871)
HENRY AUSTEN ‘Biographical Notice of the Author’ (1818)
HENRY AUSTEN ‘Memoir of Miss Austen’ (1833)
ANNA LEFROY ‘Recollections of Aunt Jane’ (1834)
CAROLINE AUSTEN My Aunt Jane Austen: A Memoir (1867)
Appendix: Family Letters
Explanatory Notes
Index
.......
.......
Content (from Goodreads)

MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN
(by James Edward Austen-Leigh) (1871)

Biographical Notice (by Henry Austen) (1816)

Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters: A Family Record
(by W. Austen-Leigh and R. A. Austen-Leigh)
.......
.......
Reviews
.......
.......
Introduction
.......
.......

Not only thorough in details but good discussions too.
.......

"When in 1926 Robert Chapman published his edition of James Edward Austen-Leigh’s biography of his aunt Jane Austen the Times Literary Supplement chiefly welcomed its reissue not for the life it recorded but for the manuscripts described in it. Under the heading ‘Manuscripts of Jane Austen’, it concentrated on that feature of the Memoir which ‘makes it necessary to the complete Austenian . . . the particular account, in Mr Chapman’s introduction, of the manuscripts of Jane Austen’s letters and of her other writings’. The reviewer continued: ‘Here we may find ... the last word about Jane Austen manuscripts, which not only is a thing to welcome for its own sake but may help to bring to light other manuscripts which are known to exist, or to have existed, but have been lost to sight’.1 In 1926 the manuscript notebook of juvenilia, Volume the First, was known outside Austen family circles only by the two scenes of the spoof play ‘The Mystery’, printed by Austen-Leigh in 1871 and perhaps written as early as 1788 (when Jane Austen was 12 or 13). After 1871 and Austen-Leigh’s second edition of the Memoir, enlarged with early or unfinished manuscript drafts of several ‘new’ Jane Austen works (the cancelled chapter of Persuasion, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and a synopsis of Sanditon), there was no further printing of such material until the 1920s; readers had to wait until 1951 for the first publication of Volume the Third, the last of the juvenile manuscript books. There was an important exception to this silence, in the edition in 1884 of Jane Austen’s Letters by her great-nephew Lord Bra-bourne, which brought to public light eighty-four autograph letters in the possession of Lord Brabourne’s mother, Jane Austen’s niece, Fanny Knight (Lady Knatchbull), and a minor exception in the printing in 1895 of Charades . . . by Jane Austen and her Family.

"But in the 1920s Chapman was busy distinguishing life from works and extending the Jane Austen canon beyond the six major novels on which her reputation so far rested. He had published or was planning separate and handsomely produced editions of the non-canonical writings that Austen-Leigh had chosen, after family consultation, to stretch out his biography, and it did not seem impossible that more manuscripts might come to light, especially as materials in family ownership were now beginning to appear in the auction rooms. Chapman was particularly concerned at this time with tracing Volume the First and the whereabouts of surviving Jane Austen letters. ... In 1913 James Edward’s grandson Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh had published with his uncle William Austen-Leigh an expanded biography, Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record, enlarging the 1871 account with materials drawn from other branches of the family. Substantially updated and largely rewritten by Deirdre Le Faye in 1989, A Family Record remains the ‘authorized’ reference or ‘factual’ biography. The absence of biographical notice or speculation from Chapman’s introduction and appended notes to his edition of the earlier Austen-Leigh memoir not only registers a reticence to engage critically with what in 1926 was still family business, it was also the prudent act of a scholar and publisher eager to claim the literary remains in family hands for his own shaping. Chapman was Secretary to the Delegates at Oxford University Press, which had as recently as 1923 issued under its Clarendon imprint his pioneering edition of the six novels—not only the first accurate text of Jane Austen’s novels, after the careless reprint history of the nineteenth century, but the first major textual investigation of the English novel as a genre.

"Since 1926 there has been no serious editorial engagement with the Memoir and little critical attention paid to it.3 Yet James Austen-Leigh here assembled a major work of Austenian biography which stands unchallenged as the ‘prime source of all subsequent biographical writings’. ... But the unpublished manuscripts speak a different story—of long apprenticeship, experiment and abandonment, rewriting and cancellation, and even of a restless and sardonic spirit. ... "
.......

" ... George Eliot viewed biography as a ‘disease’, complaining to her publisher John Blackwood of the posthumous fascination with the details of Dickens’s life: ‘Is it not odious that as soon as a man is dead his desk is raked, and every insignificant memorandum which he never meant for the public, is printed for the gossiping amusement of people too idle to re-read his books?’ ... And, as John Wiltshire suggests, ‘of all writers in the canon, Jane Austen is the one around whom this fantasy of access, this dream of possession, weaves its most powerful spell’.8 Because she is more than usually retiring, because there seems so little to know, because her plotless fictions, themselves the subtlest and most tactful of biographies, present human beings in the fascinating light of their trivial and essential moments, we long to know more. Her novels absorb us deeply and, in a genre where absorption is a conventional expectation, even uniquely. We cannot believe that they will not lead us back to their author. Against this natural longing, artfully stimulated, we should set that other, more sceptical knowledge which novels try to teach us: ‘Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken’, the narrator of Emma warns the naïve reader; ... "
.......

"If we look in James Austen-Leigh’s memoir for the kinds of encounter with the individual life that we have come to expect from literary biographies of the twentieth century we will be disappointed. While his account remains the printed authority for so much of what we know, it is marked by a lack of candour that frustrates reinterpretation. There are several reasons for this, but all can be summed up by the family constraints on its construction. The details of the life of no other famous individual are so exclusively determined through family as are those of Jane Austen. Not only is it the case that surviving letters, manuscripts, and other material witnesses remained largely in family hands for a hundred years after her death, but there is no non-fictional evidence for a ‘self’ other than that constructed within the bounds of family. No diaries or personal writings have come down to suggest the existence of an inner life, a self apart. If there is no autobiographical record, there is also very little by way of a non-familial social or public record. The archive of her later publisher John Murray has yielded nothing but the barest details of a professional relationship conducted with respect and good will on both sides—no hints of literary parties at which Miss Austen might have been a guest. Henry Austen, in his second, 1833 ‘Memoir’, can only mention as noteworthy the meeting with Germaine de Staël which did not take place, while the introduction to the Prince Regent’s librarian, James Stanier Clarke, becomes significant chiefly as it is transformed into the comic ‘Plan of a Novel’. ... "

"The comparison that Austen-Leigh invites us to make is with Charlotte Brontë, and it is more interesting than at first appears. Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of her friend and fellow-novelist had been published as recently as 1857, setting a standard for the simultaneous memorializing and effacing of its difficult subject, the female writer, that proved influential on Austen-Leigh. ... But there is an added twist whereby the novelist whom Brontë found too ‘confined’, and from whose ‘mild eyes’ shone the unwelcome advice ‘to finish more, and be more subdued’, becomes liable to a biographical constraint which in some part derives from Gaskell’s earlier authoritative presentation of Brontë as herself the respectable and unpushy lady novelist. Austen-Leigh quotes (at p. 97), via Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë’s now famous denunciation of Jane Austen’s quiet art; but Gaskell’s elevation of the ideal domestic woman, modest spinster daughter of a country parson, one not ‘easily susceptible’ to ‘the passion of love’ in which her novels abound,10 is clearly instructive for his later presentation of an equally saintly heroine whose emotional and intellectual life never ranged beyond the family circle, and whose brushes with sexual love were so slight as to warrant hardly a mention. Where Gaskell’s Brontë walks ‘shy and trembling’ (p. 91) through the London literary scene, Austen-Leigh’s Aunt Jane refuses any and every public notice with an energetic determination that transforms rural Hampshire into a farther retreat than Siberia, let alone Gaskell’s exaggeratedly remote Yorkshire parsonage. ... "
.......

"The decision to prepare a biography of Jane Austen was taken by the family in the late 1860s. Admiral Sir Francis Austen, her last surviving sibling, had died in August 1865, aged 91. His death marked the end of her generation and therefore a moment for gathering the family record in written form. In addition, those nieces and nephews who had known her in their childhoods were also now old and wished to hand on, within the family, some account of their distinguished relative. ‘The generation who knew her is passing away—but those who are succeeding us must feel an interest in the personal character of their Great Aunt, who has made the family name in some small degree, illustrious’ (p. 166), wrote Caroline Austen in her 1867 essay, subsequently published as My Aunt Jane Austen. Significantly too, at about this time, the public interest in Jane Austen’s novels, mounting gradually since the 1830s, showed signs of developing in at least two ways that provided cause for concern. One was the anxiety that a non-family-derived biography might be attempted; and the other was the equal risk that another branch of the family might publish something injudicious. As the only son of the eldest branch, James Edward Austen-Leigh assumed the task as a duty and in a spirit of censorship as well as communication. Before him, the public biographical account necessarily derived from Henry Austen’s ‘Notice’ of 1818 or its revision as the 1833 ‘Memoir’ (both printed here), where even Henry, purportedly Jane Austen’s favourite brother, eked out his brief evaluation with lengthy quotation from the views of professional critics. According to Brian Southam’s estimate, there were only six essays devoted exclusively to Jane Austen before 1870; but from the 1840s Lord Macaulay, George Henry Lewes, and Julia Kavanagh were publicly attesting to her importance. In private, in his journal in 1858, Macaulay noted his wish to write a short life of ‘that wonderful woman’ in order to raise funds for a monument to her in Winchester Cathedral.11 The correspondence, in 1852, between Frank Austen and the eager American autograph hunter Eliza Susan Quincy, referred to by Austen-Leigh in the Memoir, suggests a ready circle of devotees as far away as Boston, Massachusetts."
.......

" ... Anna also writes that Fanny’s family, the Knights of Godmersham, felt a general preference for Cassandra Austen and that they viewed Jane’s talent with some suspicion—intellectual pursuits and a passion for scribbling did not fit with their finer family pretensions. Though Jane was welcome at Godmersham, she stayed there less frequently than Cassandra, was less intimate in the family circle, and expressed some unease with its ways. Time undoubtedly dulled Fanny Knight’s earlier attachment to Aunt Jane; so much so that Anna’s recollections quoted above assume a wonderful inappropriateness when set against the record we do have of Fanny’s opinion in 1869. Senile or not, she had energy enough to write down this memory for her sister Marianne when she in turn raised Austen-Leigh’s enquiries:

"Yes my love it is very true that Aunt Jane from various circumstances was not so refined as she ought to have been from her talent & if she had lived 50 years later she would have been in many respects more suitable to our more refined tastes. They were not rich & the people around with whom they chiefly mixed, were not at all high bred, or in short anything more than mediocre & they of course tho’ superior in mental powers & cultivation were on the same level as far as refinement goes—but I think in later life their intercourse with Mrs. Knight (who was very fond of & kind to them) improved them both & Aunt Jane was too clever not to put aside all possible signs of ‘common-ness’ (if such an expression is allowable) & teach herself to be more refined, at least in intercourse with people in general. Both the Aunts (Cassandra & Jane) were brought up in the most complete ignorance of the World & its ways (I mean as to fashion & c) & if it had not been for Papa’s marriage which brought them into Kent, & the kindness of Mrs. Knight, who used often to have one or other of the sisters staying with her, they would have been, tho’ not less clever & agreeable in themselves, very much below par as to good Society & its ways. If you hate all this I beg yr. pardon but I felt it at my pen’s end & it chose to come along & speak the truth.

"The discrepancy between Anna Lefroy’s confidence in Fanny Knight’s reverence for her aunt’s memory and the details of Fanny’s own late outburst, both recovered across a fifty-year gap, exposes something important about biographical truth—it is not just that Anna’s sense of what Fanny will remember and hold dear is sharply at odds with what Fanny does indeed retain as significant, but that the two impressions are based on different readings of the same basic ingredients—the long visits to Godmersham, the value placed on talent and cleverness, social distinctions, and the Knights’ powers of patronage within the wider Austen family."

" ... In 1850 Catherine Hubback had published a novel, The Younger Sister, with a dedication ‘To the memory of her aunt, the late Jane Austen’. The first five chapters are based quite closely on the Austen fragment ‘The Watsons’, and it appears that Mrs Hubback simply remembered the opening, from Cassandra’s retelling, and completed it. Writing to her brother on 8 August 1862, Anna Lefroy fears that their Hubback cousin, now with several more novels to her credit, is ready to do the same with the fragment known in the family as ‘Sanditon’. ‘The Copy [of ‘Sanditon’] which was taken, not given, is now at the mercy of Mrs. Hubback, & she will be pretty sure to make use of it as soon as she thinks she safely may.’ ... "
.......

"It is this regular round of visits—to Godmersham to the Edward Austen Knights, to London to Henry Austen’s various fashionable addresses—which accounts for the majority of the surviving letters, addressed from Jane to Cassandra. It was with Cassandra that Jane discussed her work in any detail; Cassandra was her chief heiress and executor of her will. As such she was almost solely responsible for the preservation (and the destruction) and subsequent distribution among brothers, nieces, and nephews of the letters, manuscripts, and memories. She decisively shaped—not only through stewardship of the archive but through conversation—what was available to the next generation. ... The collected letters of Jane Austen, as they are now available to us, only came together in 1932, and so the reconnection of the various parts of the epistolary archive considerably post-dates both the Memoir and the publication of the largest Knatchbull cache (in 1884). Of the 161 letters from Jane Austen now known to have survived, only six were addressed to Fanny Knight (Lady Knatchbull) in her own right; but Cassandra left to her keeping almost all of her own surviving correspondence with her sister, presumably because very many of these letters were written either to or from Fanny’s childhood home of Godmersham. Without them, James Edward’s memoir lacks significant information. For example, the sparseness of his record for the Southampton years and his vagueness about how long the Austens lived there (his calculation is out by about eighteen months) can be explained in part by the fact that the letters covering that period were, since Cassandra’s death, with Lady Knatchbull.

"According to Caroline, who gives the fullest account of the treatment of the letters, Aunt Cassandra ‘looked them 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’ (p. 174). Between May 1801 and July 1809 Jane Austen’s life was, in outward circumstances at least, at its most unsettled—various temporary homes and lodgings in Bath and Southampton, holiday visits to the seaside, new acquaintances and friendships—and for all that potentially exciting period James Edward provides only four letters. When the Knatchbull cache is added in, there is still a long silence between 27 May 1801 and 14 September 1804. And there are earlier hiatuses in the record—from September 1796 to April 1798, for example. These gaps coincide with important personal and family events: in the earlier years, the death of Cassandra’s fiancé Tom Fowle, James Austen’s second marriage and Henry Austen’s marriage to glamorous cousin Eliza, Mrs Lefroy’s attempt at matchmaking during the visit of the Revd Samuel Blackall to Ashe, the writing of ‘First Impressions’ (the early version of what would become Pride and Prejudice), and its rejection by the London publisher Thomas Cadell; in the later years, between 1801 and 1804, almost all the romantic interest in Jane Austen’s ....

[Maud · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed by this one.

I'm a massive fan of the books by Jane Austen and I was really looking forward to getting to know the author a bit better. This book includes 3 biographies by people who knew Jane Austen which could have been interesting but:
- They literally copy things from one another.
- They are too kind. It's obvious that they only want to share the warm and positive things even though we know that this wasn't always how life was.
- They go on and on about things that really aren't that interesting (houses and families that are more connected to the author than to Jane Austen).
- They really can't remember much about the time (little as some of it was) they spend with Jane Austen.

I was having high hopes of seeing Jane Austen from her family's point of view but I honestly feel like her Wikipedia page will let me get to know her better than this book ever will.

[Juliana Lira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely memories about my favourite authors and most special that it comes from people who knew and lived with her. James Edward, with the help of his sisters Carolina Austen and Anna Lefroy, gives us an intimate view from their beloved aunt such like her manners, temperament, humour and way of life. I don't think that there is a better reliable source besides family members about the personality of a person, even though they were children/teenagers when Aunt Jane was still alive.

The author also gives interesting studies about the historical period of Regency England and other members of the Austen family and relatives who were important to the famous one. This is not a typical biography book in the modern sense, but it is a rich recollection of what left over from one of the best British authors.

[Bfisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pride And Prejudice has one of the finest openings in English Literature - “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” What I liked best about this book was that a great deal of it was devoted to the corollary, a single man’s want of a good fortune, in the case of Jane Austen’s male relatives, and the means they adopted to get one; including an exhaustive (and exhausting) catalog of her male relatives’ connections.


That is the main charm of this work, the indirect view it affords of the environmental constraints that Jane Austen had to operate in; a confirmation of the relentless chase for social advantage by her contemporaries, and of the shade that women of great ability had to grow within.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing style of this book is a bit dull. Sorry Jane Austen, it isn't you but your family members who wrote and compiled this memoir, most of whom barely remembered or knew you because they were much too young. Still, there are some fun interesting bits within. There was also plenty of praise for their Auntie!

[Maan Kawas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read!

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mah, da una parte non si può pretendere che sia diverso da ciò che è, una sorta di agiografia diminutiva che si preoccupa di far notare le virtù religiose e le qualità di piegatrice di lettere (prima che esistessero le buste adesive!!), dall'altra è insopportabile, restituisce una Jane Austen veramente tame ed è in sostanza molto, molto noioso, soprattutto considerando il fatto che esistono tanti libri sulla vita della Nostra che possono dare queste informazioni e molte altre e che sono scritti in modo di gran lunga migliore.
E poi fa molta tristezza vedere un'autrice di questa grandezza la cui scrittura viene paragonata ai suoi ricami. Avete di fronte roba come Orgoglio e Pregiudizio e vi premurate di farci sapere che sapeva ricamare? Vabbe' ripeto, cosa ci si poteva aspettare di diverso.

La Oxford fa del suo meglio per renderlo un volume interessante ma sta di fatto che il tempo sarebbe stato meglio speso a rileggere Emma, ché sono passati anni.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice, short read. It mainly gives you insights into the views of peers and family on Jane Austen's personality, appearance and talents. What stood out to me the most was how tragically the end of her life was described; it goes without saying that she was far too young when she passed away. When asked if she had any last wishes during her final moments, she replied "Nothing but death." This account was backed up by numerous people in the memoir. There are also interesting stories described regarding the process of writing and publishing some of her most critically acclaimed works, particularly Emma.

But despite the interesting insights into Austen's life, I do find that this memoir is rather repetitive in its description of details. I also think it could have easily been at least twice the size, even though Austen-Leigh maintained that there was not much to say about Jane. I'd say that this book is still worth checking out, but I suspect that there is another release featuring her letters that is likely to be more informative than this one.

[Joy Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read, written by a nephew of Jane Austen about 50 years after her death. I wish he (and his cousin who helped with collecting documents, etc) had put together a more full review of her personality, but they didn’t. She was presented as the perfect spinster and family person. And while she was probably those things, I’m sure from reading all her writings that she’s got at least one other side to her which was not at all presented in the book. Still, the family stories and letters that were included were interesting and I learned quite a bit about her life and family so it was good in the end.

This is one I read on Sundays after finishing the current editions of the Saints books.

[Nicoleta Fedorca · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Edward Austen Leigh published her aunt memoir more than fifty years after her death.
Not too much was known by the public about the author of 'pride and prejudice' 'sense and sensibility' 'Emma' when she was alive and after her death when her novels became more popular people wanted to know more.
She had 7 brothers and sisters but JEAL mentions only 6 in his memoir, the family was close to each other but she was closest with Cassandra her only sister. Much of what is known about Jane Austen life is known from her correspondence with Cassandra. Before her death Cassandra also destroyed lots of letters from her sister.
In this memoir JEAL writes about his and his families memories of her, about the places she lived and the influence those had on her work.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very simple memoir written by Jane Austen's nephew 50 years after her death. He's very honest and does say that the information that he had when writing the memoir was not extensive, but he does with what he has. Which is the morons of his aunt from those who knew her; her siblings, nephews, and nieces. I don't know how modern-day biographies bring in a new perspective when their information is even smaller.

It can be biased since it's his aunt, but Jane Austen comes across as such a lovely woman. Who loved writing and talking about the craft with such tenderness but equally witty.

[Doris Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the author himself acknowledges, he didn't have a lot of material to work with. However, with the memories of himself and several other relatives of Jane Austen, he gave us a good picture of Jane as a person.

It was an unexpected treat to read the alternative ending to Persuasion. It was much less satisfying than the published version, but it had a pleasant and intimate feel.

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until recently, I never knew this book existed. I have read all of Jane Austen’s novels many times (and even her Juvenilia), but I had no idea that there were biographical pieces written by her family. They did wait a while to write them (around fifty years), but they are still the gold standard of information about the life of dear Jane. There was some reticence in publishing from her family from a time where things were much less in the open, but there is still a lot to be learned and enjoyed here. Some of her letters are included, somewhat edited by her nephew and in some cases blended from multiple letters into one, but there are more thorough sources of her letters to be found elsewhere as I recently discovered. I will be reading the Oxford World Classics letter collection next. How did a former member of Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) not know about this? I guess I was not a very good member, but I am very excited to have found this book and the book of letters as well.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating to read how her family tried to manage her story at first. All the biographies I have read of Jane start from this one so I was long overdue to read. I enjoyed all the different pieces to this very sedate biography.

[Elena Balabanova · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
It's not you, Jane. I promise!

[majoringinliterature · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Austen in August quest to read more about Jane Austen's life begins with the first 'official' biography. Written in the late Victorian period, more than fifty years after she died, A Memoir of Jane Austen is offered to readers as a kind of 'family record' of the author. Austen's nephew, J.E. Austen-Leigh, was responsible for compiling family histories and records into a coherent account of her life.

It's no secret that A Memoir of Jane Austen is a flawed account, and deeply unsatisfying for Austen's readers and admirers. Indeed, my own personal opinion quickly came to be that it tells the reader more about Austen-Leigh, and the age in which he was living, than it does about Austen herself.

A Memoir of Jane Austen is responsible for launching the infamous 'Aunt Jane' image which has been impossible to shake off, even after more than a century has passed. The tone of the book is a little priggish, and at times you almost feel that Austen-Leigh is sermonising (probably not surprising, as he was a clergyman; in the Austen family the church had become something of a family business, and they churned out clergymen by the dozen).

Austen-Leigh approaches his aunt's life with the assumption that nothing much happened to her; he therefore pads his account with stories about Austen's neighbours, friends, and distant acquaintances. Who is related to whom seems far more important than who Austen actually was in this account. The memoir becomes a kind of patchwork of eminent people, and Austen-Leigh reveals his own prejudice as an Oxford man by jumping on every opportunity to mention people even vaguely connected to the institution. The result is that Austen herself disappears from the narrative, crowded out by the mass of complete and often unimportant strangers Austen-Leigh talks about.

In order to further 'pad up' the memoir, and to make it more 'interesting' to a general audience (Austen scholars laugh derisively and shake their fists in anger), Austen-Leigh justifies writing the memoir by promising to use the space to try and record details of late eighteenth-century life. Needless to say, he doesn't do brilliantly at this, either.

The memoir is mostly a mix-and-match of long-gone names and places, and frequent allusions to Austen's acceptable femininity. "We did not think of her as being clever," Austen-Leigh writes, "but we valued her as one always kind, sympathising, and amusing" (Chapter I). He frequently makes references to her 'modesty' and 'kindness'. And he writes that "She was always very careful not to meddle with matters which she did not thoroughly understand. She never touched upon politics, law, or medicine" (Chapter I). Though there is truth to this statement (inasmuch as it is true that Austen did not write about "politics, law, or medicine") there is a distinctly gendered sentiment here; 'meddling' is something women do, and I have yet to hear it applied to a man (men 'interfere', but they never meddle; heavens no). In addition, Austen-Leigh makes several backhanded remarks about contemporary female writers; he compares his aunt to Fanny Burney and Maria Edgeworth (both writers Austen read and admired), illustrating the superiority of his aunt's work to theirs. I somehow doubt his aunt would have approved.

Altogether, it was not enjoyable trying to get through A Memoir of Jane Austen. Though it potentially includes some useful biographical information, everything in this account must be read with a grain of salt. It is a reflection of the mind of the author and the period in which he wrote, more than an account of the life and times of Jane Austen. The writing is poor, and the writer's prejudices at times leak out in almost amusing ways. Take, for instance, the headings for Chapter Nine, which details the reception of Austen's work: Austen-Leigh promises us "Opinions expressed by eminent persons - Opinions of others of less eminence - Opinion of American readers." Austen-Leigh appears to live in a world where people can be divided into three neat groups - 'rich', 'poor', and 'Americans'. It's a perfect illustration of the way that Austen's life is constantly being put under the lens of our own cultural preoccupations.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving my 5 Stars to this particular edition. I started reading an out-of-copyright free Kindle edition, and within 20 pages felt like something was missing. Luckily I found this Oxford World Classics edition on Kindle (it wasn't easy, even the pb edition of it links you to an unedited Kindle edition thanks to Amazon's horrid bibliographic control - no one will ever confuse them with the LOC!). For a little less than $6, and edited by Kathryn Sutherland, who is one of the leading Austen scholars out there today.
Besides the text, she adds a helpful 40 pp Intro, a Family Tree, 90 pp of Notes (!!!!), and about 65 pp of original material from his cousins that JEAL used to toss together this "biography". Be sure to read the short, but nasty, note niece Fanny Knatchbull (the Knight side of the family) wrote about her "beloved" aunt - which is in the Intro, rather than in the additonal materials at the end.
With only 161 of her letters still existing (out of possibly more than 3,000 written!), this is one of the few primary source materials available about the life of JA. In her Intro Sutherland provides us with good background to the reasoning behind this publication - that the last of JA's generation had just died, and the nieces and nephews were getting older themselves. Jane's older sister Cassandra had doled out letters and pieces of manuscript to various family members, and no one quite knew who had what! And when he wrote this JEAL was not aware that the Knight side of the family had most of JA's letters. So it is largely based on memories of a handful of nieces, and JEAL's own memories and a bit of research.
It is good to hear from Sutherland that I was not the only one who was occasionally confused by who is who in the family and amongst the family friends. Shared names, and 2 brothers who changed their names for inheritances, and all the offspring of her siblings, can make for confusing reading at times!
Sutherland makes an excellent case for JEAL (known to the family as Edward, not James - more confusion!) wanting to not only share his aunt's life and literary output with the public, he also wanted to define the narrative by which she would be known (for some, he has defined her as "Saint Jane"!). Sutherland is a great help in bringing to our attention what was not included (E. g. the mentally and physically handicapped 2nd son), and what, at times oddly (like the ancestor's letter), was included in this loose biography.
Because there is so little primary material on her life, current biographies seem to be filled more with "maybe this happened" than actual fact of what *did* happen! Which, if you have an interest in Austen, makes this well worth a read. And definitely use this Kathryn Sutherland edited edition, with its voluminous, and extremely helpful, Notes.

[Eleonora · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sto ancora metabolizzando la sua morte, per l'ennesima volta, e quindi sono un po' sotto sopra. Questo libro mi è piaciuto così tanto che mi ha fatto male (si può dire?): leggere quanto fosse amata, quanto fosse divertente e quanto fosse giovane mi tocca profondamente. Pensare a quanti libri avrebbe potuto scrivere...

Sto per riportare alcuni brani che contengono spoiler, non continuate a leggere se non avete letto tutti i suoi libri, vi rovinerei la lettura.
Li copio qui perché così li avrò a portata di mano per una rilettura veloce.

"In questo modo familiare apprendemmo che Miss Steele non ebbe mai successo nell'accalappiare il dottore; che Kitty Bennet aveva fatto un matrimonio soddisfacente con un ecclesiastico vicino a Pemberley, mentre Mary non aveva ottenuto nulla di più di uno degli impiegati dello zio Philip, e si era accontentata di essere considerata una protagonista della vita sociale di Meryton; che la "considerevole somma" data da Mrs. Norris a William Price era stata di una sterlina; che Mr. Woodhouse era sopravvissuto al matrimonio della figlia, e aveva impedito a lei e Mr. Knightley di stabilirsi a Donwell per circa due anni; e che le lettere messe da Frank Churchill di fronte a Jane Fairfax, che lei aveva spazzato via senza leggerle, contenevano la parola "perdono"."

"Quando la sorella dell'autrice, Cassandra, mostrò il manoscritto di questo lavoro a qualcuna delle sue nipoti, disse loro anche qualcosa sul seguito della storia, dato che con questa cara sorella - anche se, credo, con nessun altro - sembra che Jane abbia parlato liberamente di ogni lavoro che avesse tra le mani. Mr. Watson sarebbe morto presto e Emma costretta a dipendere per una casa dalla meschinità del fratello e della cognata. Avrebbe rifiutato la proposta di matrimonio di Lord Osborne, e molto dell'interesse del racconto sarebbe derivato dall'amore di Lady Osborne per Mr. Howard, innamorato invece di Emma, che alla fine avrebbe sposato."

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those who choose this book hoping for a straightforward, in depth memoir/biography of Jane Austen will likely be disappointed. However, those who are interested in how the life story of a person is constructed for public consumption by biographers (in this case, family members/descendants of Jane Austen) will be fascinated.

Here is presented James Edward Austen-Leigh's Memoir of his aunt alongside many of the memories/family stories provided to him by relatives for the purpose of writing said Memoir. Individually I understand how each piece could be seen as underwhelming, but read as a whole- and particularly in conjunction with the appendix of family letters concerning the creation and printing of the Memoir- it is an excellent exercise in examining family memory and the work that goes into deciding what should or should not be committed to print for the public.

It is also, of course, lovely to read some of the details that Jane's family remembered about her decades after her death, which makes her feel more accessible even if there remains much an air of mystery about her.