That tension is visible in how Austen’s brother Henry worked to shape her reputation in his “Biographical Notice” published after her death. In that piece he undersold her eagerness to publish: “For though in composition she was equally rapid and correct, yet an invincible distrust of her own judgement induced her to withhold her works from the public, till time and many perusals had satisfied her.” He couldn’t have known that modern scholars would be able to compare this statement to other sources, proving that was far from the truth. But they did.
