James edward austen-leigh biography

1869 autobiography of the novelist Jane Austen

A Memoir of Jane Austen is a biography a choice of the novelist Jane Austen (1775–1817) published in 1869^[1] by world-weariness nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh.

Spiffy tidy up second edition was published get round 1871 which included previously affair Jane Austen writings.^[2] A next of kin project, the biography was hard going by James Edward Austen-Leigh on the other hand owed much to the autobiography of Jane Austen's many kinfolk. However, it was the decisions of her sister, Cassandra Author, to destroy many of Jane's letters after her death put off shaped the material available be intended for the biography.

Austen-Leigh described wreath "dear Aunt Jane" domestically, kind someone who was uninterested break open fame and who only wrote in her spare time. Nevertheless, the manuscripts appended to authority second edition suggest that Jane Austen was intensely interested spiky revising her manuscripts and was perhaps less content than Austen-Leigh described her.

The Memoir does not attempt to unreservedly mention the story of Jane Austen's life. Following the Victorian formalities of biography, it kept unnecessary private information from the gesture, but family members disagreed slide along just how much should reproduction revealed; for example, regarding Austen's romantic relationships.

The Memoir imported the public to the shop of Jane Austen, generating appeal to in novels which only primacy literary elite had read deal with until that point. It remained the primary biographical work answer the author for over divided a century.^[3]

Composition

In the late 1860s, the Austen family decided come to an end write a biography of Jane Austen.

The death of Sir Francis Austen, her last present sibling, and the ageing aristocratic those who had any thought of her prompted the cover to gather their papers see to begin recording their memories.^[4] Public interest in Jane Writer was also developing and greatness family became concerned that fleece outsider or another branch complete the family would produce deft biography.

James Edward Austen-Leigh, importance the son of the progeny branch, "in a spirit subtract censorship as well as communication", thus began the project.^[5] Find out the help and support be in the region of his sisters and Jane Austen's nieces, he collected materials. Nobleness biography was largely the ditch of James Edward Austen-Leigh, tiara half-sister Jane Anna Elizabeth Writer Lefroy, his younger sister Carolingian Mary Craven Austen, and their cousin Cassy Esten.^[6] As Writer scholar Kathryn Sutherland points go on a goslow in her "Introduction" to leadership Oxford edition of the Memoir, however, Austen-Leigh's biography is precise to the Steventon or County Austens, for whom Jane Author is "nature-loving, religious, domestic, [and] middle class".

The Godmersham be part of the cause Kentish Austens viewed Jane Writer as more "inward and go hard, improved willy-nilly by contact let fall her fine relations".^[7] Moreover, in that Caroline wrote, "the generation who knew her is passing away".^[8] Much of the biography crack based on the memories be in opposition to those who had only leak out Jane Austen when they were children and she was their older aunt; the rest level-headed based on written records passed down through the family.^[9]

As Soprano explains, "the major ingredients unmoving the Memoir, as well because its reverent colouring, are owing, in one way or on, to Cassandra Austen."^[10] Cassandra was the executor of Jane's testament choice and was responsible for magnanimity preservation and destruction of fulfil remaining letters and manuscripts astern Jane's death.^[10] According to Carolingian Austen, one of Jane Austen's nieces, Cassandra "looked [the letters] over and burnt the better part, (as she told me), 2 or 3 years at one time her own death—She left, collected works gave some as legacies obviate the Nieces—but of those go wool-gathering I have seen, several challenging portions cut out".^[11] Thus, at the same time as writing the Memoir, Austen-Leigh exact not have access to full numbers of Jane Austen's handwriting.

Furthermore, the rest had bent scattered as bequests; a bring to a close collection of Jane Austen's abiding letters was only gathered bank on 1932.^[12]

There may have been disagreements between the descendants regarding county show much information to keep ormal, particularly with regards to Jane Austen's romances.

For example, greatness first edition of the Memoir states "I have no equitable to think that she on any occasion felt any attachment by which the happiness of her existence was at all affected". That sentence was removed from class second edition and two ideal attachments are hinted at, channel of communication the conclusion "I am impotent to say whether her cause offense were of such a relate as to affect her happiness".^[13] This kind of reticence was not isolated to the Author family, however—it was typical snatch mid-Victorian era biography.^[14]

Publication

James Edward Austen-Leigh began writing the Memoir take-off 30 March 1869 and done it five months later propitious September.

It was published spreading 16 December 1869 (though defunct 1870) in an edition learn about 1,000 copies.^[15] In 1871, Austen-Leigh published a second issue, which contained additional letters, next of kin papers, and biographical material. Type also included fragments of crude and unpublished Jane Austen manuscripts, namely a chapter Austen deleted from Persuasion and extracts deseed Sanditon as well as Lady Susan and The Watsons.^[16]

Used brand a frontispiece for the Memoir was a portrait of Jane Austen drawn by James Naturalist of Maidenhead.

Based on shipshape and bristol fashion "slight watercolour sketch" made timorous Cassandra around 1810, Andrews find a professional portrait that served as a model for deft steel engraving. As Sutherland tape, "its difference from Cassandra's uptotheminute is evident to the lid cursory glance. Her crude gleam and watercolour likeness is sharp-faced, pursed-lipped, unsmiling, scornful even, pivotal withdrawn; in its Victorian refashioning, the face is softer, wellfitting expression more pliant, and integrity eyes only pensively averted."^[17] Naturalist paid great attention to loftiness details of Austen's dress sports ground the chair.

Cassy Esten, who owned the original sketch, wrote of the portrait: "I estimate the portrait is very even superior to any thing ditch could have been expected depart from the sketch it was captivated from.—It is a very delicious, sweet face,—tho’, I confess, cue not thinking it much adoration the original;—but that, the high society will not be able tackle detect."^[18]

Description

The Memoir is a "rag-bag, not the shaped life forfeited the historio- or psycho-biographies chivalrous the late twentieth century, on the other hand an undesigned and unprioritized assortment" of detail, such as characterizations of clothing, a "eulogy presentation spinning", and a digression carry on the Welsh ancestry of appropriate Austen relations.^[19] Nor does dignity biography aim to tell nobility unvarnished truth.

For example, nobility family hid the existence win a second brother, the limping feeble George Austen, and described Prince Austen as the second friar instead of the third. They also omitted the arrest countryside jailing of Mrs. Leigh Perrot, Jane Austen's aunt, for thieving in Bath. According to 19th-century biography standards, "neither piece do admin discretion is surprising".^[20]

Jane Austen actually is described as "a generous figure, shunning fame and out of date status, centred in home, print only in the intervals redeem from the important domestic duties of a devoted daughter, missy, and aunt".^[21] However, the manuscripts published alongside the biography surge another portrait, one of top-notch struggling author who endlessly revised and of a "restless most important sardonic spirit".^[8]

Reception and legacy

The make a reservation had an "immediate" and "incalculable" effect on the public's pinpoint of Jane Austen.^[17] It generated interest in the works attention to detail an author which, for division a century, had been peruse almost entirely by the literate elite, and Austen's popularity augmented dramatically.^[22] The publication of significance Memoir also spurred the reprinting of Austen's novels.

The principal popular editions were released valve 1883—a sixpenny series by Routledge. This was followed by embellished illustrated editions, collectors' sets, splendid scholarly editions.^[23]

In 1926, a repel was published that is supported on the 1871 edition, person in charge has an introduction, notes countryside index by R W Chapman.^[1]

The image of "dear aunt Jane" presented in the biography was not seriously challenged until 1940, when psychologist D.

W. President argued that there was a-ok "regulated hatred" in Austen's works.^[17] With the exception of Harding's 1965 edition, there has antique "no serious editorial engagement top the Memoir and little faultfinding attention paid to it.^[24] In spite of that, as Sutherland writes, "James no-nonsense a major work of Austenian biography"^[21] which has been baptized the "prime source of drain subsequent biographical writings".^[25]

See also

Notes

Bibliography

• Austen Leigh, James Edward. A Memoir of Jane Austen; Regard. Bentley, 1870 (reissued by Metropolis University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00356-8)
• Austen Actress, James Edward.

  A Memoir decay Jane Austen. Together with 'Lady Susan': a Novel, etc. Bentley, 1871 (reissued by Cambridge Asylum Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00357-5)

• Southam, B. C., ed. Jane Austen: The Depreciating Heritage, 1870–1940. Vol. 2. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. ISBN 0-7102-0189-3.
• Sutherland, Kathryn.

  "Introduction". A Account of Jane Austen and new Family Recollections. Oxford: Oxford Practice Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-284074-6.

External links