The Project Gutenberg eBook, Memoir of Jane Austen, by James Edward
Austen-Leigh

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Title: Memoir of Jane Austen

Author: James Edward Austen-Leigh

Release Date: February 19, 2006 [eBook #17797]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN***

Transcribed from the 1871 Richard Bentley and Son edition by Les Bowler.

A MEMOIR OF JANE AUSTEN.

[Jane Austen: Jane.jpg]

[Title Page: title.jpg]

PREFACE.

THE MEMOIR of my AUNT, JANE AUSTEN, has been received with more favour
than I had ventured to expect. The notices taken of it in the periodical
press, as well as letters addressed to me by many with whom I am not
personally acquainted, show that an unabated interest is still taken in
every particular that can be told about her. I am thus encouraged not
only to offer a Second Edition of the Memoir, but also to enlarge it with
some additional matter which I might have scrupled to intrude on the
public if they had not thus seemed to call for it. In the present
Edition, the narrative is somewhat enlarged, and a few more letters are
added; with a short specimen of her childish stories. The cancelled
chapter of 'Persuasion' is given, in compliance with wishes both publicly
and privately expressed. A fragment of a story entitled 'The Watsons' is
printed; and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few
months before her death; but the chief addition is a short tale never
before published, called 'Lady Susan.' {0a} I regret that the little
which I have been able to add could not appear in my First Edition; as
much of it was either unknown to me, or not at my command, when I first
published; and I hope that I may claim some indulgent allowance for the
difficulty of recovering little facts and feelings which had been merged
half a century deep in oblivion.

NOVEMBER 17, 1870.

CONTENTS.

Chapter I. _Introductory Remarks--Birth of Jane Austen--Her Family
Connections--Their Influence on her Writings_

Chapter II. _Description of Steventon--Life at Steventon--Changes of
Habits and Customs in the last Century_