James Edward Austen Leigh; A Memoir by His Daughter
Colchester, London, and Eton: Spottiswoode & Co., Ltd. printers, 1911. For Private Circulation. Hardcover. viii, 351, [1] pages. Appendices. Some cover wear and page foxing/discoloration. Corners bumped. Inscribed on the fep: R. Durnford from W. Austen Leigh Xmas 1911. William Austen Leigh was Jane Austen's nephew. RARE, and has direct family connection! Mary Augusta Austen-Leigh was born in 1838 in Berkshire, the daughter of James Edward Austen-Leigh. Her great aunt was Jane Austen (1775–1817) and her cousin was novelist Catherine Anne Hubback. Austen-Leigh followed the example of her famous family members by writing the single novel Hurst and Hanger (1886). She spent most of her life living in London with her brother William and sister Emma. Later in life, she wrote a memoir of her father and a biography of her great aunt, Personal Aspects of Jane Austen in 1920. She never married and died in 1922 in London. Inheriting her family views, she firmly believed in protecting Jane Austen's reputation. Almost one hundred years after the death of Jane Austen, William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh published "Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record" (1913). The book lovingly details Jane's birth, childhood, adolescence, and maturity; the everyday minutiae of her life, the circumstances in which she wrote her juvenilia and her six novels, and her early death. Using Jane Austen's own letters, additional letters sent between a large & fond family, and family reminiscences, William and Richard Austen-Leigh continued the family tradition of carefully nurturing the literary and personal reputation of a literary icon who happened to be a most beloved aunt.-- Goodreads. More