About 50 years after the death of author Jane Austen, her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh was approached and asked to write a memoir detailing her life. He agreed, though he was but a young boy when she died and many of her letters and other memorabilia had long since been destroyed. What he produced was an incomplete and inaccurate portrait of the author, filled with reminiscences of an aunt who died long before the memoir’s author reached manhood and could know her properly.
What is wonderful about this book is the glowing report of a beloved aunt and author. Also the descriptions of England during the Regency period, so different from the Victorian England of Austen-Leigh’s adulthood, will delight any historian. This is truly a sweet and delicate read that I enjoyed very much.
As Fay Weldon says in her introduction: “…the real strength and importance of the memoir … is the occasion it affords … for ‘observing many changes gradually effected in the manners and habits of society’ … here we have such intriguing descriptions of balls, and etiquettes and household manners, and how gentlemen used to do their own gardening and how the early dinner hour rendered candlesticks unnecessary and how gloves which were a little soiled were thought good enough for a country dance ….”
And so the memoir does delight and inform and treat the reader to a long ago era in which Jane herself lived and wrote. Sigh. I’m off to watch more BBC adaptations now….
Till next time, happy reading.
L :)
