Jane Austen

English Men of Letters series (Jane, what are you doing here?). First published 1913. New pocket edition, 1926. Chapter I, Biography: "Materials for a biography of Jane Austen are very meagre. Her life was passed in a narrow circle, and there would be little to record if all were known. She lived as the daughter of a country clergyman of moderate means at Stevenson in Hampshires, at Bath, Southampton, and Chawton near Alton. She visited friends and relations in Hampshire and Berkshire, and at Godmersham in Kent, and spent some holiday time with her family on different occasions at Lyme Regis, at Teignmouth, Sidmouth, and other seaside places in the west of England. She never went abroad. She was now and then in London with her brothers; but her visits to London were neither frequent nor lengthy, and there is no reason to suppose that they brought her into contact with fashionable or literary society, although her name was beginning to be known, and if she had lived a year or two more would have been famous, since fame such as hers, when it comes to the living, often comes suddenly. She kept no journal--she could be satirical about journals, as readers of 'Northanger Abbey' will remember--or, if she did, it has perished. Jane and her only sister Cassandra lived in the same house for the greater part of her lifetime. When Jane was away, she wrote to Cassandra every week or oftener. When Jane died, Cassandra destroyed all of the letters that Jane had written to her and if Jane preserved Cassandra's letters, those were destroyed as well."