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