Anna Austen Lefroy
Anna Lefroy (née Jane Anna Elizabeth Austen; 1793–1872) was the niece of Jane Austen by her eldest brother James Austen, and a contributor to her life-history via the so-called Lefroy MS.
A keen if amateur writer herself, Anna was the recipient of the most revealing of Austen's letters on literary matters.[1]
Life
[edit]Known in family tradition as a naughty child,[2] Anna became a lively, outgoing and changeable adolescent – "quite an Anna with variations" as her Aunt put it (startled by the unexpected cropping of her niece's hair).[3]
At the age of twenty, Anna became engaged to a family connection, Benjamin Lefroy, and despite family opposition the pair were married in 1814.[4] The marriage seems to have been a successful one, and by 1817 the pair had two young daughters, and Anna was apparently pregnant again: "Poor Animal, she will be worn out before she is thirty", wrote her Aunt.[5] The couple had seven children in all, before Anna was widowed in 1829.[6]
Writings
[edit]Niece and aunt had bonded over a love of 'bad' romantic fiction, such as that by Rachel Hunter; and when during her engagement Anna began writing a novel – known as Enthusiasm or Which is the Heroine? – it was natural for her to share it with her aunt.[7]
Anna also tried her hand at continuing an early Austen story called 'Evelyn';[8] as well as (later) the unfinished Sanditon.[9]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Ronald Blythe, Introduction, Emma (Penguin Ed.) p. 10
- ^ R A Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen: A Family Record (London 1989) pp. 161–162
- ^ Deirdre Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 184 (and p. 170)
- ^ Deirdre Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 425 and p. 546
- ^ Deirdre Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 336 and p. 327
- ^ Deirdre Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p. 546
- ^ Deirdre Le Faye ed., Jane Austen's Letters (Oxford 1995) p.443 and p. 267
- ^ L Bree, Jane Austen's Manuscript Works (2012) p. 5 and p. 591
- ^ K Sutherland ed., A Memoir of Jane Austen (2008) p. 260
External links
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