My intention in this book is to present in one volume to an
over-wrought, and in some respects over-read, generation of young
people the most characteristic of Jane Austen’s novels, together with
her life. I think the tales and the life are calculated to reflect
light on each other; I think, also, that the arrangement of the
tales--which I have selected as the author wrote them, and not as they
happened to be published, particularly in reference to the fact that
the two which I have given first were written more than ten years
before “Emma” and “Persuasion”--is an advantage, in permitting the
growth of the author’s mind and taste to be recognised. I have used my
own judgment in the selection of the stories, and in the degree and
manner in which I have condensed them. It is with reverent hands that
I have touched these great English novels, for the purpose of bringing
them into such compass as may make them readily accessible to all,
and especially to young readers, apt to be wearied by the slightest
diffuseness. Wherever it has been possible, in view of my aim, I
have used the author’s own words, as incomparably the best for the
characters and situations. I have pointed out here and there the great
changes in social standards, customs and fashions since Jane Austen
wrote; while it is her glory that the human nature in her books and
the human nature in every generation are the same. I have occasionally
called attention to an unrivalled piece of art, which a too eager or an
inexperienced reader may be in danger of overlooking.
So far from presuming to wish to draw readers from Jane Austen’s novels
in their complete form, it is my earnest desire to send many a young
student who may be tempted to quench her intellectual thirst at sources
utterly unworthy of the great English novelist, to the originals of the
tales I have abridged.
I have much pleasure in acknowledging the obligation I owe to Mr.
Austen Leigh, Jane Austen’s nephew, who, with tender and reverent care,
gathered together and recorded all the particulars that remained of her
personal and family history. I have drawn solely and largely from this
biography, which is, indeed, the only authorised memoir of the author.
* * * * *
⁂ The portrait which, by the kindness of the Austen Leigh family and
Mr. Bentley, we are enabled to put as the frontispiece to this work,
has the interest of being a faithful copy of the only portrait that was
ever taken of Jane Austen, a rough sketch made by her sister Cassandra,
and afterwards touched by the hand of a professional artist, and while
it cannot claim to be a perfect portrait, it is considered by those who
have seen and known the great novelist to be a fairly good likeness of
her.
[Illustration]