Jane Austen is one of England’s greatest and best-loved novelists, whose works are still widely read and enjoyed nearly two hundred years after her death. Memories of Jane were increasingly recorded as her reputation and fame grew in the nineteenth century.

This is the life of Jane in the words of the people who knew her; it provides a fascinating insight into her life as a member of a close, loving family and her works as a novelist. The Jane Austen Files brings these memories, in the form of family diaries and memoirs by her nearest and dearest relatives, as well as all of Jane’s own letters, together in one volume. This book also opens a window on to the England in which Jane Austen lived, and lovingly set her novels.

• Includes all the Austen family memoirs about Jane, the

  long-forgotten diaries of Fanny Knight (Jane's niece) and all extant letters

  written by Jane Austen

• Publication

  coincides with major celebrations around the bicentenary of the first

  publication of Jane Austen's novels in 2015, 2016 and also her death on 18 July

  2017

• Huge interest in Jane Austen. See

  the popularity of the Jane Austen Centre (Bath); Jane Austen's House, Chawton

  (Hampshire); gift shops in the village of Steventon (near Basingstoke); Lyme Hall,

  National Trust (used to represent Pemberley House in the most watched BBC TV

  adaptation of Pride and Prejudice); and Winchester Cathedral, where Jane

  Austen is buried