Book 1 - The Real Jane Austen : A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne
Rather than write the usual kind of biography which begins with the subject's birth/early years and follows their life in a linear pattern, this book picks a subject and builds upon it.
There is a focus on what made Jane Austen a writer, who or what influenced her - such as her childhood family plays, her brothers' experiences in the navy, army/militia, the people she met both at home and on her travels. What comes out of this book is a realisation that Jane Austen was a rather fashionable, well travelled person who liked mixing in Society, meeting people, going up to London to the theatre etc. She has all too often been portrayed as the quiet home-loving, timid little spinsterish sister who never went anywhere. Well that image certainly wasn't the one portrayed here!
Some of the chapters I found more interesting than others. I was fascinated by the shocking tale of her kleptomaniac aunt, Mrs Leigh-Perrot, who stole some lace from a shop, was caught and charged with the theft, thus causing a huge scandal in Bath society and embarrassment all round. It wasn't her only theft either - she was known to local shopkeepers as having committed similar offences before and after this one.
The chapter entitled The Daughter of Mansfield looks at Lord Mansfield's adoption of his two nieces Lady Elizabeth Murray and Dido Belle, the latter being the illegitimate daughter of Mansfield's nephew Captain John Lindsay and a slave Maria Belle. Mansfield and his wife had no children of their own, and brought up these two girls as their own and were his heirs. This chapter is expanded upon in Paula Byrne's later book, Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle, which I read first, and would be worth reading as an accompaniment to this book as it delves further into the slave trade cases which came before Lord Mansfield, the then Lord Chief Justice, leading directly into the abolition movement.
A thoroughly enjoyable and informative book.