Jane Austen & Adlestrop
Subtitle Her Other Family
By Victoria Huxley
Published by
Windrush Publishing
ISBN 9780957515024
Category Biography
Winter 2014
Synopsis
This book opens up a fresh window on the author’s life. It examines the probabilities that the Leighs’ colourful lives and inheritance problems influenced many of the plot lines in Jane Austen’s books. It's also a portrayal of an archetypal English village’s journey from the eighteenth century to now.
Author's Biography
Victoria Huxley is an editor and publisher who has lived in Adlestrop for over twenty-five years.
Reviews
'the charm of Victoria Huxley's book is its grounding in location, putting this strand of Jane Austen's family history in place' Claire Harman, TLS
Price £10.99
Reader Comments
As a Jane Austen fan and an English person now living in Australia, I loved Victoria Huxley's descriptions of the unique Cotswold village of Adlestrop and its influence on Jane Austen's novels.
I warmly recommend Victoria Huxley's book Jane Austen and Adlestrop which I greatly enjoyed reading for its insights into rural society,high and aspiring , how they came to wealth and property, how they interacted with relatives. It is meticulously researched and lovingly described by the author who has long melded with the landscape and absorbed the atmosphere. I particularly benefited from the boxed reference to episodes in the book related to descriptions in the novels. It makes enlightening reading and is most enjoyable.
I first got to know Jane Austen through her books which I have long loved. Then I discovered this one which delighted me. Victoria Smith has livingly captured the spirit of the place Adlestrop and the times, through her own descriptions and researches. Other local connections and houses are also linked by her to Jane: Stoneliegh ( the Leigh family), Daylesford (Warren Hastings) Broughton castle (Barons Saye and Sele). I know this area well and yet I learnt a lot. Her style is engaging. I have lent and given the book to friends and family all of whom have enjoyed it very much.
A wonderfully informative and knowledgable book about Jane Austen's Gloucestershire and Warwickshire connections -essential reading for anyone interested in the subject.
A carefully researched and beautifully written history of the village of Adlestrop, home to many of Jane Austen's maternal forbears and visited several times by the novelist herself. The ramifications of the eccentric Leigh family, and their habit of developing houses and grounds to keep up with fashions in architecture and landscape gardening, fill out our understanding of Austen's novelistic concerns and provide a fascinating portrait of a quintessentially English village through history.
Victoria Huxley's strength comes from placing Jane Austen and her family in context of her times, social standing and peopled with contemporaries within the history of Adlestrop as an interesting place in its own right
A very interesting new aspect to the Jane Austen story, with helpful quotations from her books, linking her actual life with scenes from her novels.
I love this book. It is meticulously researched and tells the compelling history of the Leighs of Adlestrop and Stoneleigh, relations and ancestors of Jane Austen's mother. I learned a great deal and thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the characters' lives and homes.
This is a truly memorable addition to the Jane Austen canon. It is very well researched and written with great authority and verve. A fascinating read. I literally could not put it down. I learnt so much.