This book offers an intimate and intriguing account of Jane Austen's relations, from 1704, when her great-grandmother was left a widow with six children to support, through to 1870, and the destinies of her many nephews and nieces. Drawing extensively on letters and memoirs written by the Austen family over a period of 150 years, this book traces the development of the family from vigorous Georgian opportunism to respectable Victorian gentility.