ABSTRACT
Tennyson, who was a strong admirer of Jane Austen, remarked, before the publication of the Memoir by James Austen-Leigh, that he was thankful that no more was known about her than about Shakespeare: sheer absence of data obviated the temptation to distracting and unverifiable speculation. But Tennyson was not entirely right: if we knew more about Shakespeare's life, we might well be able to eliminate some of the teasing difficulties which obstruct the judgment of some of his plays. In particular, we know that the old notion of Jane Austen as the sheltered spinster, securely free from danger, squalor and tragedy, is largely a mistaken one. In an essay on 'Jane Austen and the peerage' he shows how the names of Jane Austen's characters correspond closely to names recurring in the annals of a group of great families connected, if distantly, with her mother's ancestral background.
