Anna Austen

Anna Austen Lefroy (1793-1872) (Jane-Anna-Elizabeth Austen/Anna Lefroy) was the niece of Jane Austen by her eldest brother James Austen, and a contributor to her life-history via the so-called Lefroy MS. A keen if amateur writer herself, Anna was the recipient of the most revealing of Austen's letters on literary matters. Life Known in family tradition as a naughty child, Anna became a lively, outgoing and changeable adolescent - "quite an Anna with variations" as her Aunt put it (startled by the unexpected cropping of her niece's hair). At the age of twenty, Anna became engaged to a family connection, Benjamin Lefroy, and despite family opposition the pair were married in 1814. The marriage seems to have been a successful one, and by 1817 the pair had two young daughters, and Anna was apparently expecting again: "Poor Animal, she will be worn out before she is thirty", wrote her Aunt. The couple had seven children in all, before Anna lost her husband in 1829.