Henry Thomas Austen In 1793 he joined the Oxfordshire Militia, rising to captain before resigning in 1801. In 1804 he founded, with two associates, the bank of Austen, Maude and Tilson in Covent Garden, London. It went bankrupt in 1816. He entered the church that same year and was made curate of Chawton, Hampshire. In 1820 he was made Rector of Steventon. He arranged the publication of "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" after Jane Austen's death in 1817. He is believed to have published the first biographical notice of her, which prefaces those novels. He revised and expanded that short memoir for the republication
Reception history of Jane Austen Scott's and Whately's opinions dominated the reception of Austen's works and few people read her novels. In 1869, this changed with the publication of the first significant Austen biography, "A Memoir of Jane Austen", which was written by Jane Austen's nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. With its release, Austen's popularity and critical standing increased dramatically. Readers of the "Memoir" were presented with the myth of the amateur novelist who wrote masterpieces: the "Memoir" fixed in the public mind a sentimental picture of Austen as a quiet, middle-aged maiden aunt and reassured them that her work was suitable for a respectable Victorian