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
Jane Austen Will brought on a relapse ... but a weak Body must excuse weak Nerves". She continued to work in spite of her illness. Dissatisfied with the ending of "The Elliots", she rewrote the final two chapters, which she finished on 6 August 1816. In January 1817 Austen began "The Brothers" (titled "Sanditon" when published in 1925), and completed twelve chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817, probably due to illness. Todd describes "Sanditon"'s heroine, Diana Parker, as an "energetic invalid". In the novel, Austen mocked hypochondriacs and though she describes the heroine as "bilious", five days after abandoning the novel