James Edward Austen-Leigh

James Edward Austen-Leigh (1798–1874) was an English clergyman and the nephew of Jane Austen, the son of her eldest brother James. As a boy he knew his aunt well, and she encouraged his own early attempts at fiction. He took the additional surname Leigh in 1837 on inheriting property from his great-aunt, and served for many years as vicar of Bray in Berkshire. A keen huntsman, he wrote recollections of the Vine Hunt. In 1870, with help from his sisters and cousins, he published A Memoir of Jane Austen, the first full biography of his aunt, which shaped her reputation for generations of Victorian readers.