Chawton Manor and its Owners
A Family History

A history of Chawton manor in Hampshire, famous for its association with Jane Austen's family, published in 1911.

William Austen Leigh (Author), Montagu George Knight (Author)

9781108076210, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 July 2014

272 pages, 50 b/w illus.
22.8 x 15.1 x 1.7 cm, 0.35 kg

Chawton House is famous today as the home of Jane Austen's brother Edward, who was adopted by a wealthy relative, Thomas Knight, and inherited his Hampshire estate. Edward offered the former bailiff's cottage close to the great house to his mother, who lived there with her unmarried daughters Jane and Cassandra. The house is now a study centre and library, for women's writing especially, but when this book was published in 1911 the building was still the Knight family home. Montagu Knight, the grandson of Edward, supplied material from the archives of the manor, while the book was largely written by his cousin William Austen Leigh, the son of Jane's nephew and memorialist. It covers the history of the manor from the Norman Conquest to the death of the second Edward in 1879, and, apart from the Austen connection, is a fascinating illustrated history of a typical English parish.

Note
1. Eight centuries
2. The manor
3. The church
4. The Knights and the building of Chawton House
5. The Lewkenors and the Martins
6. The Mays and the Brodnaxes
7. The Austens
Appendices
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]