Jane Austen's 'Outlandish Cousin': The Life and Letters of Eliza De Feuillide

Eliza de Feuillide is best known as the spirited first cousin of Jane Austen, whose colourful life and travels are recounted here, through her extensive correspondence with Jane, the Austen family and other friends and relatives. Born in Calcutta in 1761, she spent an impecunious childhood in England and then France, where she married an aristocratic French officer and lived through the Revolution, surviving her husband who was guillotined in 1794. Many of Eliza's letters vividly illuminate the lives of Jane Austen and her family, and are all the more revealing for having been written long before Jane became a well-known authoress. They provide many valuable insights into the background to Jane Austen's novels as well as being a highly entertaining social and historical record in their own right.