I have finished reading it and enjoyed it very much. Even allowing for the wish of a family member to show Jane in the best possible light, she comes across as a warm, funny and loving person.
My favourite part was the document found among her papers after she died: "Plan of a novel according to hints from various quarters", which I found quite hilarious. She had a keen sense of the absurd. The warmth of her relationships with her family members is illustrated in various letters, not least in one where she teases her young nephew who has written to her from his home and in his letter told her that he had arrived there:
Quote:
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I am glad you recollected to mention your being come home. My heart began to sink within me when I had got so far through your letter withouts its being mentioned. I was dreadfully afraid that you might be detained at Winchester by severe illness, confined to your bed perhaps, and quite unable to hold a pen, and only dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort of tenderness, to deceive me. But now I have no doubt of your being at home. I am sure you would not say it so seriously unless it actually were so.
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I downloaded my copy from Gutenberg, and also a copy of a book by William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, which I shall read in the future.