13 Facts About Cassandra Austen

Cassandra Elizabeth Austen was an amateur English watercolourist and the elder sister of Jane Austen.

Cawley lived initially in Oxford, and later in Southampton, and when a typhus epidemic broke out in Southampton, the Cassandra Austen sisters returned to Steventon after both girls contracted the disease.

In 1791, Cassandra produced a series of circular illustrations of British monarchs for Jane's manuscript The History of England, which are noted to have resembled members of the Austen family more than royalty.

Cassandra Austen is credited with having created two paintings of her sister.

Cassandra Austen's family had reservations about Jane's real appearance: Anna Cassandra Austen called it "so hideously unlike".

George Cassandra Austen was not wealthy and had supplemented his income as a country parson "by taking in pupils and tutoring them for Oxford".

Jane died in 1817 and Cassandra Austen is reported to have destroyed two-thirds of Jane's letters in 1843, a couple of years before her own death.

Cassandra Austen passed the remainder on to relations as mementos.

Cassandra Austen continued living at Chawton, at first with her mother and a family friend, Martha Lloyd.

Cassandra Austen's mother died in 1827 and Martha left to marry Cassandra's brother Frank in 1828.

Cassandra Austen lived on alone at the cottage but continued to visit friends and relations.

Cassandra Austen died there a few days later on 22 March 1845, aged 72.

Cassandra Austen's body was returned to her home village of Chawton for burial at St Nicholas' Church alongside her mother.