Austen’s great-nephew Lord Brabourne perpetuated the Victorianized Austen in his edition of Austen’s letters. He found Regency England far too frank and coarse for his tastes, and removes Austen’s occasional comments about the seeming perpetual pregnancies of her sisters-in-law and other acquaintances.

And for Austen’s comment concerning a party that she “was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow me,” he substituted “was as civil to them as circumstances would allow me.”