By Jane Austen
112 pages; British Library

Shapely and sharply detailed, trimmed with artistry and wit: That might describe a Jane Austen novel—or a silhouette by her favorite nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh. His little hand-tooled leather album, pride of the Austen family for generations, is filled with delectable images of fishing trips and fox hunts, hogs and hay wagons, bonneted ladies and shotgun-sporting gents, all cut freehand by this canny master of the scissors. Now the British Library has collected the cream of Austen-Leigh's little-known vignettes and paired them with apt quotations from the writings of his cherished aunt Jane to produce Life in the Country, an enchanting glimpse of the landscape this writer called home.

— Cathleen Medwick