Life of Jane Austen stands in literary history as one of a group of female novelists of manners, of which the other most prominent figures are Miss Burney, lfiss Edgeworth, and Miss Ferrier, while the whole group stands in contrast to the contemporary novelists of romance, such as the once famous Mrs. Radcliffe. I Of the novelists of manners the common parent, to a certain extent, was Richardson, while the novelists of romance had a precursor in the author of "The Castle of Otranto." But it is n...