Jane Austen is not usually associated with children - especially since she had none of her own. But there are in fact more children in her novels than one might at first think. She herself was from a sizeable family, with numerous nephews and nieces. She was, by all accounts, good with children and popular with them. It was therefore natural for her to include them in her novels, even if sometimes offstage. This book, by one of the world's leading authorities on Austen, looks at both the real and the literary children in her life - children seen and unseen (and dead); children as models of behaviour, good and bad; as objects of affection, amusement, usefulness, pity, regret, jealousy, resentment; children in the way; children as excuses; children as heirs. In the process it casts fascinating light on a hitherto largely ignored aspect of her work and the age in which she lived.

Rohan O'Grady is the pseudonym for June Margaret O'Grady who was born in Vancouver in 1922. O'Grady began writing poetry and stories as a young child and ventured into full length fiction in her late thirties after her marriage to newspaper editor Frederick Skinner. By 1963, O'Grady had published three novels in three years, O'Houlihan's Jest in 1961, Pippin's Journal in 1962, and Let's Kill Uncle in 1963. The latter two books were illustrated by Edward Gorey. In 1966, William Castle directed the Hollywood horror movie Let's Kill Uncle starring Nigel Green and Mary Badham (the young star of To Kill a Mockingbird). Several unproduced screenplays and two novels followed: Bleak November in 1970 and The Mayspoon in 1981. June Skinner has resided in West Vancouver since 1959.