A tiny token of Austen's big love
She described him as "a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man", and Jane Austen certainly fell for his boyish charms.
He was law student Tom Lefroy and the tiny watercolour portrait of him which is expected to fetch £50,000 ($103,000) when it goes on sale next week, was painted two years after the brief but highly charged dalliance he had with the novelist. They met at a ball, danced together over and over and sat and talked about their love of books and Henry Fielding.
Austen and Lefroy fell in love, but she was penniless and his family was poor - he needed to marry money. Lefroy went on to forge a successful legal and political career, becoming Ireland's chief justice "> [Read more →]

Mark Brown
June 11, 2008
Guardian News & Media