Edith Charlotte Brown (née Hubback) was an English author whose literary career was deeply intertwined with the legacy of her great-great-aunt, Jane Austen. Born in the Wirral, Cheshire, in 1876, she began her publishing career in 1906 by co-authoring a biographical study of Austen's naval officer brothers, Francis and Charles, alongside her father. Following her marriage to James Francis Leadley Brown in 1907, she spent several years living in Saskatchewan, Canada, before eventually returning to her native Cheshire.
Brown is most recognized for her creative continuations of Austen's unfinished and completed works during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1928, she published a completed version of Austen's unfinished novel The Watsons. Though her husband was credited as a co-author, Brown penned the preface, which notably critiqued an earlier completion of the same manuscript written by her grandmother, Catherine Hubback. Despite mixed critical reception, this project established her as a dedicated custodian of the Austen family's literary tradition.
She followed this with two sequels to Austen's major novels: Margaret Dashwood, or, Interference (1929), a continuation of Sense and Sensibility, and Susan Price, or, Resolution (1930), which followed the characters of Mansfield Park. These sequels received positive contemporary reviews, with critics praising her ability to capture the authentic atmosphere and style of her famous ancestor. Her literary legacy continued into the next generation when her daughter, Helen Brown, published a play about Jane Austen in 1939.
