Sisters and the Arts: Austens, Porters, Founders, and Beyond

The person Jane knew best who literally created works of art on a miniature scale (on paper) was Cassandra Austen. Nigro acknowledges that Cassandra was nowhere as significant for the visual arts as Jane was for literature, yet he persuasively argues that Cassandra deserves reassessment as an artist of vision and talent. Yet ours isn't the first era to re-evaluate Cassandra and present a more sympathetic popular treatment of her, or to cast the sisters as partners in life and the arts. The illustrations for I Had a Sister, by William Townsend, depict Jane and Cassandra's physically close relationship and suggest that their intimacy was cemented over a mutual love of books and writing.