Crime novel by relative of Jane Austen back in print after 80 years

Lois Austen-Leigh’s The Incredible Crime will be republished in October for the first time since 1931

Based on a classic ... Jane Austen’s writing desk, presented to the British Library by Joan Austen-Leigh, the great-granddaughter of Jane’s nephew James. Photograph: PA

Alison Flood

Friday 29 May 2015  The Guardian

The scene is set in Wellende Old Hall, the “magnificent stately old pile” that has been the family seat of the Temples for centuries. But the crime novel by the granddaughter of Jane Austen’s nephew – supposedly written on the very desk used by her illustrious ancestor – has been shrouded in mystery since it fell out of print.

Now the British Library is re-issuing Lois Austen-Leigh’s The Incredible Crime, hailed as “the very essence of mystery” when it was first published in 1931. The novel is due to appear in early 2017 as part of the library’s Crime Classics series, which this year will also include works by the neglected crime novelists J Jefferson Farjeon and Alan Melville, as well as next week’s release of Christopher St John Sprigg’s Death of an Airman.
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