Jane Austen expected little of Egerton Brydges. In a 25 November 1798 letter to her sister Cassandra, the twenty-three-year-old Austen reported that she and her father had been reading the first volume of Brydges's new novel, Arthur Fitz-Albini: "We have neither of us yet finished the first volume. My father is disappointed--I am not, for I expected nothing better." She added, "Never did any book carry more internal evidence of its author. Every sentiment is completely Egerton's." Brydges, a brother of Anne Brydges Lefroy (Austen's beloved Madame Lefroy), often seems to resemble one of Austen's villains. He was obsessed with his pedigree and titles, claiming descendency from the extinct house of Chandos, editing Arthur Collins's Peerage of England to support his position, and styling himself baron Chandos (per legem terrae). He was also a sullen snob who looked upon himself as an unacknowledged genius, the victim of fashion and...