Athenaeum member Price Grisham will present a lecture based on his paper, The Two Adopted Austens, that was published in Persuasions, the Jane Austen Society of North America’s peer reviewed journal. In it contrasts the lives of one Jane Austen’s brothers, Edward, who was adopted by wealthy relatives, with her other sibling, George, who was seriously disabled and sent away to live with caregivers. No portraits of George are known to exist.

Price Grisham has spoken on Austen in the Boston area and in England at Chawton House Library’s 2015 symposium, Religion and Literature in the Long Eighteenth Century: Approaches to Genre, Form, and Reading Practice. His short story “Candour” was included in Beguiling Miss Bennet: Stories Inspired by the Work of Jane Austen (Honno, 2016). Price has cerebral palsy and is a volunteer mentor for college students in the Boston area.