edward austen was jane austen's brother. - the jane austen? - the jane austen.nd he changed his name to knight when he inherited the chawton and godmersham estate. so you're a direct descendant of jane austen? - yes. - wow! she's my great-great-great- grandfather's sister. fantastic! jane austen-- that's a very interesting case in point. she was an intensely private person. only 5% of her correspondence survives. and people are hungry for the slightest shred of information about her. viney: now tell me about this. that is jane austen's cup and ball. that is her own cup and ball. how astonishing. and is it recorded that she played with it? yes, it is. yes, that was-- she's well-known as spending hours with her cup and ball. she could do over 100 in the cup, but it's one of the things she used to enjoy doing. of course, you can't put it to a forensic test. there's no d.n.a. that you can test that cup and a ball for to see whether it's got traces of jane austen on it. but the way he told the story and the conviction he had, to me, i thought that man is certainly co