recommended, like a priggish elder sister, to unruly siblings and apprentices

I'm not sure if I'm misreading the part in bold. Is it saying that "Jane Austen, who was recommended to"? Is recommended a reduced relative clause here?

Jane Austen was an early favorite of male critics, recommended, like a priggish elder sister, to unruly siblings and apprentices. G. H. Lewes recommended Austen to Charlotte Bronte in 1848, but Bronte rejected her as being elegantand confined, "a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers." Source

Solution 1:

It means she was 'recommended' as a role-model to 'unruly' boys and girls; presumably like Charlotte Bronte was as a young girl, given the quote.

The reference to 'sublings' is to suggest a family context.

And the 'priggishness' is a pejorative word for polite and orderly.

(Personally speaking, I'd quite like to have Jane Austen as an elder sister - and maybe Charlotte Bronte as a younger one ..!)