Love and Friendship and Other Early Works

by Jane Austen

A collection of Jane Austen's earliest writings, the "Juvenilia," not published in her lifetime. Immensely funny and remarkably sophisticated, their unerring accuracy has not diminished in 200 years. This captivating collection of the early works of Jane Austen uniquely displays the emerging talent of a brilliant and perceptive young woman. Completed before Austen was fifteen, the works are astonishing in their maturity. Blending the exuberance of youth with the sharp wit and devastating social criticism of her later novels, Love and Freindship is a collection not to be missed. 118 pp 5 x 8

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Romance, Historical Fiction, 18th Century, 19th Century

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1790

About the author

Jane Austen was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social standing and economic security. Her works are an implicit critique of the novels of sensibility of the second half of the 18th century and are part of the transition to 19th-century literary realism. Her deft use of social commentary, realism and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.

The anonymously published Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), were a modest success but brought her little fame in her lifetime. She wrote two other novels—Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1817—and began another, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before its completion. She also left behind three volumes of juvenile writings in manuscript, the short epistolary novel Lady Susan, and the unfinished novel The Watsons.
Since her death Austen's novels have rarely been out of print. A significant transition in her reputation occurred in 1833, when they were republished in Richard Bentley's Standard Novels series (illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering and sold as a set). They gradually gained wide acclaim and popular readership. In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience. Her work has inspired a large number of critical essays and has been included in many literary anthologies. Her novels have also inspired many films, including 1940's Pride and Prejudice, 1995's Sense and Sensibility and 2016's Love & Friendship.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

my becoming-a-genius project, part 10! round number means a good and special one!

for those of you who have not nearly been made sick to death of this project already:
i have decided to become a genius.

to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.

this is all i have left of jane austen, so stretching it out over as many days as humanly possible seems like the best choice for me and both my physical and emotional well-being.

because i'm pretty sure i will spontaneously cease to exist when i have nothing by jane left to read.


PROJECT 1: THE COMPLETE STORIES BY FLANNERY O'CONNOR
PROJECT 2: HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES BY CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
PROJECT 3: 18 BEST STORIES BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
PROJECT 4: THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES BY SHIRLEY JACKSON
PROJECT 5: HOW LONG 'TIL BLACK FUTURE MONTH? BY N.K. JEMISIN
PROJECT 6: THE SHORT STORIES OF OSCAR WILDE BY OSCAR WILDE
PROJECT 7: THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK BY ANDREW LANG
PROJECT 8: GRAND UNION: STORIES BY ZADIE SMITH
PROJECT 9: THE BEST OF ROALD DAHL BY ROALD DAHL
PROJECT 10: LOVE AND FREINDSHIP BY JANE AUSTEN


DAY 1: FREDERIC AND ELFRIDA
i hate footnotes but i love an appendix. and actually i probably don't hate footnotes so much as i hate jay kristoff, come to think of it.
but an appendix is really just like, "hey, if you want some fun facts, we have about 400 of them back here. no pressure though."
anyway, this is genuinely very funny. similar energy to agreeing with your friend to write a short story you're assigned by a fairly dumb teacher in early high school completely as a joke and getting away with it. (is this a universal experience? just me?)
anyway i love jane austen and i'm very excited for this.
rating: 4

DAY 2: JACK AND ALICE
i can already tell that even though i love jane austen with all of my heart and soul, i'm going to be taking a lot of days off from this. a girl can only take so many satirical looks at period fiction in a row. today, for example, is actually day 3.
literally everyone in this spends the whole thing drunk, one girl gets her leg broken by a bear trap while trespassing on a hot guy's grounds (?!), another lady commits murder, and all around some very non-austen hijinks are had. it rules.
rating: 3.5

DAY 3: EDGAR AND EMMA
caught up! and i can't wait to hear what this girl who shares my name is about to get up to. i have no doubt she's a dumb b*tch just like me <3
this is about a girl who gets mildly disappointed one time and spends the rest of her life crying about it. so relatable.
rating: 3.5

DAY 4: HENRY AND ELIZA
very sad for jane austen and the writers of her time that there were only, like, 8 usable names. but also must simplify the writing process.
this story allowed me to find out that Jane Austen's cousin's husband was guillotined during the French Revolution, which in turn allowed me to realize that every historical event is a century apart in my brain.
rating: 3.5

DAY 5: THE ADVENTURES OF MR. HARLEY
this story is half a page long and consists of a dude sitting on a coach and suddenly remembering the woman seated across from him is his wife.
also her name is Emma, and i love to feel represented.
rating: 3

DAY 6: SIR WILLIAM MOUNTAGUE: AN UNFINISHED PERFORMANCE
i don't have any jokes to crack about this one.
in other news, hell has frozen over, pigs have taken to the skies, etc. etc.
rating: 3

DAY 7: MEMOIRS OF MR CLIFFORD
i, too, think that the stories men who think they're interesting insist on telling are often the most boring things imaginable, so jane and i are in agreement on that.
rating: 3.5

DAY 8: THE BEAUTIFULL CASSANDRA
today is actually day 9, because in the great tradition of this project i missed a saturday, but in something that is new to both this and my life in general it was because i was out being social all day.
this is a story about a day in the life of a girl who mostly spends it eating six water ices and not paying for them, so i'm obviously a fan.
rating: 3.5

DAY 9: AMELIA WEBSTER
i'm not a fan of an epistolary situation but this one is funny.
rating: 3.5

DAY 10: THE VISIT
horror movie ass title right there.
this is a play where the whole joke is "what if rich people ate like poor people." since no matter how much money i had i'm pretty sure i would continue to live off of cheap alcohol and bagel bites, this is not relatable to me.
rating: 3

DAY 11: THE MYSTERY
agatha christie who??
rating: 3

DAY 12: THE THREE SISTERS
as one of three sisters i'm assuming this is about me.
not to be cheesy or earnest or whatever but it's actually very cool to watch jane austen's writing mature.
rating: 4

DAY 13: DETACHED PIECES
imagine you're a 7 month old baby and your aunt gives you a bunch of half-joke half-written stories intended to kinda sorta teach you lessons.
give the baby a jar of mashed up vegetables or something, jane. good lord. read the room.
rating: 3

DAY 14: LOVE AND FREINDSHIP
it's the titular story so it must be good!
hehe. titular.
unfortunately i am a huge grump and was not really in the mood for this. but that's probably on me.
rating: 3.5

DAY 15: LESLEY CASTLE
it's actually something like day 17, since on the actual days 15 and 16 i was extremely busy rediscovering my love of puzzles and getting very drunk watching a nicolas cage movie with my family, respectively, but seeing as i am very hungover from the latter and today's (two days ago's) story is pretty long, catching up may be a job for future me.
in fact, future me can add today's story to the tab. i'm going to go find some pizza or something.
...
okay, take 2.
i'm glad i waited because i found this super boring. also kind of confusing.
too much epistolary content for me!
rating: 3

DAY 16: THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
i'm at least half-heartedly playing catch-up. this one sounds like a barrel of laughs.
okay i was wrong. this is a barrel of laughs. super long though. and wow that's a lot of footnotes.
since this has already taken up a comical amount of my day, future me can take the lead on the rest of the catching up.
rating: 4

DAY 17: A COLLECTION OF LETTERS
i don't even know what catching up i have to do anymore. i just know i'm behind. life and time and basic tasks - they're all meaningless.
maybe i'll read two stories today and just say i'm done.
these were all very funny but wow it's like Jane is making it difficult for me to catch up on purpose.
rating; 4

DAY 18: SCRAPS
i just realized i only have 3 more days' worth of content in this book. i think i'm going to throw up and cry.
these scraps were fine, from what i could tell through my tears and panic.
rating: 3.25

DAY 19: EVELYN
jane austen's dumb nephew wrote the end of this story and it SHOWS.
rating: 3

DAY 20: CATHARINE, OR THE BOWER
i am now like 5 days behind but i only have 2 stories left and they're both LONG, so catching up is just never going to happen.
also, it's not my fault. i fought the second dose of the moderna vaccine and the vaccine won. i took a lengthy road trip with my family and didn't opt in for car sickness. i'm only human.
but i'm still sorry, jane.
this one was honestly kind of a snooze. sorry again, janie.
rating: 3

DAY 21: LADY SUSAN
the thing about penguin clothbound classics is that they are so BEAUTIFUL but not designed to be read. i've been getting hot pink flecks of the paint from these fancy shoes on my fingertips for like the last 3 reading days and they are looking worse for wear i'll tell ya.
anyway, today is the last day. this one's the biggie. the 80 pager. 20% of this book's page content and probably 30% if you exclude the appendix and sh*t.
i likely won't actually add this to my update feed until a long time after i start writing it. it's 11:23 a.m. now. let's see.
oh god it's another epistolary situation. we're really resting on our laurels here janie.
it's now 1:26 p.m. and i can say with certainty that if all of these letters were from lady susan, a heinous b*tch whom i adore, i would be a lot closer to finishing this than i am now.
all right, people. it is 2:52 p.m., we are done, and i wish jane austen wrote more stuff about horrible people like this.
rating: 4

OVERALL
while this, naturally, was way worse than anything else jane austen ever wrote with the exception of the dreaded Mansfield Park, it was still very fun and good and cool. young jane seems like a cool friend.
i am mercifully freed from any potential mourning with the realization that neither The Watsons nor Sanditon is included in this collection.
woohoo, future fun!
rating: 3.5

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading through the sentimental fiction of the late eighteenth century (Francis Burney, Charlotte Smith, Amelia Opie, Ann Radcliffe and the like), I gradually built up this hallowed image of Jane Austen as someone who stands at the end of that whole tradition, perfecting it and sending it up all at once. She does seem very apart from it – the Regency period is, after all, very different from what went before, and her writing is of a sophistication very different from what went before, too.

But of course, although her novels were not published till much later, she was also very much a writer of the 1790s, and that was all the excuse I needed to read this collection of her juvenilia, which I devoured with utter glee. It's brilliant in a completely different way from what I'd been expecting. I thought of Austen as a very funny writer, of course, but when you think of her humour you think of those amazing effects of irony that she is such a master of. Whereas here, writing as a teenager, her method is totally different: these writings are openly parodic, raucous, silly, sometimes bawdy, and often nonsensical almost to Edward Lear proportions.

They're extremely funny, but they also show her, in an instinctive way, working through the conventions and mechanisms of contemporary fiction one by one, and puzzling out how they work. Marriages, elopements, class distinctions, balls, dresses, politics, masquerades, long-lost relatives – all of them are caricatured here by a writer who is learning while taking the piss. The convention that noble attributes can be hidden behind unprepossessing exteriors, for instance, is lampooned in one of the earliest stories, ‘Frederic and Elfrida’:

‘Lovely and too charming Fair one, notwithstanding your forbidding Squint, your greazy tresses and your swelling Back, which are more frightful than imagination can paint or pen describe, I cannot refrain from expressing my raptures, at the engaging Qualities of your Mind, which so amply atone for the Horror, with which your first appearance must ever inspire the unwary visitor.’

The sense of grotesquerie here is very eighteenth-century. This story also has an Ann-Radcliffe-style light-headed heroine, who, when emotions run high,

accordingly fainted and was in such a hurry to have a succession of fainting fits, that she had scarcely patience enough to recover from one before she fell into another.

This was written when Austen was around eleven or twelve! I was laughing aloud at a lot of this. Later stories show her also amusing herself at the fashionable epistolary mode, with its conventions inspired especially by Richardson:

Too Miss Hervey

Dear Maud

Beleive me I'm happy to hear of your Brother's arrival. I have a thousand things to tell you, but my paper will only permit me to add that I am yʳ affecᵗ Freind

Amelia Webster


To Miss S. Hervey

Dear Sally

I have found a very convenient old hollow oak to put our Letters in; for you know we have long maintained a private Correspondence. It is about a mile from my House and seven from yours. You may perhaps imagine that I might have made choice of a tree which would have divided the Distance more equally—I was sensible of this at the time, but as I considered that the walk would be of benefit to you in your weak and uncertain state of Health, I preferred it to one nearer your House, and am yʳ faithfull

Benjamin Bar

And so on. It's not only very funny, it's kind of amazing to get an insight into this kind of in-joking, since these were written primarily to be shared within the family and when you read them you can almost imagine yourself listening in on Austen and her sisters and cousins having a laugh together. Reading them now, I'm reminded not of her mature novels, but rather of the comic prose sketches of writers like Peter Cook or even Woody Allen. Strangely, the contemporary comparison that kept occurring to me – and this is not something she would appreciate, I'm quite sure – is the Marquis de Sade, whose early books performed a similar parodic upheaval of all the conventions of contemporary fiction (though to very different effect).

All the best writers, I am convinced, begin with parody. This is because to do it, you need a very good understanding of form and also a sense of humour, the two essential qualities to being interesting in any medium. It's amazing to see this process happening before your eyes with such a writer as Jane Austen. As you go through the book, you see her growing up, learning new techniques, and becoming gradually more subtle in her effects – until by the time you reach the novella ‘Lady Susan’, written when she was eighteen, you can clearly recognise the mature writer. One reads ‘Lady Susan’ nodding in appreciation – but one is no longer laughing out loud. It's wonderful that we have her earlier stuff too, to enjoy her mastery of a more anarchic mode than she is usually remembered for.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A joy to read, as always.

[lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love and Freindship was very different from how I thought it would be. I would not recommend going in expecting it to be like the Austen works you already know.

This edition is, naturally, a collection of Jane's works as a teenager. It was really entertaining for me personally to see how far she came as a writer.

Most of the stories in this book are brief, insensitive, and very degrading to the characters in them, who tend to be silly and make heavily unrealistic decisions.

But the writing is still very Jane--quick, sassy, and merciless. And once you get past the utter bizarreness of many of the stories, it becomes very entertaining to see how ruthless Jane could be to the characters she created, as well as the late eighteenth century English society she lived in.

If you consider yourself an Austen fan, I would definitely recommend this, especially if you're very familiar with her work. This book is a fun, light read that really gives perspective on Jane's journey as a writer.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant writing from a girl of 15, though I cannot praise the typeface used in this edition. Prefer NY:Harmony/Crown Publishers, 1981.
1) "Love and Freindship."

“Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint…”(28) So Austen parodies the contemporary epistolary novels of sensibility, and their convention of fainting, blushing, impetuous marriage, flights from danger.

“Alas! (exclaimed I) how am I to avoid those evils I shall never be exposed to? What probability is there of my ever tasting the Dissipations of London, the Luxuries of Bath, or the Stinking Fish of Southampton?” (5) Laura asks, situated as she is in the romantic Vale of Uske. By her account, she had surpassed her teachers at the convent (not unlike a certain US leader). A full page of Laura’s next letter concerns the Knocking at the door, where Father and the daughters agree that someone must be knocking, though delay answering. Another convention dissolves in the hilarious teen author’s account. A young man resolves not to marry the woman he prefers because “I scorn to marry her in compliance with your wishes. No! Never shall it be said that I obliged my Father.” “We all admired the noble Manliness of his reply.”(7)
Upon their Clandestine marriage, “By our arrival their Expenses were considerably encreased. But they, Exalted Creatures! scorned to reflect a moment on their pecuniary Distresses & would have blushed at the idea of paying their debts.” (14)

2) "Lesley Castle" also satirizes contemporary epistolary romances, in this case gothic, the Lesley sisters “secluded in our Mouldering Castle two miles from Perth on a bold projecting Rock”; their father, a cheerful 57-year old, “is fluttering about the streets of London, dissipated and Thoughtless.” Of course, he does not tell them of his remarriage, which they learn through a correspondent who attended.
The Lesley sisters correspond with the Lutterell sisters, Charlotte and Eloisa, a pianist who is about to marry; Charlotte’s passion is not music but cooking, so she prepares “roasted Beef, Broiled Mutton and Stewed Soup enough to last the new-Married couple at least through the Honey-Moon…but have been Roasting, Broiling, and Stewing both the Meat and Myself to no purpose…when my Sister came running to me with her face as White as a Whipt syllabub..telling me Hervey has fractured his Scull and in most imminent Danger. ‘Good God! What will become of all the Victuals?…My Mother and I agreed to begin eating them immediately, and ordered up the cold Ham and Fowls, and began our Devouring Plan with Alacrity”(41).

3) Austen dedicates her brief "History of England" to her older sister, Miss Austen: “By a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian.” JA writes as if pro-Catholic, but adds, “Truth being I think very excusable in a Historian…”(77) She sees Henry VIII’s abolishing the religious houses as a puzzle, “a Man who was of no Religion himself should be at so much trouble abolishing one which had for Ages been …in the Kingdom,” but concedes the benefit of their destruction…for the landscape: “leaving them to the ruinous depredations of time has been of infinite use to the landscape of England in general, which probably was a principal motive for his doing it…”(72)

Sister Cassandra in a letter also describes Jane’s saying something amusing, arising to cross the room and write it down on the small octagonal table where she wrote by the morning sun windows facing the road in Chawton.
(In a letter years later, Cassie also describes Jane dying young, possibly from Addison’s Disease.)

4) In her "Collection of Letters" dedicated “To Miss Cooper,” Jane describes herself as “Your Comical Cousin.” In the second letter, one character is called “Miss Jane,” who says of horses, “I rode once, but it is many year ago…I have not ridden, since I was married.” “Married, Ma’am! Then why are you called Miss Jane?” She had married without the knowledge or consent of her father Admiral Annesley. Miss Jane continues, “Pardon these tears…I owe them to my Husband’s Memory, He fell My Sophia while fighting for his Country in America.” This was Capt. Dashwood, in our Yankee terms, A Redcoat!

[fatma · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

These stories are absolutely ridiculous, which is to say, they are an absolute joy to read. Young Jane Austen just doesn't give a shit about silly things like "sense" and "probability." She just goes for it. And this collection is so much the better for it. The stories of Love and Freindship don't ask you to suspend your disbelief so much as they ask you to believe in an entirely different kind of logic, one that indulges in all things absurd and whimsical.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

"As Sir George and Lady Harcourt were superintending the Labours of their Haymakers, rewarding the industry of some by smiles of approbation, & punishing the idleness of others by a cudgel, they perceived lying closely concealed beneath the thick foliage of a Haycock, a beautifull little Girl not more than 3 months old.

Touched with the enchanting Graces of her face & delighted with the infantine tho' sprightly answers she returned to their many questions, they resolved to take her home &, having no Children of their own, to educate her with care & cost."

don't talk to me unless your 3-month-old responds to you with "infantine tho sprightly answers" lmao

"Mrs. Watkins . . . had too high a forehead, Her eyes were too small, & she had too much colour."
"How can that be?" interrupted Miss Johnson, reddening with anger; "Do you think that any one can have too much colour?"
"Indeed I do, & I'll tell you why I do, my dear Alice; when a person has too great a degree of red in their Complexion, it gives their face, in my opinion, too red a look."
"But can a face, my Lady, have too red a look?"
"Certainly, my dear Miss Johnson, & I'll tell you why. When a face has too red a look it does not appear to so much advantage as it would were it paler."
"Pray Ma'am, proceed in your story."
"Well, as I said before, I was invited by this Lady to spend some weeks with her in town. Many Gentlemen thought her Handsome, but in my opinion, Her forehead was too high, her eyes too small, & she had too much colour."
"In that, Madam, as I said before, your Ladyship must have been mistaken. Mrs. Watkins could not have too much colour, since no one can have too much."
"Excuse me, my Love, if I do not agree with you in that particular. Let me explain myself clearly; my idea of the case is this. When a Woman has too great a proportion of red in her Cheeks, she must have too much colour."
"But Madam, I deny that it is possible for any one to have too great a proportion of red in their Cheeks."
"What, my Love, not if they have too much colour?"
Miss Johnson was now out of all patience, the more so, perhaps, as Lady Williams still remained so inflexibly cool. It must be remembered, however, that her Ladyship had in one respect by far the advantage of Alice; I mean in not being drunk, for heated with wine & raised by Passion, she could have little command of her Temper."

Just the dumbest conversation. I love it.

[Iza Brekilien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed for Books and livres, 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 for this place.

I had to kick myself to write this review because it's hot outside, I'm finally on real vacation (still at home, *but* in vacation), there is noone around that I have to cook for (such a blessing, I hate cooking, especially twice a day, for months !) - my eldest manages her meals just fine. So yes, I'm lazy and then I started thinking that if I don't write this review now, I'll never do it, so I grabbed a glass of very good rosé gris and got to it. Not that I didn't like the book, I'd rather pick the book back and re-read it rather than write a review. Lazy, I tell you.

Originally, I was to read only Jane Austen's History of England for the #JaneAustenJuly2020, but since I found her juvenilia in this particular book that isn't that long, I inhaled it all. So now, I've read everything she has ever written and will be able to move on to What matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan.

It contains :
- Love and freindship (nothing to do with the film, which is adapted from Lady Susan),
- An unfinished novel in letters,
- The history of England (written when she was 16),
- A collection of letters,
- The female philosopher,
- The first act of a comedy,
- A tale.

All these texts are rather short, quickly and easily read, and I had a blast doing so. She has such a sense of humour, I do love her tongue in cheek wit, she's *so* funny ! Those texts are incomplete, lacking in depth and all that, but you see what a wonderful author she is to become. You find names in there, situations that you see in her later novels. I sometimes wished I had the complete story because I wanted to read more ! I understand why her brother, while she tried to hide her name - and yet ascertaining that she was a "lady", in a time where women published under male pseudonyms, he gave her away every time in brotherly pride.

Reading this book was an absolute treat and I highly recommend it to you.

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This hilarious collection of Jane Austen's early attempts at writing show how witty and sharp she could be even at a young age. It's such a pity that all the short stories here are unfinished.
I was laughing and chuckling at every page, because of the sketches of ridiculous characters in awkward situations.

"Love and Friendship" follows the life of Laura through her love-at-first-sight encounter with a handsome stranger, her ill-advised marriage, and how she was thrown upon the kindness of friends for financial support. It's full of fainting women, comical misunderstandings, and a rich old grandfather who shows up at the most convenient times. Full of true Austenian satire.

"Lesley Castle" is no less hilarious, as two very tall sisters meet their new extremely-short stepmother. All the ladies hate each other upon sight, and complain to their friends about the others' shortcomings with spiteful and snarky dialogue.

"The Three Sisters" tells the story of Mary and her sisters, Sophy and Georgiana, who must decide which of them will marry the odious Mr. Watts for his money and fortune in jewels. Mary especially hates Mr. Watts, who is very unpleasant, but she wants to lord it over her sisters by being the first to be married and flaunt her new jewels. She spends almost the entire story wavering between accepting or rejecting Mr. Watts' proposal with humorous results.

In the writing style, you can see this delightful little kernel of the author she would become. I enjoyed reading this so much!

[kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love and Freindship [sic] is a compilation of the works of bb Jane Austen, who created the short story collection before it was cool. In three volumes and a short novella from 1787 to c.1794 (Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811), these snippets are skewering, silly, and riotously funny.

From her earliest sketches ('Frederic and Elfrida', 'Henry and Eliza', 'The Beautiful Cassandra') to the cynical Lady Susan, there's something absolutely delightful about following the progression of Austen's prose and humor while knowing where it ultimately led. Also included are Austen's dedications for each story, revealing the support structure that allowed her the opportunity to explore her own margins. (My puns are not great today?)

Highlights include 'The Beautiful Cassandra', 'The History of England' (including Cassandra Austen's miniature portraits), 'The Three Sisters', Lady Susan, and 'Evelyn'.

[Meredith (Austenesque Reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but here it goes: I’ve been reading Jane Austen novels and a vast amount of Austenesque literature for over 12 years and this is the first time I���ve read any of her Juvenilia! I’m so exceedingly glad that I finally had the opportunity to do so this past month! To see the early scribblings and youthful effusions of my favorite author is indeed an illuminating and enthralling experience!

Since the lovely edition of Jane Austen’s Love and Freindship: And Other Youthful Writings I read contains a lot of contextual notes and annotations, I thought I’d breakdown my review to itemize what I thought about each specific aspect of this volume.

But first, let me acquaint you with what is included in this edition of Love and Freindship: And Other Youthful Writings.

Volume I, II, and III of Jane Austen’s Juvenilia
Lady Susan
A 30 page Introduction by Christine Alexander
A section of Textual Notes by Christine Alexander
A section of Annotated Notes by Christine Alexander
Further Reading and Chronology
MY THOUGHTS ON JANE AUSTEN’S EARLY WORKS:

It Is Our Dear Jane: The eccentric characters, the astute and comedic social observations, the themes of marriage and money. It is easy to identify the brilliance and humor of Jane Austen (at an early age) in these stories.
Jane Likes to Narrate: A lot of these stories are heavy on the narrative side, often with very little portions of dialogue. It is interesting to see how many of her early works are epistolary works. Was it because she was very familiar with writing letters (to her friends and siblings)? Or perhaps because she enjoyed the act of telling stories (both verbally and in print)?
Jane Likes to Spoof and Make Sport: A lot of what Jane Austen wrote in her early works can be traced back to or gives reference to a published work she read. She parodies scenes, characters, and styles of writing from authors such as Frances Burney (Evelina), Samuel Richardson (Sir Charles Grandison), and Oliver Goldsmith (The History of England), to name a few. She reminds one of the writers for Saturday Night Live, but instead of writing parodies about the latest news and events, she pens skits and satires about the latest novels and plots. :)
Sometimes Weak Conclusions: A lot of these early works by Jane Austen end with a very hurried and incomplete conclusion, which is the only thing I really have to quibble about in this compilation. Some stories break off without any resolution or satisfying closure. Part of me wonders if this was Jane Austen’s playful sense of humor…did she send these incomplete snippets of stories to relations and await their begging entreaties for more?
MY FAVORITE STORIES FROM JANE AUSTEN’S EARLY WORKS:

The History of England – such a playful take on real historical figure and events! I loved the humor and the very opinionated stance Jane Austen took with some monarchs!
Catharine, or the Bower – I enjoyed this longer work for its descriptive and imaginative characterizations – Jane Austen definitely has a love for ridiculous characters and their follies!
Lady Susan – Ooh! Such an anti-heroine! Full of schemes and drama, I just love the candor that letter-writing allows!
MY THOUGHTS ON THIS EDITION:

It’s Elegantly Made: This book is a beauty – a clothbound cover, thick, high-quality paper, and an attached ribbon bookmark. Definitely a tome to admire and treasure!
Annotations Are Extremely Helpful: With Jane Austen’s spelling and frequent references to characters, authors, and events of her day, I found myself greatly needing and appreciating these contextual notes! Half of the jabs and jokes Jane Austen made would be way over my head without them. In addition, I found it interesting to learn what edits Jane Austen made on her own manuscript and to suppose the reason why such edits were made.
Thorough and Complete: I love that this edition included all three volumes of Jane Austen’s Juvenilia, images of the original manuscripts, and Cassandra’s illustrations for The History of England. And of course, I think including Lady Susan in this compilation is brilliant!
CONCLUSION:

An excellent addition to any Janeite’s library! And these earlier works by Jane Austen are definitely something every Jane Austen fan should read at least once. I love that Penguin Books included such a lovely volume in their eye-catching and elegant Hardcover Classics series! It will wonderfully complete my Jane Austen set!

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jane Austen has basically always gotten a rough shake, because literary misogyny exists and anyone who writes about bonnets is always going to find herself dismissed by one half of humanity and read feverishly—but only for the bonnets—by half of the other half. The truth, of course, is less frilly and floral than the background for the photo above would suggest. Consensus on Austen for a while now has generally been that she was a shrewd and uncompromising chronicler of human hypocrisy and frailty; that she wrote with absolute clarity on the myriad foolishnesses of polite society but also that she understood them inside out; and that her “charming” marriage-based plots are a forensic examination of the legalized system of prostitution that found it acceptable to sell unmarried women to the highest bidder—and in which the women in question frequently colluded because their other choices were homelessness or humiliation as “companion” dependents of wealthier families.

This book is a collection of Austen’s juvenilia, work written when she was between the ages of eleven and nineteen. Christine Alexander, the editor of the Penguin volume, has laid them out in rough chronological order (more or less as they appear in Austen’s manuscript books). The advantage, obviously, is that you can see how Austen grew and developed, not just in terms of her prose becoming more complex and easily controlled, but also as she became more confident in her ability to handle a plot and as her satire became no less sharp, but significantly more subtle.

Read the rest of the review here: https://ellethinks.wordpress.com/2016...

[Olde American Spirit · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun to read Jane Austen's juvenilia. It's always been a goal.

That's the thing about Jane's writing... there's always more than face value.

Even underneath these early stories, she expressed her great sense of humor (so much parody!), her fascination with dramatizations, and her concerns about the plight of women's education.

I found myself noticing several elements, phrases, and ideas very familiar to her, now famous, six completed novels. To me, it's as if these youthful writings were the "rough draft" practice pieces that prepared her for the success that would later come.

While several of these writings made me laugh at their sheer silliness, I'm still amazed at her brilliance at such a young age.

These aren't works that I will want to return to for rereads, but I'm glad I spent the time to slowly read them all (a month and a half).

Thank, Jane for the laughs.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Austen's youthful writings are a lot of fun - laugh-out-loud funny in places, more so than her mature works, even if the humour is broader. With the exception of Lady Susan, they are clearly written chiefly to entertain, and generally succeed pretty well, even if we miss the Austen family in-jokes or have to painstakingly look them up in the copious notes to this edition.

Again excepting Lady Susan, Love and Freindship itself (Austen's spelling) is the jewel of the collection. It's a hilarious send-up of sentimental fiction, very funny in its overall effect, but also full of brilliant one-liners like these:

"Our neighbourhood was small, for it consisted only of your Mother."

"Two Gentlemen most elegantly attired but weltering in their blood was what first struck our Eyes - we approached - they were Edward and Augustus - Yes, dearest Marianne, they were our Husbands."

"Beware of the unmeaning Luxuries of Bath and of the Stinking fish of Southampton"

There are just traces of this kind of uninhibited comedy in Northanger Abbey, but not much in the other novels.

There is a particularly hilarious scene in Love and Freindship when two young women attempt to steal some money from their friend’s father’s desk but are caught in the act. Far from being penitent, they indignantly deny the attempted theft and brazenly turn the tables on their accuser:

“Sophia… instantly put on a most forbidding look, and darting an angry frown on the undaunted Culprit, demanded in a haughty tone of voice ‘Wherefore her retirement was thus insolently broken in on?’ The unblushing Macdonald, without even endeavouring to exculpate himself from the crime he was charged with, meanly endeavoured to reproach Sophia with ignobly defrauding him of his Money…”

Sometimes Austen's youthful writings seem ahead of their time. There are flights of fancy that verge on the exuberant nonsense of Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear, as in "A Tour through Wales in a Letter from a young Lady". The "History of England" is a forerunner of "1066 and All That" and there are a couple of miniature dramas that are like comedy sketches or absurdist theatre.

Lady Susan stands somewhere between the juvenilia and the mature works. Despite the epistolary format, there is a focus and concentration to it that the earlier works lack, and a more coherent narrative structure with tension building towards a climax, as opposed to the ramshackle series of incidents offered by the earlier writings. Even if the youthful Austen can't quite bring off the conclusion, she creates a memorable and fascinating character who is quite unlike any of her others in her machiavellian intrigues, sexual immorality and unmitigated selfishness - a larger-than-life figure, to be sure, but not just a caricature. She shows convincingly how such a character could operate and how successful she could be by appearing to follow all the rules of society while violating any standard of common decency. It's fascinating to read in itself, but it also shows just how much knowledge of the world Austen had acquired at the tender age of 19.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very excited to get my hands on Jane Austen's "Love and Freindship." As a big Austen fan, I was looking forward to this book as it's a collection of Austen's very early writings. It seems like a lot of times we don't get a chance to get to read a lot of things from writers early in their writing life. Unless the author is super famous, most of our reading is limited to whichever books were actually published. Because Jane Austen is such a prolific and famous writer, it's easy to see why so many people would have interest in reading some of the stories and other things that she wrote prior to publishing her books. This book almost feels as if you're getting a behind the scenes glance at what Austen was like is a younger person. Many of the stories were written when she was merely a teenager. And a lot of the hallmarks from some of her books that she went on to publish are there. She writes a lot of stories about love that are filled with fun and a lot of wit.

One thing that I found very interesting is that in this particular version, which is a Penguin Classics version (I collect the Penguin Classics - they are gorgeous), is that the publishers chose to keep a lot of the errors that Austen made it in the book. Even the title of the book is an Austen error with the misspelling of the word friendship. In some places, this makes the book a little bit difficult to read however I was driven by wanting to get more insight into one of my favorite classics authors! This book is a must-read for my fellow Austen lovers!

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. I'd never read most of it before, so fresh Jane, even if not up to the quality of her maturer work, was a treat. I was reminded of something N. D. Wilson wrote about some of his early efforts -- that everything came out funny. Jane's young efforts were sheer hilarity...as funny as the humor that made it into her novels in a more restrained fashion. The volume ended with Lady Susan, which I had read before and which serves as the perfect hinge between the more childish writing and the later, more fully developed works. The progress in her abilities is clearly trackable, particularly with that step included.

One encounters all too many Austen fans who miss the more satirical aspects of her writing, who think that swooning over Colin Firth is the pinnacle of appreciating Pride and Prejudice or who have all the heightened emotionality of Marianne Dashwood without any of the sense she possessed even before her character transformation. These people should read her Juvenilia. Maybe, just maybe, the satire here is troweled on thickly enough that they might see it for what it is -- a send-up of them.

A mix of LibriVox readers of varied skill.

[Kara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this little gem a few months ago and couldn't pass it up since it was Jane Austen! A compilation of stories, some finished and some not (or at least they felt unfinished to me), some sent to family members for various reasons, others discovered after her death, and all a good deal of fun to read. Since most are pretty short, it was easy to read bits and pieces as the notion arose. Many of the stories are written in epistolary form as well and I really enjoyed that aspect of them. One can never go wrong with reading Austen, right?

[Heather Alderman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Jane Austen stories; however, this one was not outstanding. Yes, I knew going into it that it was a collection of short stories she wrote in her youth and her age and inexperience are very evident. Some of the stories were very sweet and others plain silly. I did love getting glimpses in her writing of the stories that were to come and see the beginning ideas for them. An enjoyable read for any Jane Austen fan, but don't expect the wonderfulness of Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, etc...

[❂ Murder by Death · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not at all what I expected - having read almost all of Jane Austen's adult writing, I knew she was capable of a sly, subtle humour, but her juvenilia is not at all subtle, reading more like Monty Python skits than staid regency entertainment. I'm still gobsmacked by the premeditated malice she gives Lady Susan too; not at all what I expected, but a brilliant surprise.

Full review: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/109094...

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, charming, revelatory, fun as hell. But we knew this.

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/2...

Love and Freindship and Other Youthful Writings is a new paperback release from Penguin, offering an anthology collection of Jane Austen’s juvenilia, including snippets dating back to when the author was just eleven years old. The book offers fascinating and at times tantalising glimpses of the author in training, a young girl writing purely for her own amusement and that of her family, but then every so often she turns a particular phrase which betrays her as the woman who would go on to write some of the finest novels in the English language. Love and Freindship is at times a dense and dis-orientating read but for the true Austen fan, there is much to be enjoyed.

The reader is able to observe Austen’s early experiments, as she mimics Henry Fielding’s hyperbolic style, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel but then there are those moments of Austen elegance which signposts her own genius in embryo. More so even than with her later novels, one feels as though we are able to hear Jane’s own voice, with many of pieces in Love and Freindship being written for public performance. Many of her stories feature dispassionate descriptions of disastrous events – not unlike Voltaire’s Candide – and I could imagine her reading them aloud in a dead-pan tone to family applause.

Down the centuries, Jane Austen has been repeatedly misconstrued as a romantic novelist, but in Love and Freindship, it is underlined that she was always a satirist before anything else. In works such as The Beautifull Cassandra, she describes how her heroine (named for her own sister Cassandra) fell violently in love with a bonnet, using the same expressions of affection more usually reserved for a lover. In some ways, Love and Freindship seems more like a collection of miniature high-spirited farces – but yet there is such pleasure watching Austen work with such enthusiasm. While nobody can doubt the beauty of her later works such as Persuasion, there is a sadness to some of its tone which is entirely absent here.

In style, many of the works are indeed reminiscent of some of the Bronte juvenilia, with the same unfinished style but yet there is a greater confidence about how she deploys the one-liner. Were she alive today, I could imagine Austen as a consummate stand-up comedian. In the titular story Love and Freindship, we stand on the sidelines and snigger as two young women wreak havoc in the lives of all they come across – cheerfully explaining to the daughter of their benefactor that she cannot love the man her father wishes her to marry since he is only her father’s choice and anyway, the man’s hair ‘is not auburn’. They then point her in the direction of a fortune-hunter and wave her off to Gretna Green. The women of Austen’s juvenilia take turns fainting and go to machiavellian lengths to get their own way about marriage yet the naughtiness always remains within the realms of a parson’s daughter’s innocent imagination.

Still, although activity of a sexual nature is only ever implied, it is surprising how dark the subject matter of Love and Freindship can be. One young heroine gaily confesses to having killed all her family and perjured herself repeatedly. In another snippet, a heroine formally applies for a young man’s hand and is angry to find herself rebuffed. Two sisters plot to manipule their elder sibling into marrying a man they know she does not care for. Babies bite off their mother’s fingers, some heroines take to drink, the cult of sensibility is skewered repeatedly as insincere and as ever, Austen has little time for the fools of this world. There is much of cruelty – while in her later novels, the false friends such as Miss Bingley or Elizabeth Eliot are background figures, here they are allowed to run wild. Austen is having a great deal of fun – not yet restricted by the prudish nineteenth century mores, her stories bubble with the energy of the bawdy Georgian era.

A fine example of this is Austen’s History of England; Christine Alexander’s excellent introduction casts further light on this account by ‘a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian’, complete with illustrations by her sister Cassandra. Alexander notes that Cassandra’s artistic gifts were of no less esteem within the family than Jane’s comedic ones. Much of the obvious humour within History of England is similar to the much later 1066 and All That but the true punchline comes from the inside joke which is going on between the two Austen sisters – each of the portraits of monarchs within the History have been modelled on members of the Austen family. Their Aunt Leigh-Parrot is drawn as the much-loathed Elizabeth I while Jane herself becomes the saintly Mary Queen of Scots while various Austen brothers are shown in the guises of their namesake kings. Given that even Mrs Austen is the subject of mockery here, one feels that the reader is being let in on an instance of private humour between two young girls chafing against parental rule.

As the reader travels through Love and Freindship, Austen’s tone becomes more polished and her subject matter moves away from the ridiculous and suffices itself with the ironic. In Catherine, or the Bower, her heroine is allowed a mini-rant about the social conditions for women of small fortune. The book closes with Lady Susan, the epistolary account of an adulterous aristocrat where the villainess herself takes centre stage. Love and Freindship is teasing, leaving at the moment where Austen prepares to take flight. It is a piece best enjoyed by the fans, but its appeal is far beyond that of completism, rather it encourages a fuller appreciation of Jane Austen as an artist – while Virginia Woolf may remark that she is hard to capture in the act of greatness, Love and Freindship shows us how hard she worked to perfect her craft – but I think what is loveliest of all is how obviously she enjoyed herself while was doing it. Read this and the image of grim-faced Aunt Jane disintegrates forever.

[Hope Burmeister · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know, I know, it took me three months to read this book. But in my defence, I was hyper focused on finishing a novel I was writing so I didn’t read it every day or anything. But don’t let that make you believe I didn’t love this…because I did! The only reason I’m giving it four stars is because some of it is difficult to digest on a first read and some of her very early works are not the easiest to read. Also, some works are very long and have no chapter breaks which makes it harder to read. Overall, I loved how interesting and different a lot of these works were. It’s so cool to see her writing style develop over time and you can see her distinctive style by the end (with Lady Susan, which is amazing!).

If you’re a Jane Austen fan, you’ll love this. If you’re not, you may still enjoy it. I actually recommend taking your time reading it and digesting it (or even re-reading it a second time, which I will be doing).

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can see glimpses of Austen's future genius in these stories, but they are mostly funny and nonsensical tales in which characters get drunk, die suddenly, or are murdered for absurd reasons.
3.5 stars.

[Ilana (illi69)]

Will finish this at some other time. Marked DNF for now — simply not in the mood for JA, however brilliant and amusing she is. I’m finding reading difficult lately.

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of writings of a young Jane Austen is enjoyable in its own right, but particularly of interest to the casual JA fan who only is acquainted through her 6 complete novels. Written between the ages of 12 and 19, these works show an impressive understanding of literary parody (thanks to the extensive notes included in this edition) which demonstrates that, in spite of a lack of structured education, she was indeed well-read and had been instilled with reason and logic from an early age. She employs wit and irony and sometimes biting sarcasm very humorously and effectively; so much so, that apparently they were suppressed for many years.

JA experimented so much with the epistolary form that I find it surprising that she abandoned it. Lady Susan, the latest and most mature of the juvenilia, is in this form and very effectively done. In contrast, only one work, Catherine, or The Bower, is in the third-person narrative, the mode in which she wrote all her novels.

As far as my favorites: I found Jack and Alice very amusing; I LOLed during the very brief but hilarious The Adventures of Mr. Harley; and thoroughly enjoyed Lesley Castle and Catherine, or The Bower; but by far, my favorite is Lady Susan.

The heroine of that work, the titular Lady Susan Vernon, is not a very admirable woman, especially not by standards of JA's time. She has been lately made a widow and is in straitened circumstances with a daughter to support. She and the daughter appear to be polar opposites and to lack any affection whatsoever for the other. Lady Susan is apparently carrying on a serious flirtation (and more is hinted at) with a married man; she encourages, Mrs. Johnson, her best friend, by letter, perhaps -hopefully! - in jest, to hasten the early demise of the wife by keeping her nerves stirred up in jealousy! Quite remarkable for a country rector's genteel teenage daughter!

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapter 4 in "Becoming Jane Austen" titled "The Good Apprentice" does an amazing analysis of JA's Juvenilia, all written between the ages of roughly 12 and 18 ie. the years 1787 and 1793.
I decided I had better reread all this to fully understand said Chapter 4 ...and it is absolutely hilarious!!!

I am having a ball and can't put it down.
Very burlesque, outrageous, ruthless.

So many echoes of what she WAS to write.
Fascinating.
A must for any JA fan in its own right, I'd say.
Very short pieces, unfinished pieces, completed pieces
...a treasure trove and very enlightening.

The last of the Juvenilia are becoming longer, more like a novel and more serious in intent. The burlesque is being discarded and the humour more finely honed and placed for effect. Jane is taking up a position vis a vis society. She has something to say!!!!

One essential factor in the production of ALL her writing was her family, its culture of humour, observation, open discussion and a certain hard edge. The family welcomed Jane's written offerings, probably seeing its own culture reflected back to it. This culture and its nourishment of one of its youngest member's written interpretation of it, gave rise to an Absolute Asset to their nation's Literature and finally to World Lit.
Unfortunately, reflecting somewhat the position of women, it is seemingly labelled: Ladies Only.
You have only to look at how many men are on this site!!!!

[Šárka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jelikož jsem si o této sbírce rané prózy Jane Austenové dopředu nic nezjistila, byla jsem po prvních stránkách poměrně překvapená stylem psaní, chováním postav i prostředím. To proto, že Láska a Přátelství a další prózy vůbec nejsou jako nejslavnější romány Austenové. Jsou téměř jejich opakem, jsou vtipné, sarkastické a strefují se bez okolků do čehokoli, k čemu měla mladičká Jane Austenová (napsáno v jejích třinácti až sedmnácti letech) nějaké výhrady. Hlavní postavy často omdlévají (několikrát za sebou), lásku dostanete na počkání a je více než pravděpodobné, že ve svém spolucestujícím hrdinka pozná svého dědečka (kterého nikdy neviděla)/adoptivní rodiče (kteří si uvědomí, že je vlastně jejich pravá dcera)/svého umírajícího manžela/sestřenici z dvacátého kolena (kterou něviděla deset let, ale samozřejmě, že se poznají).
No byla to paráda. :D

[Kerry Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh that clever, clever Jane! Who cares if she was a bad speller? We all have our flaws. Her early works and juvenilia are always good for a laugh.

[Allie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean it's Jane Austen, would you expect anything less?

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

To have written these works before the age of 17 is a mark of Austen's genius. She ridicules the silliness of Society and Sentiment with a truly acid wit, and a worldliness far beyond her years.

[Clemence · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is quite incredible to read stories written by teenager Austen, who already had wit, and clear opinions on the flaws of the society, and a critical view of it all