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Frederic and Elfrida
Written by a young Jane Austen, 'Frederic and Elfrida' is a short story that beautifully showcases Austen as the original queen of wit. Penned at around the age of twelve, this is one of the earliest examples of her work ever to have been discovered. Austen's purpose was to entertain, and here, she certainly succeeded. A melodramatic story of two cousins who are to be wed and the theatrics of family, this story is perfect if you're looking for a lighthearted and funny read. This is an unpolished story from the mind of a girl destined to become one of the greatest female authors of all time and a wonderful example of the flare that Jane Austen had for storytelling. -
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First published January 1, 2002
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About the author
Jane Austen
3,920 books74.5k followersJane 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
August 11, 2018
Frederic & Elfrida is the best example of Jane Austen before she was, well, Jane Austen. Ironic, assertive, clever, shrewd and above all terrificly, terrificly entertaining, Highly recommended!
May 24, 2023
an absurd and ironic ‘novel’ jane wrote when she was 12. her humour and wit is impeccable.
July 30, 2025
3 stars. I feel sorry for Jane that her early writings are available to the world, but on the other hands she might be pleased to know they're still amusing people. This is an absolutely wild little story, evidently sarcastic, full of double engagements, suicide, death threats, and fainting fits, reading like a parody of the terrible novels Catherine Morland would read!
August 23, 2025
Very funny!
March 31, 2025
Such an entertaining read! It delighted me to read a story from the young Jane Austen. The melodrama put me in mind of young Anne Shirley writing tales and weeping over them. 😂
Austen clearly had more than her share of wit even as a young girl.
Austen clearly had more than her share of wit even as a young girl.
January 26, 2020
Bizarrely funny and very melodramatic. I can just imagine Jane reading this aloud to a circle of her friends and family for their enjoyment.
October 12, 2025
This was delightful surprise to discover. Written in Jane Austen’s adolescence, this tiny novella is a parody of the romance genre she would later become a prolific in. Interesting and sometimes alarming choices in grammar and plot makes this a hilarious read. It’s completely ridiculous, I do recommend.
March 3, 2023
Ahahahaha this was such a fun time. Highly recommend it👌
September 11, 2023
- austen and her contemporaries 2023 -
the fact that austen wrote this at age 11-12 makes me wanna die.
the fact that austen wrote this at age 11-12 makes me wanna die.
Read
February 23, 2025it doesn't feel right to me to rate the work of a blooming 12 year old writer but it's no surprise to me that I'm just as delighted with Jane's earliest works as with her seminal ones
August 17, 2021
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Frederic & Elfrida, by Jane Austen,
Juliet McMaster (Illustrator), Victoria Kortes-Papp (Editor),
Sylvia Hunt (Editor).
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Jane Austen wrote these bits to amuse her family, and quite amusing they certainly are, from chuckle to hilarious through the collection termed juvenilia.
................................................................................................
"Dedication
"To Miss Lloyd
"My Dear Martha
"As a small testimony of the gratitude I feel for your late generosity to me in finishing my muslin cloak, I beg leave to offer you this little production of your sincere friend.
"The Author
................................................................................................
"The uncle of Elfrida was the father of Frederic; in other words, they were first cousins by the father's side."
Not always correct; the first part might be about Elfrieda's mother's brother, or an uncle by marriage, in which the latter case they wouldn't be related at all.
"They were exceedingly handsome and so much alike, that it was not everyone who knew them apart. Nay, even their most intimate friends had nothing to distinguish them by, but the shape of the face, the colour of the eye, the length of the nose, and the difference of the complexion."
Didn't people dress very differently those days, across gender gap? Or was cross dressing common?
................................................................................................
"On being shown into an elegant dressing room, ornamented with festoons of artificial flowers, they were struck with the engaging exterior and beautiful outside of Jezalinda, the eldest of the young ladies; but e'er they had been many minutes seated, the wit and charms which shone resplendent in the conversation of the amiable Rebecca enchanted them so much, that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed:
""Lovely and too charming fair one, not withstanding your forbidding squint, your greasy 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."
""Your sentiments so nobly expressed on the different excellencies of Indian and English muslins, and the judicious preference you give the former, have excited in me an admiration of which I can alone give an adequate idea, by assuring you it is nearly equal to what I feel for myself.""
How did "that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed" quite so much?
"From this period, the intimacy between the families of Fitzroy, Drummond, and Falknor daily increased, till at length it grew to such a pitch, that they did not scruple to kick one another out of the window on the slightest provocation."
"From this period, the intimacy between the families of Fitzroy, Drummond, and Falknor daily increased, till at length it grew to such a pitch, that they did not scruple to kick one another out of the window on the slightest provocation.
"During this happy state of harmony, the eldest Miss Fitzroy ran off with the coachman and the amiable Rebecca was asked in marriage by Captain Roger of Buckinghamshire.
"Mrs. Fitzroy did not approve of the match on account of the tender years of the young couple, Rebecca being but thirty six and Captain Roger little more than sixty three. To remedy this objection, it was agreed that they should wait a little while till they were a good deal older."
................................................................................................
"Scarcely were they seated as usual, in the most affectionate manner in one chair, than the door suddenly opened and an aged gentleman with a sallow face and old pink coat, partly by intention and partly thro' weakness was at the feet of the lovely Charlotte, declaring his attachment to her and beseeching her pity in the most moving manner.
"Not being able to resolve to make anyone miserable, she consented to become his wife; where upon the gentleman left the room and all was quiet.
"Their quiet however continued but a short time, for on a second opening of the door a young and handsome gentleman with a new blue coat entered and entreated from the lovely Charlotte, permission to pay to her his addresses.
"There was a something in the appearance of the second stranger, that influenced Charlotte in his favour, to the full as much as the appearance of the first: she could not account for it, but so it was.
"Having therefore, agreeable to that and the natural turn of her mind to make everyone happy, promised to become his wife the next morning, he took his leave and the two ladies sat down to supper on a young leveret, a brace of partridges, a leash of pheasants and a dozen of pigeons.
"It was not till the next morning that Charlotte recollected the double engagement she had entered into; but when she did, the reflection of her past folly operated so strongly on her mind, that she resolved to be guilty of a greater, and to that end threw herself into a deep stream which ran thro her aunt's pleasure grounds in Portland Place.
"She floated to Crankhumdunberry where she was picked up and buried; the following epitaph, composed by Frederic, Elfrida, and Rebecca, was placed on her tomb."
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August 12, 2021 - August 13, 2021.
................................................
................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Frederic & Elfrida, by Jane Austen,
Juliet McMaster (Illustrator), Victoria Kortes-Papp (Editor),
Sylvia Hunt (Editor).
................................................................................................
................................................................................................
Jane Austen wrote these bits to amuse her family, and quite amusing they certainly are, from chuckle to hilarious through the collection termed juvenilia.
................................................................................................
"Dedication
"To Miss Lloyd
"My Dear Martha
"As a small testimony of the gratitude I feel for your late generosity to me in finishing my muslin cloak, I beg leave to offer you this little production of your sincere friend.
"The Author
................................................................................................
"The uncle of Elfrida was the father of Frederic; in other words, they were first cousins by the father's side."
Not always correct; the first part might be about Elfrieda's mother's brother, or an uncle by marriage, in which the latter case they wouldn't be related at all.
"They were exceedingly handsome and so much alike, that it was not everyone who knew them apart. Nay, even their most intimate friends had nothing to distinguish them by, but the shape of the face, the colour of the eye, the length of the nose, and the difference of the complexion."
Didn't people dress very differently those days, across gender gap? Or was cross dressing common?
................................................................................................
"On being shown into an elegant dressing room, ornamented with festoons of artificial flowers, they were struck with the engaging exterior and beautiful outside of Jezalinda, the eldest of the young ladies; but e'er they had been many minutes seated, the wit and charms which shone resplendent in the conversation of the amiable Rebecca enchanted them so much, that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed:
""Lovely and too charming fair one, not withstanding your forbidding squint, your greasy 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."
""Your sentiments so nobly expressed on the different excellencies of Indian and English muslins, and the judicious preference you give the former, have excited in me an admiration of which I can alone give an adequate idea, by assuring you it is nearly equal to what I feel for myself.""
How did "that they all with one accord jumped up and exclaimed" quite so much?
"From this period, the intimacy between the families of Fitzroy, Drummond, and Falknor daily increased, till at length it grew to such a pitch, that they did not scruple to kick one another out of the window on the slightest provocation."
"From this period, the intimacy between the families of Fitzroy, Drummond, and Falknor daily increased, till at length it grew to such a pitch, that they did not scruple to kick one another out of the window on the slightest provocation.
"During this happy state of harmony, the eldest Miss Fitzroy ran off with the coachman and the amiable Rebecca was asked in marriage by Captain Roger of Buckinghamshire.
"Mrs. Fitzroy did not approve of the match on account of the tender years of the young couple, Rebecca being but thirty six and Captain Roger little more than sixty three. To remedy this objection, it was agreed that they should wait a little while till they were a good deal older."
................................................................................................
"Scarcely were they seated as usual, in the most affectionate manner in one chair, than the door suddenly opened and an aged gentleman with a sallow face and old pink coat, partly by intention and partly thro' weakness was at the feet of the lovely Charlotte, declaring his attachment to her and beseeching her pity in the most moving manner.
"Not being able to resolve to make anyone miserable, she consented to become his wife; where upon the gentleman left the room and all was quiet.
"Their quiet however continued but a short time, for on a second opening of the door a young and handsome gentleman with a new blue coat entered and entreated from the lovely Charlotte, permission to pay to her his addresses.
"There was a something in the appearance of the second stranger, that influenced Charlotte in his favour, to the full as much as the appearance of the first: she could not account for it, but so it was.
"Having therefore, agreeable to that and the natural turn of her mind to make everyone happy, promised to become his wife the next morning, he took his leave and the two ladies sat down to supper on a young leveret, a brace of partridges, a leash of pheasants and a dozen of pigeons.
"It was not till the next morning that Charlotte recollected the double engagement she had entered into; but when she did, the reflection of her past folly operated so strongly on her mind, that she resolved to be guilty of a greater, and to that end threw herself into a deep stream which ran thro her aunt's pleasure grounds in Portland Place.
"She floated to Crankhumdunberry where she was picked up and buried; the following epitaph, composed by Frederic, Elfrida, and Rebecca, was placed on her tomb."
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August 12, 2021 - August 13, 2021.
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September 29, 2025
My girl wrote this when she was 12?!? Okay Jane calm down. She was teaching us life lessons in this one.
This book was an epic mood, we follow Charlotte who is so worried about pleasing everyone else that it is literally the death of her. Frederic and Elfrida who are so worried about fitting in with proper society that they don’t get married until it’s out of obligation si are miserable together. And finally Rebecca who is so ugly it can’t even be described but it’s “okay” because she has a nice personality. But it’s true because she is out only character who gets a happy ending which we kind of love.
And it all happens in 6 pages?!? Haha lol. Love you Jane
This book was an epic mood, we follow Charlotte who is so worried about pleasing everyone else that it is literally the death of her. Frederic and Elfrida who are so worried about fitting in with proper society that they don’t get married until it’s out of obligation si are miserable together. And finally Rebecca who is so ugly it can’t even be described but it’s “okay” because she has a nice personality. But it’s true because she is out only character who gets a happy ending which we kind of love.
And it all happens in 6 pages?!? Haha lol. Love you Jane
February 1, 2025
Final inesperado.
Quiero leer una obra al mes de esta autora, por sus 250 comenzaré con sus obras juveniles y esta es la primera, la escribío a los 12 y es una obra pequeña pero que interesante como describe a los personajes y sus pasiones.
La obra me dió risa por ratos, por unos momentos suspenso y Elfrida es un ejemplo claro del refrán que dice: no come ni deja comer 😁 y Frederick es un monse.
Me encantó, lo que me pareció bien terrible fue que muriera Charlotte por su manera condescendiente de ser😔
Quiero leer una obra al mes de esta autora, por sus 250 comenzaré con sus obras juveniles y esta es la primera, la escribío a los 12 y es una obra pequeña pero que interesante como describe a los personajes y sus pasiones.
La obra me dió risa por ratos, por unos momentos suspenso y Elfrida es un ejemplo claro del refrán que dice: no come ni deja comer 😁 y Frederick es un monse.
Me encantó, lo que me pareció bien terrible fue que muriera Charlotte por su manera condescendiente de ser😔
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2022
Excessively silly, maybe the silliest yet. I saw a review for this in another juvenilia collection that said stories like this one are examples of “who Jane Austen was before she became Jane Austen”, but I feel it’s quite the opposite. This is the unadulterated fun and frivolousness, scandal and intrigue that Jane Austen wouldn’t be able to write as an adult, but that shows a great deal of her comedic genius that we see in shadows or the occasional bold innuendo in her novels.
September 24, 2020
I liked that this was short, but that's about all.
For a story called Frederic & Elfrida, it doesn't focus on Frederic & Elfrida. Merely the people in their lives. I also found the scene where their friend, Charlotte, takes her own life and the reaction to it pretty messed up. Especially since Austen wrote it in such a way that makes it come across as a joke.
For a story called Frederic & Elfrida, it doesn't focus on Frederic & Elfrida. Merely the people in their lives. I also found the scene where their friend, Charlotte, takes her own life and the reaction to it pretty messed up. Especially since Austen wrote it in such a way that makes it come across as a joke.
March 3, 2023
"Damme, Elfrida, YOU may be married tomorrow but I won't."
This answer distressed her too much for her delicate constitution. She 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.
Capital writing, to be sure. And from one so young.
This answer distressed her too much for her delicate constitution. She 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.
Capital writing, to be sure. And from one so young.
December 24, 2021
It was 8 pages long so I have no clue what happened
January 6, 2024
I'm a bit puzzled by the plot of this short story. It read more like a Grimm's tale than a Jane Austen plot.
February 29, 2024
Witty and unhinged
Read
August 14, 2024Read from The Republic of Pemberley.
October 8, 2024
dramatic and succinct, austen's roots
January 25, 2025
forget pride and prejudice this is the greatest austen novel i’ve ever read. her sense of humor is so clearly there but unfocused, and it leads to so many absolutely insane moments
December 30, 2025
It's a very well-written story for a 12-year-old girl. Austen's sarcasm and genius are evident in her early manuscripts.
November 3, 2025
I wanted to know what Jane Asten's Juvenilia was like. There are sparks of her whit but it is not refined as she was only 12 years old when she wrote it.
Read
October 14, 2023What
See my notes from Prof. Zhang’s Fall 2023 class.
See my notes from Prof. Zhang’s Fall 2023 class.
September 3, 2014
Hilarious, and ultimately happy.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews