Description
Jane Austen’s earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven years, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work: wit, acute insight into human folly, and a preoccupation with manners, morals and money. But they are also a product of the eighteenth century she grew up in – dark, grotesque, often surprisingly bawdy, and a far cry from the polished, sparkling novels of manners for which she became famous.
Drunken heroines, babies who bite off their mother’s fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these very funny pieces. This edition includes all of Austen’s juvenilia, including her ‘History of England’ – written by ‘a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant Historian’ – and the novella ‘Lady Susan’, in which the anti-heroine schemes and cheats her way through high society. Taken together, they offer a fascinating – and often surprising – insight into the early Austen.
