Love and Freindship and Other Youthful Writings

Jane Austen's initial works, filled with her uniquely charming spelling quirks, are now available in a beautifully bound volume, featuring Lady Susan, which inspired Whit Stillman's movie Love and Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny.Austen began crafting stories at the tender age of eleven, revealing early signs of her distinctive style. These pieces reflect the era she lived in, characterized by dark humor, grotesque elements, and unexpected bawdiness, making them quite different from her later, more refined novels. In these spirited writings, you’ll find rowdy heroines, infants with a peculiar penchant for biting off their mothers’ fingers, and a chilling narrative of a letter-writer who has eliminated her entire family. This compilation embraces all of Austen's youthful works, including “The History of England” and Lady Susan, a novella about a manipulative anti-heroine navigating upper-class society through her cunning. With a title that highlights Austen's playful spelling and an insightful introduction by Christine Alexander, demonstrating Austen's early self-awareness as a writer, this collection is essential for every Jane Austen enthusiast.