Jane AUSTEN : Love and freindship

Jane Austen’s earliest writing dates from when she was just eleven-years-old, and already shows the hallmarks of her mature work. But it is also a product of the times in which she grew up — 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 mothers’ fingers, and a letter-writer who has murdered her whole family all feature in these highly spirited pieces. This edition includes all of Austen’s juvenilia, including her “History of England” and the novella Lady Susan, in which the anti-heroine schemes and cheats her way through high society. With a title that captures a young Austen’s original idiosyncratic spelling habits and an introduction by Christine Alexander that shows how Austen was self-consciously fashioning herself as a writer from an early age, this is a must-have for any Austen lover.

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.