Penguin Books Ltd Love and Freindship

Austen s hilarious early stories and sketches complete with her delightfully quirky spelling habits now collected in one gorgeous clothbound volume , including Lady Susan, the basis for Whit Stillman's feature film Love and Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny 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. ...