Love and freindship

Austens hilarious early stories and sketches--complete with her delightfully quirky spelling habits--now collected in one volume, including Lady Susan , the basis for Whit Stillmans feature film Love and Friendship starring Kate Beckinsale and Chloë Sevigny Jane Austens 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 Austens 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.

With a title that captures a young Austens 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.