Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9781843910602
ISBN number: 1843910608
Label: Hesperus Press
Manufacturer: Hesperus Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 112
Printing Date: September 01, 2003
Publishing house: Hesperus Press
Sale Popularity Level: 468799
Studio: Hesperus Press
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Written in a series of letters to the daughter of a friend, Love and Friendship tells of a young girl’s path to betrayal, by way of a seemingly ecstatic marriage. It is accompanied by The Three Sisters, another expertly crafted epistolary novel. When a noble youth arrives unannounced to request the hand of the matchless Laura, it seems their future is one of contentment and bliss—that is until his family learn of the marriage and, one by one, reject the new bride. Such begins the series of unspeakable events that make up Laura’s lot in life. But tragedy and comedy here go hand in hand as Austen delivers a stringent satire on drawing-room society, brilliantly heralding her later masterpieces.
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Rated by buyers 
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This book is almost identical to the original but it has an introduction by Fay Weldon. It is a collection of short stories, drama, humor, and other works written by Jane Austen at least a decade before her major novels. It is a series of letters and other works that Austen wrote, and they show a free spirited Austen, quite unlike her formula books that came later. As a read this is not what one would call great literature, but it is worthwhile to see a young Jane Austen writing without constraints, and writing as a young woman years before her fame.
As background information, I have read all of Austen's novels and I have read various analyses of Austen's work. Jane Austen's formula for sucess was to write a novel about of a financially disadvantaged young woman who meets and marries a wealthier man. The exception is her novel "Emma" where the protagonist has her own means. There are no axe murderers in an Austen novel or any nasty elements. Her stories take place in small English towns and they all have a variety of characters including a few willful women and usually one male rogue.
"Pride and Prejudice" is Jane Austen's finest novel. That book is the perfect balance of story, prose, structure, and interesting characters. It evokes many emotional responses in the reader. That novel is among the greatest novels of all time on par with for example Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" or Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." From a strictly literary point of view, "Mansfield Park" is the most complicated and sophisticated literary work penned by Austen. Many like "Emma" as well.
The present work pre-dates her sucess and one can view it as her practicing her craft or simply developing as a writer. She will surprise most with the amount of humour that she manages to inject into the stories. The stories are short, some less than a page. Also, she has written bits of drama and humorous pieces which are included. I liked her brief humorous descriptions of the various kings and queens of England.
Most Austen fans will think the pieces to be very interesting but short. In any case, we see a completely different Austen here, and she writes with few self imposed limits. It is nothing like her later writings which tend to follow a formula.
As a note, the text is available free on line at the Gutenberg Project, and since it is so short it can be easily down-loaded.
Rated by buyers -
This edition of Love and Friendship includes the short epistolary novella bearing the same name, another short epistolary novella called Three Sisters, and five short stories written in letter form called A Collection of Letters. Jane Austen has been criticized for her lack of imagination, epsecially by her contemporaries. This is not so in her early work! This volume, written in her teens, indicates quite a healthy imagination. The plot of Love and Friendship is ridiculously silly and the heroine less than honorable, but Jane Austen's intelligence and wry sense of humour are more than apparent. Also, readers familiar with Jane Austen's more famous works will recognize the genesis of many characters and ideas in this volume that are fleshed out more fully in her later works. The mother, over-eager to marry off her daughters, in Three Sisters bears a strong resemblance to Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. There is also a precursor to the hypocritical Lady Catherine de Bourgh in "Letter the Third" in A Collection of Letters. Love and Frienship is an invaluable glimpse into the child mind of one of the most cherished authors in literature.
Rated by buyers 
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I found the style in which Jane Austen writes very entertaining and captivating. The use of letters to describe all the events in the novel that the main character Laura experiences or hears from her friends Marianne and Isabel. This novel is increadible especially because Jane Austen wrote it at the age of 14, when weighing it against her other sucessful novels, this is not her best piece. I recommend it to any reader who is willing to appreciate the language over the substance.
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