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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Editorial Reviews
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"'superbly mischievous satires on all things sentimental and self-centred. ' - TLS"
About the Author
Author of the masterpieces Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Jane Austen (1775 - 1817) is one of the best-loved novelists of all time. Novelist, dramatist and television screenwriter is best known for her works The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil and The Cloning of Joanna May. Her most recent novel was the controversial The Bulgari Connection.
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Though the domain of Jane Austen's novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775, she was educated mainly at home. At an early age she began writing sketches and satires of popular novels for her family's entertainment. As a clergyman's daughter from a well-connected family, she had an ample opportunity to study the habits of the middle class, the gentry, and the aristocracy. At twenty-one, she began a novel called "The First Impressions" an early version of Pride and Prejudice. In 1801, on her father's retirement, the family moved to the fashionable resort of Bath. Two years later she sold the first version of Northanger Abby to a London publisher, but the first of her novels to appear was Sense and Sensibility, published at her own expense in 1811. It was followed by Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1815). After her father died in 1805, the family first moved to Southampton then to Chawton Cottage in Hampshire. Despite this relative retirement, Jane Austen was still in touch with a wider world, mainly through her brothers; one had become a very rich country gentleman, another a London banker, and two were naval officers. Though her many novels were published anonymously, she had many early and devoted readers, among them the Prince Regent and Sir Walter Scott. In 1816, in declining health, Austen wrote Persuasion and revised Northanger Abby, Her last work, Sandition, was left unfinished at her death on July 18, 1817. She was buried in Winchester Cathedral. Austen's identity as an author was announced to the world posthumously by her brother Henry, who supervised the publication of Northanger Abby and Persuasion in 1818.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Interesting Glimpse into Austen: The Writer and The Person,
This review is from: Love and Friendship (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)
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 success 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 success and one can view it as her practicing her craft or simply developing as a writer. She will surprise most with the amount of humor 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.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Invaluable Glimpse,
By
This review is from: Love and Friendship (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)
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 humor 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.
10 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Love and Friendship Review,
By A Customer
This review is from: Love and Friendship (Hesperus Classics) (Paperback)
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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