Author Description

Love and Freindship (Austen wrote freind and freindship all the story through!) is the demonstration that her six major novels did not spring fully formed from Austen's mind. She had a long literary apprenticeship supported and nurtured by her large, loving and scholarly family. Jane was born in 1775, the 7th of 8 children. Life at the Rectory at Steventon was entertaining and educational, the children were often staging plays or publishing magazines. During her teenage Jane wrote 3 volumes (the notebooks still exist - one in the Bodleian Library; the other two in the British Museum) of absurd but amusing stories and skits to be read aloud to entertain her family. Love and Freindship is the second of these volumes. She wrote Love and Freindship and Other Early Works between 1790-93 , when she was 15/17. This volume contains two short stories Love and Freindship and Lesley Castle .