Jane Austen

Juvenilia (Penguin Classics)

Erin Darlyn

3.75⭐️ rounded up

What a delightful collection of Jane Austen’s juvenilia. Some of the writings were more entertaining than others. I especially enjoyed Jane’s farcical history of England, Lady Susan, and some of her novellas. 

One of the most humorous quotes from this collection was this: 

“Lovely and too charming Fair one, notwithstanding your forbidding squint, your greasy tresses and your swelling back, which are more frightful than imagination can paint or pen describe, I cannot refrain from expressing my raptures at the engaging Qualities of your Mind, which so amply atone for the Horror with which your first appearance must ever inspire the unwary visitor.” 

I also liked the last letter in the book, which is attributed to her, and in which she humorously writes to a periodical author to tell him his stories need more women in them (that they haven’t got them is a ghastly oversight, of course, and the stories would be so much more interesting with ladies, as she illustrates). She concludes, “If you think fit to comply with this my injunction, you may expect to hear from me again, and perhaps I may even give you a little assistance; - but, if not - may your work be condemned to a pastry-cook’s shop, and may you always continue a bachelor, and be plagued with a maiden sister to keep house for you.”

I just find her utterly delightful and for the most part, I enjoyed the collection very much.

Juvenilia (Penguin Classics)

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