Description
These astoundingly clever stories were written when Jane Austen was between just eleven and eighteen years old, and deserve to be read and admired alongside her novels. "Jack and Alice" recounts a raucous masquerade ball and the gossip it provides for months afterwards; Alice, who has had a bit too much to drink, becomes infatuated with the pompous Charles Adams. In "The Three Sisters," Mary is determined to be married before her sisters are, even if it means marrying a man she absolutely cannot stand. These stories burst with scandal and absurdity, featuring dramatic deaths, sudden marriage proposals, prison breaks, poisonings, robbery, shipwrecks, and secret affairs.
Austen's wicked sense of humour is fully unleashed here, as she brilliantly skewers romantic, societal and narrative conventions.
Five ingenious stories written by a young Jane Austen. More than just teenage scribblings, these are the works of a true genius.