(e)Book – Love and friendship

 (e)Book – Love and friendship

Full title : Love and friendship and other early works

Author : Jane Austen

Score : /10

Year : 1790 (original) ; 2012 (this edition)

Publisher : Duke Classics  

ISBN  978-1-62012-155-9  // 9781620121559 (ebook) 

Pages : 

Language: English

Jane Austen is best known for her 6 novels, which all have been adapted into tv movies - but after having read Virginia Woolf's short fiction in chronological order, I decided to apply the same for Austen's publications, to better appreciate her growth and evolution in narrative style. So, before reading her novels which were released from 1811 to 1817, in the following order :  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma,  Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, I decided to go back to her teenage years, reading Love and Friendships, and other early works.

This 2012 Duke Classics ebook is comprised of 250 pages, and the following table of contents : 

Love and Freindship (12) (15 letters)

Lesley Castle : An unfinished novel in letters (92)  (10 letters)

The history of England (162)   

A collection of letters (182) (5 letters)

The female philosopher (230)  (1 letter)

The first act of a comedy (234) 

A letter from a young Lady (240) *  (1 letter)

A tour of Wales - in a letter from a young Lady (244) * (another letter)

A Tale (246) 

End notes (250) *

The titles I wrote with * are the only ones that aren't fully capitalized within the ebook itself. 

It's funny that most of these are actually in epistolary form, though the title doesn't always include 'letter'.  So, I added their number after each page number (15 letters and so on). 

You notice immediately that History of England, and A tale are the only ones that aren't epistolary. The former is a very quick, witty critic of English royals, from Henry the 4th to the death of Charles the 1st, with minimal dates and more of a moral judgement on Jane's part - so, there's also a minimal approach to event-based history, as she redirects her readers towards other sources for those specific needs. The latter is about a gentleman who buys a cottage, and his virtues. 

The other stories deal with romantic entanglements, friendships, class conflicts, despised fathers and other relations, but also young-lady heroines who are actually very petty, jealous and judgmental - of one another, of other young ladies, of prospective husbands and so forth. 

Jane Austen satirizes ideas about love, marriage and friendship in a very humorous, exaggerated manner, in stories she wrote when she was about 14-15 in this collection. 

Their quality is very uneven, I preferred the earlier parts in this ebook : those of Love and friendship, and the unfinished novel. These two were really the best, and I deplored just like Jane did to her cousin, that it was unfinished, because the humor and flow were superbly balanced. 

The young ladies gossip ; they also faint (especially at some events) ; or they profess their love and passion in such exuberance that it's both hilarious and cringe to remember early 19th century relationships. Passages within this collection made me consider stark differences between the characters' bonds and how I personally perceive friendship as a modern person. 

For instance  :

Perhaps you may flatter me so far as to be surprised that one of whom I speak with so little affection should be my particular friend; but to tell you the truth, our freindship arose rather from Caprice on her side than Esteem on mine. ( In : Letter the Fourth : From Miss C. Lutterell to Miss M. Lesley, Lesley Castle : an unfinished novel in letters ). These two not only gossip, but C. Lutterell feels like Peggy Lesley's new mother-in-law, about whom this letter is sent, is rather a one-sided friendship, rather a caprice on the mother-in-law instead of C. Lutterell actually appreciating her. All this, after having described physical traits and interests, in a critical fashion, in short, the woman may be pretty, but she excels in nothing. It feels very shallow, and how people gets attached for almost nothing, and may gossip, criticize, abhor whole portions of another person, and yet call them friend. I just can't fathom, as a modern person, whose whole life have put friendships into a series of ticks and boxes - such aspects as shown in these stories just don't vibe with my own definitions. 

Then again, Jane herself couldn't vibe ; she wrote these as parodies to popular romance novels of her period, and I personally hear her numerous social commentaries about such approaches via her tongue-and-cheek phrasing - on this level, she totally reached the mission she seems to have chosen.