Love and Friendship by Jane Austen
The Cranford Collection
⭐⭐.5- Study Worthy!
Kindle & Audible: US or CA
Morning Readers & Happy Thursday!
This month I wanted to dedicate my reading to Jane Austen, as December 16th marks her 250th birthday, having been born in 1775. I’ve decided to read chronologically, according to her written works; this of course meant that I started with ‘Love and Friendship’, a collection of short stories and letters written in 1790 when Jane Austen was 15 years old.
This series of short stories and letters, written in 1790 when Jane Austen was `15, was posthumously published in 1922.
With exaggerated emotions and absurd misfortunes, Austen playfully uses humor and chaos, as a mode of social commentary, highlighting a keen understanding of human folly that would later define her mature works.
Now, to be frank, this collection does read as though a 15 year-old girl wrote it. Shocker, a 15 year-old girl did write them. These stories were ridiculous, and so nonsensical with the plot jumping erratically from one event point to the next, often with no logical context, you can’t help but laugh and shake your head.
Case in point; in one story a woman gives birth while her husband is away. Thinking he would not want the child, she leaves it under a tree. Two and a half months later her husband and her find the very same child under the very same tree, but she has forgotten she ever had a child and they decide to ‘adopt’ it. Fast forward through a disagreement, and a decade long estrangement, and by happenstance, they come across their daughter in the street, at which point the mother recognizes her daughter’s voice from infancy, readopts her, and cares for her and their new grandchild and they all live happily ever after.
As much as the plots jump around, and the context lacks the discipline, insight and sense that you would associate with Jane Austen, this is still a wonderful study into the girl who would eventually grow into a famous classical author. I would not go into this thinking it to be a form of entertainment, this is a piece of history and a more intimate look into Jane Austen’s formative years.
A few of her more lucid moments really stood out to me in the form of these quotes:
This collection is so full of humor and absurdity, you can’t help laughing along. While I wouldn’t necessarily read it for the storyline, I did love imagining a 15 year-old Jane Austen reading these stories aloud to her 7 siblings, after having just returned from an 18-month attendance to a school in Reading (source).
This was a great way to kickoff my review-series of Jane Austen’s works and I can’t wait to watch as her writing develops over the course of her next few books!
What is your favorite Jane Austen Novel?
-Anna R.
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Kindle & Audible: US or CA
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