Sanditon, Lady Susan, & The History of England: The Juvenilia and Shorter Works of Jane Austen (Collector's Library) - Hardcover

This rare collection is a must for all Jane-ites. It represents what Richard Church regarded as Jane Austen's literary work-basket, and contains some Austen's earliest work - her hilarious brief History of England, illustrated by her favourite sister, which is a worthy forerunner of 1066 & All That, to the unfinished Sanditon, the novel of her maturity on which she was working at her death aged 42. Also included are the two epistolary novels, Lady Susan and Love and Freindship (sic), and other Juvenilia: The Watsons, Catharine, Lesley Castle, Evelyn, Frederic and Elfrida, Jack and Alice, Edgar and Emma, Henry and Eliza and The Three Sisters. With an Introduction by Kathryn White.

Jane Austen was born in 1775 in rural Hampshire, the daughter of an affluent village rector who encouraged her in her artistic pursuits. Jane remained in the vicinity of her childhood home for much of her life. As such it was through family and friends that she learned most of her considerable understanding of manners and relationships. In novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma she developed her subtle analysis of contemporary life through depictions of the middle-classes in small towns. Her sharp wit and incisive portraits of ordinary people have given her novels enduring popularity. She died in 1817.