These inventive and entertaining pieces display the genesis of the wit and imagination of Jane Austen's mature fiction. Written when she was only in her teens, they are by turns amusing, acerbic and occasionally downright silly."Love and Friendship" and "Lesley Castle" provide parodies of the gentry and the fashionable idea of sensibility of the time. "A History of England" supplies us with a lively chronicle of English monarchic history. Also included in this collection are "The Three Sisters", "Catharine" and the series of vignettes known as "A Collection of Letters".