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cflorea's review against another edition
3.0
3-3.5 stars
This is difficult to really rate considering it contains some of Austen's juvenilia written between the ages of 11/12 to 18 years old. The book is composed in three parts: an introduction, photocopies of each page of the journal so we can see each written in her own hand, and then at the back they are all typed up to easily read. Please read the introduction! It gives great insight into her age or estimated age when she writes each one, information about what was going on during her life and the lives of her family and friends (who she wrote these short stories/plays for), and references to literary works of the time that she referenced to and was writing satire about.
I loved reading these to see where she started. The contents were surprising to me as someone who is an avid Austen fan. They contain murder, suicide, threats of murder, drunkenness, brawling women, etc. Anyone who calls Austen boring or frumpy should read these. It's also difficult to rate these since so many are so short, and a lot of them are unfinished. They are written in so many styles (some all in letters, so in very short chapters-only a sentence of two!, others written in prose, or written as a play script) that was interesting to see her play with different styles. My favorite by far was The beautiful Cassandra.
This is difficult to really rate considering it contains some of Austen's juvenilia written between the ages of 11/12 to 18 years old. The book is composed in three parts: an introduction, photocopies of each page of the journal so we can see each written in her own hand, and then at the back they are all typed up to easily read. Please read the introduction! It gives great insight into her age or estimated age when she writes each one, information about what was going on during her life and the lives of her family and friends (who she wrote these short stories/plays for), and references to literary works of the time that she referenced to and was writing satire about.
I loved reading these to see where she started. The contents were surprising to me as someone who is an avid Austen fan. They contain murder, suicide, threats of murder, drunkenness, brawling women, etc. Anyone who calls Austen boring or frumpy should read these. It's also difficult to rate these since so many are so short, and a lot of them are unfinished. They are written in so many styles (some all in letters, so in very short chapters-only a sentence of two!, others written in prose, or written as a play script) that was interesting to see her play with different styles. My favorite by far was The beautiful Cassandra.
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