"These inventive and entertaining pieces display the genesis of the wit and imagination of Jane Austen{u2019}s mature fiction, and are by turns amusing, acerbic, and occasionally downright silly. The stories Love and Friendship and Lesley Castle provide parodies of the gentry and the fashionable idea of sensibility of the time, while A History of England is 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. Taken together, these pieces display all the wry humour, shrewd observation and satirical insight of Emma or Pride and Prejudice."--Publisher's description.