Love axp Frienpsmr. And other early works now first printed from the original INS. By. Juno Austen. With London: Chatto and Windus.) 6s. a preface by @. K. Chesterton.
Jane Austen left everything she possessed to her sister Cassandra, including these and other manusetipts. The second volume, containing these manuscripts, went from Cassandra. to hor brother, Admiral Sir Francis Austen, who gave it to his daughter Fanny, who lett it in twn to her brother Edward, rector; of Barfrestona and father of the Mrs. Sanders to whose wise decision we now owe the publication of these "first fancies' of her great aunt.
There are five: pieces, the burlesque which gives the title to the book, "Lesley Castle" (an unfinished novel), "Lhe History of England," collection of letters, and a num: ber of "scraps.'' In an age which hae been surfeited with ana, trivia, and other useless literary scandal they are welcome. Ag Mr. Chesterton truly' says in his introduction, "This is something more than the discovery of a document; it is the discovery of an inspiration. And that inspiration was the inspiration of Gargantua and of Pickwick; it was the gigantic inspiration of laughter."
For "Love and written when Jane Austen was YW, is a rattling burlesque, er as Mr, Chesterton says, "a satire' on the fable of the fainting lady." We think he takes a little too much credit to himself for pointing out that Jane Austen did not satirist "the swoon of sensvoility" because it was fact, even im the sense of a fashion, but Lecause it was fiction, for other critics have pointed out that her sympathies were far from even the sanest manifestations of romanticism.
Beware of fainting-fits. Though at the time they may be refreshing and agreeable, yeh believe me they will in the end, if too often repeated and at Mmproper seasons, prove destructive to your Constitution.... My fate will teach you this.... I die Martyr to my greif for the Joss of Augustus. One fatal swoon has cast. me my life. Beware of swoons, dear Laura. A frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious, it Is an exercise to. the Body, and, if not too violent, is, T dare say, conducive to Health' in' its consequences—run mad as often as you cause; but do not faint—."
Thus the inimitable Jane Austen, anticipating the satiric side of "Northanger Abbey," and exercise ing herself in that delicate irony and satire, that intelligent criticism of life, which came to fullness in hee later work. One does not often approve of searching through the wastepaper basket, even of a genius, but the end in this case has justified the means, and given us the measure and method of one whose tranquil common-sense was a wholesome corrective of the silly sentimentality of her sister novelists,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.