Love and Friendship (aka 'Love and Freindship')

By: Jane Austen

Narrated by: Joanna Daniell

Length: 3 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Jane Austen wrote Love and Friendship (originally spelled Love and Freindship [sic]) when she was just 14 years old. The three notebooks that contain her early works, including this story, are currently on display at the Bodleian Library and the British Museum. Taking the form as letters written by the heroine to the daughter of her friend, this story resembles a fairy tale that lampoons the conventions of romantic stories at the time.

Public Domain (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

A bit of a struggle

The narrator did everything they could, but it was not enjoyable to have so many character & plots. It felt very disjointed. I realize that this is a collection & not everything was finished. But as much as I love her other books, I cannot love this.

Great short story by JA

Another great addition to the beautiful work of Jane Austen. If you enjoy reading classics, I suggest giving this short story a listen.

Letter to make up a book

This was a new twist I didn’t see coming when I got this book. Having read many of Jane’s works I was surprised which is hard considering I’ve read so many of her works to see that she did the whole book as a series of letters. I wondered where Stieg Larsson got the idea for his books.

In the end this is a fun story that I won’t ruin for anyone as it surprised me which again after reading almost all of Jane’s works was hard to do.

Funny!

These stories are well worth the listen after Austen's novels and a good biography of her life. They made me laugh!

Embarrassing for Austen, Entertaining for Us

In a word: ridiculous.

This story seems to be a mockery of female sensibilities and literary clichés, those statistically impossible events which has the affect that… this is all too convenient. I saw that a film rendition was made in 2016, and I’m so curious about it, now! It might be more like a comedy considering how women are fainting and running mad every other sentence. It may be a mockery of common clichés, which I think we expect of Austen… or… maybe she really didn’t know what she was doing with this short story.

Jane Austen wrote this tale at the age of 14. Like “The Screwtape Letters,” this narrative unfolds through a series of letters between Marianne, a flighty and naïve young lady, and Laura, an older friend of Marianne’s mother. She marries a mysterious visitor to her home the day after meeting him, and it is simply a series of unfortunate and extremely dramatic events to the end.

One would hope it is satire… but she really was only 14. Perhaps she really thought her little novella a true gem. Or maybe she never attempted its publication during her lifetime because she looked back on it as an early work of embarrassment.

The narrative rambled in such a way that I found my mind wandering. I often had to rewind or just look up Sparknotes if I found I had been distracted for too long. The upside was a fun glimpse of lines that are quoted in the movie, “Mansfield Park”, and one sums up the story quite nicely:

“Beware of fainting fits… Beware of swoons… Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint.”

In this free version on Audible, there is also 1) an unfinished story collected from letters Austen sent to her father, 2) a history of England, 3) a collection of letters, and 4) scraps of writings. These wouldn’t be found interesting to most readers who except fanatics like myself.